Books June - September 2020 and Spock asleep

I had this great plan to read so many more books this year and was optimistic that I might need a book post every month-HAH!  Still, I did mange to finish more than zero, some I really liked!

I'm leaning in hard to the cat pictures.  This series is all photos of Spock sleeping

-by Stuart Turton

7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle:  Love this!!  Agatha Christie meets time travel.  (I bought this book in Denver in March 2020, just before getting on a train that was our last trip before shut down)

-by Terry Pratchett

Monstrous Regiment:  Great story in the Discworld.  It can be read totally independent of any other books.  Might even be my favorite so far.

-by Madeline Miller

Circe:  Loved this.  A retelling of the classic Greek stories but from a minor character.  

-by Suzanne Collins

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes:  Loved this.  When it first came out I remember people being upset that it is a sympathetic showing of Snow, but I like the complications.

-by Kate Di Camillo

Flora and Ulysses:  Love this writer, cute story about the love between a girl and her super intelligent squirrel.  Elementary age readers.

-by The 14th Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu

The book of Joy:  Excellent for people looking for this type of book.  Uplifting and confounding at the same time.  Best read a little at a time because it is kind of the same message over and over. 

Snakes spiders and sharks:  The nephew got into dangerous animals for a bit and so I read up on these in order to prepare to talk to him.  The electronic library has a great selection.

-by Nnedi  Okorafor:  She is on my list to read, tried a couple

Binti:  Fantastic!  Short sci-fi story.  The cover is amazing.  No reason to not read it.

La Guardia: Graphic novel.  Not as good as the the short story, but pretty fun.

-by Elizabeth Gilbert

Big Magic:  About the creative life.  A fast read, not much stuck with me, but at another time it might be helpful.

-by Lisa Mosconi

The XX Brain: How women's brains are not men's brains and there is not enough research on the effect of hormones on all brains.  I thought I would take more notes than I did.  Not really anything I didn't know before.  There are some nice exercises for folks who want to take a look at their overall risk.  Great topic, but it felt like too many of the answers were "We are working on it, maybe we will understand in a decade or so."

-by Graeme Simsion

The Rosie Result:  Last in the trilogy!  Not nearly as funny as the first two, but a satisfying tie up of all the loose ends.  No reason not to read it if you read the first two.

He likes sleeping on the crinkly cardboard packing material

Books I abandoned:  2020. I've had a hard time finishing things and decided that was okay!  Maybe even good.  My list of books I want to read is in the hundreds, so I don't have a chance at finishing them all. 

-by Helen Hunting

Meet Cute:  I liked something else by her, but I started this and after 15 minutes couldn't even.  Maybe another year.

The shelf is not quite wide enough for the bed, awww.

-by Renee Ahdieh

The Wrath & the Dawn:  On my list of retellings, this is of Arabian nights.  I got maybe a quarter of the way into it and it just wasn't drawing me in.  So many people like this, maybe I had too high expectations.

-by Claire North

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August:  Time travel books....I have read a lot of them lately and this one was not the best for me.  Maybe if I hadn't just finished the 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.

-by Nnedi  Okorafor

Akata Witch:  First in a trilogy and I might go back to finish it.  Will see if it stays in my mind.

-by Ann Patchet

State of Wonder:  Really good!  I just got started late and others were waiting for it, so I went back to the library.  I put in a hold and will finish the last chapter.  Fantastic mix of biotech and the Amazon.

-by Johnathan Metzl

Dying of Whiteness:  I like the concept that he focuses on specific issues in specific states.  Brings in lots of evidence, but I'm not learning enough about the why of the individuals.  But I didn't finish it in the 3 weeks, so maybe not for me.