Even though I had a chunk of August off, it seemed to whizz by. Alas, I didn’t get as much read as I hoped either, but I did get my #20BooksOfSummer Reading challenge finished for the first time. It was an interesting reading month too, with a whole variety of fiction and some very interesting non-fiction too. So here is what I read and acquired in August:
Books Read
An Artist’s View of Jurassic Dorset – Richard Watkin – 3.5 Stars
The Invention Of Essex: The Making Of An English County – Tim Burrows – 4 Stars
Mayhem – Sarah Pinborough – 3.5 Stars
Hot Milk – Deborah Levy – 2.5 Stars
Year of the Golden Ape – Colin Forbes – 2.5 Stars
The Acid Test – Élmer Mendoza Tr. Mark Fried – 2.5 Stars
From a Low and Quiet Sea – Donal Ryan – 3 Stars
Nightingale – Marina Kemp – 3 Stars
Crow Court – Andy Charman – 3.5 Stars
A Perfect Explanation – Eleanor Anstruther – 3.5 Stars
A Flat Place: A Memoir – Noreen Masud – 4 Stars
One Midsummer’s Day: Swifts And The Story Of Life On Earth – Mark Cocker – 4 Stars
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats – T.S. Eliot – 3 Stars
All In: How We Build A Country That Works – Lisa Nandy – 3.5 Stars
Walking The Wharfe: An Ode to a Yorkshire River – Johno Ellison – 4 Stars
Book(s) Of The Month
Wild About Dorset: The Nature Diary of a West Country Parish – Brian Jackman – 4.5 Stars
Top Genres
Fiction – 26
Natural History – 17
Travel – 16
Poetry – 11
Memoir – 9
History – 6
Science Fiction – 6
Fantasy – 6
Art – 4
Photography – 3
Top Publishers
Faber & Faber – 9
Penguin – 6
Bloomsbury – 5
Little Toller – 4
Simon & Schuster – 4
Jonathan Cape – 4
William Collins – 3
Granta – 3
Allen Lane – 3
Michael Joseph – 3
Review Copies Received
Freethinking: Protecting Freedom of Thought Amidst the New Battle for the Mind – Simon McCarthy-Jones
Interstellar Tours: A Guide to the Universe from Your Starship Window – Brian Clegg
Reboot: Reclaiming Your Life in a Tech-Obsessed World – Elaine Kasket
Library Books Checked Out
Some Of Us Just Fall: On Nature And Not Getting Better – Polly Atkin
Ravenous: How To Get Ourselves And Our Planet Into Shape – Henry Dimbleby
Where The Seals Sing – Susan Richardson
Footprints in the Woods: The Secret Life of Forest and Riverbank – John Lister-Kaye
Follow The Money: How Much Does Britain Cost? – Paul Johnson
Rural: The Lives Of The Working Class Countryside – Rebecca Smith
High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest In Russia’s Haunted Hinterland – Tom Parfitt
Books Bought
Messy: How to Be Creative and Resilient in a Tidy-Minded World – Tim Harford
Lost Acre – Andrew Caldecott
Asusterlitz – W.G. Seabald Tr. Anthea Bell
How To Be A Domestic Goddess – Nigella Lawson (Signed)
The Unadulterated Cat – Terry Pratchett, Ill. Gray Jolliffe
Super Crunchers: How Anything Can Be Predicted – Ian Ayres
Cold Fish Soup – Adam Farrer
The Horizontal Oak: A Life in Nature – Polly Pullar
Running a Hotel on the Roof of the World: Five Years in Tibet – Alec Le Sueur (Signed)
To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace – Kapka Kassabova
Glowing Still: A Woman’s Life On The Road – Sara Wheeler
East to the Amazon: In Search of Great Paititi and the Trade Routes of the Ancients – John Blashford-Snell & Richard Snailham
42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams – Douglas Adams Ed. Kevin Jon Davies (Signed)
Three Stripes South: The 1000km thru-hike that inspired a women’s adventure movement – Bex Band
Caesar’s Vast Ghost – Lawrence Durrell
Are there any there that you’ve read? Or like the look of? Let me know in the comments below.
I read the hotel on the roof of the world book in 2011! Can’t remember anything about it, mind …
I already had a copy that I am now passing on. This is an earlier signed version that I still have yet to read…