September 2020 Wrap-up

Time is flying by. It was only just summer and now it’s autumn already! It has also been extremely busy and stressful last month, so I have another month with not as much reading as I would have enjoyed. Besides, I notice I am always a little reading slump-ish around the equinoxes. Coincidence? For now, let’s focus on what I did manage to read. The reviews for each of the books will be up shortly, if they have not yet been published.

First of all, I finished Breath from Salt (the review which includes some of my own experimental data, you can find here). It was an account of the research into Cystic Fibrosis, the devastating monogenic disorder, that is also the topic of my PhD research. I ramble about it quite a bit in my review but it is a great read – with one big oversight: the world/research community is larger than just Northern America.

Mrs. Dalloway was a carry-over from last month, when I was supposed to read it in group via The Pigeonhole. Unfortunately, my attention span didn’t allow me to keep up with it, and I finished it later in September. I will probably never really enjoy reading on my phone, but it was a very interesting novel. (Review upcoming)

It was a rather tough month for my challenges. Feeling a bit slump-ish, I decided to just read some books that I wanted at that moment, resulting in Lysistrata and other plays (Review upcoming) being the only book I read for A Little Bit More (more about it and the entire list you can find here). And that is to say nothing of Halloween Bingo (find out more here), which – although it has been a lot of fun following everyone’s updates – has been a total disaster so far. I have only managed to complete two squares, am nowhere near a Bingo, let alone a black-out. I think I will seriously have to reconsider what my goals will be in the remaining month (ie. which rows/columns to focus on). What I did manage to read was Creepy Carnivals – Carnivalesque (Review upcoming), Aliens – Binti (Review upcoming), and Black Cat – The Black Cat (Review upcoming).

What went slightly better was ARCs. Breath from Salt was an ARC I managed to review on publication day, and besides I read The Year Shakespeare Ruined My Life (Review upcoming), as well as two graphic novels: The Straw King and The Mask of a Thousand Tears (Reviews upcoming) and two ‘humor’ books: Just Act Normal and I Forced A Bot To Write This Book (Reviews upcoming). I also finished my first Netgalley Audiobook, The Original (Review upcoming).

Snapdragon Alley (Review upcoming) was a book that had been on the TBR for years and I am trying to finish some of these ‘old’ books. It’s the start of a series, but I don’t think I will continue.

And to end with the most disappointing read of the month: The Crying of Lot 49 (Review upcoming) was the book club read for September and I hated it with a passion.

14 books | 2 Tree Books |1 Audiobook| 8 ARC | 2685 pages | 2.9 average rating

Carry over to September & TBR

So, I am carrying over some 8 books. I really hope to finish all of these in the next month. Some I have actually been reading in the last couple of days – those I am sure will be finished even before the week is out (Darius the Great is Not Okay, Frankenstein, False Value), others I find I have more trouble to pick up (looking at The Girl on the Train and Beyond Kuiper in particular).

I will have to see just how reading is going this month, and see if I will just go for one Bingo and focus on my other challenge, or whether I can do some more. So no fixed TBR plans for October.

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How was your month? Read any of great books lately?
– Let me know in the comments!