I increased my total books read this year to 51 with the completion of 8 books in June. And it was another eclectic collection.
I rekindled my interest in detective novels through Inspector Kurt Wallander and Jack Reacher in Firewall and Persuader, respectively. Both very satisfying reads. That makes 8 Wallender volumes and 7 Reacher novels under my belt.
I also read two books about...books. The first was the delightful The Book Thief about a little girl who's life we trace through her interest in reading and how she satiates that interest through stealing books. The second was The Shadow of the Wind about a young boy who discovers a fascinating book in a bookstore known as the book cemetery and decides to find out more about the author. He finds out a lot more than he bargained for.
In music this month I read about music producer, writer, performer Bert Berns in Here Comes the Night. Berns wrote the song where the title comes from for Van Morrison. It's a fascinating overview of the music business from about the mid fifties to the late sixties and includes tales of legendary songwriters Lieber& Stoller, Goffin & King and Doc Pomus. I was so taken with this musical history I went out and bought 5 CDs representative of these writers.
Here's the whole list for June and my ratings out of 5. Not a dud in the bunch.
Firewall - Hanning Mankell ****
Here Comes the Night - The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of
Rhythm and Blues *****
Persuader - Lee Child ****
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak *****
Mr. Mercedes - Stephen King ****
Enduring Love - Ian McEwan ****
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon *****
The Color of Law - Mark Gimeniz ****
I have the lovely and talented Linda Medrano to thank for recommending The Color of Law the first in a series about a lawyer by Mark Gimeniz which I enjoyed immensely. Thanks Linda!
How about you? Have you got something you really enjoyed recently and can recommend?
Comments