March 2014 Reading Update

My original plan for this blog was to have 4 genre-focused weeks a month. That leaves us with some extra weeks in between. I thought I'd take this week to interject one of my old-fashioned Reading Updates and miscellaneous posts while I work on some upcoming things for April.

On my time away from this blog, I still did my usual reading, though I didn't keep up with the reading updates. At this point, there are far too many books to do a 3-month collaborative update, so I'll just stick to March.

I didn't spend much of this month exploring. Reading one David Sedaris book led to an addiction. And starting two different comic book series, led to more.

Keep reading to find what books have been occupying my time.

(all photos below courtesy of Goodreads)

NON-FICTION | Author Spotlight: David Sedaris

~~INTRODUCTION


My introduction to David Sedaris took place several years ago when I was taking a creative non-fiction course. As a class, we read one essay, and though I can't recall the essay title at this moment, I consciously bookmarked his name for future reading.

For those of you not familiar with David Sedaris, he is most well known as a humorist essayist. His non-fiction works cover a variety of topics with his family life being a big recurring topic. Once you start reading a couple of his essays you quickly catch onto his sense of humor. For some people, he is not of their taste. But for others, he is adored.


But back to my story...
Last year, I decided to read a work a fiction by Sedaris, Squirrel Meets Chipmunk. Though it was okay, it was at that level of "just okay" that deterred me from immediately reading more of his works.

Despite this, I bought Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls when it came out (2013) and stored it for the future (a bad habit, really). And aside from reading one essay within it, I didn't officially sit down and read the whole thing until a few weeks ago. But once I did, I was hooked.

I read one book after another, after another.
I was a chain smoker, but without the offensive cigarette smoke all over my clothes. Instead, I inhaled and exhaled David Sedaris. I didn't just read the essays once. For my favorites, I read them at least 2-3 times each. And following those, I looked up audio recordings and listened while David read them back to me.

But that quickly concludes my introduction. This will be a short post, but I wanted to discuss a few things:
1. why I fell for David Sedaris,
2. who I think won't enjoy/appreciate David Sedaris, and
3. which of his compilations is my favorite

May 2013 Reading Update

May is over. And man is the year passing by quickly.

I normally post these reading updates at the end of the month (as opposed to the beginning of the next) but I've been so busy these past couple weeks I almost forgot about these updates entirely.

This past month has definitely been the most sporadic month in terms of book choices. A large chunk of these books are comics/manga. We also have a couple picture books, a little bit of non-fiction, and of course my old reliable, YA. I can't get through a month without reading some of that YA. It's been a fun month.

As usual, I'll mostly talk about my reactions to each book. If you want a synopsis, use the links.

And without further ado, here are the books I read in May, in the order finished.

Book Haul: May 2013

If you read my April Reading Update and remember how I said I would go all of May without purchasing a book, you're probably wondering why I'm posting a haul.

All these books listed are books I purchased within the last week (to week and a half) of April. However, as online purchases usually go, some orders took a while to arrive at my doorstep.

Some purchases are still not scheduled to arrive for a few weeks. But I figured I'd get on with the haul anyway since a significant percentage of them have showed up and I am eager to dive in.

Judging by the pile you can see why I am trying to go all of May without any new purchases (aside from one new release that would only be painful to put off). I have a book buying problem.

Like I did with my April Book Haul, I'll include a photos of the books so you can see their covers as well. I recommend enlarging the photo since there was quite a large number of books to fit in one photo...