July's Books
The High Window. Raymond Chandler
It's Raymond Chandler so you can't go too wrong. Nonetheless it's just not as good as The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely. Reading this one kind of broke my Chandler streak, but I know I'll go back to read more.
A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder--How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place. Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman
Popular non-fiction in the vein of Freakonomics and just as glibly argued. Still, I felt better about my messy ways after reading it.
Les Guerilleres. Monique Witting.
I guess it's science fiction. It's all about women fighting the gender war. No, literally; there is a war. This books is not written in a normal narrative style, but more like a series of sort-of-poetic vigiettes. I liked it but wouldn't recommend it to everyone.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. J.K. Rowling
If you've read all the others you might as well read this one.
The Hearing Trumpet. Leonora Carrington.
The stand out gem of this month's reading list. The Hearing Trumpet is a very funny book about and from the point of view of an 92 year old woman who is put into an old folks home which turns out to be a sinister cult. As far as I can tell this book was written especially for me as it has: 1. an argument about knitting vs crochet 2. old women 3. nuns 4. heretical nuns 5. magical bees 6. alchemy 7. a planisphere 8. the north star. Everyone should read this book.
Knitting Without Tears. Elizabeth Zimmermann
I'm kind of cheating because I haven't finished this book yet, but I'll forget by the end of the month so it's going to be listed here. Elizabeth Zimmerman waxes most poetic about knitting while giving some great technical advice. I think the first 20 pages of this book could be of interest to anyone based on the beauty of the prose alone. After that, it gets pretty technical and I don't think non-knitters would care. But if you are a knitter you already know about this book and Elizabeth Zimmermann, so I don't need to tell you about it.
I was really hoping I could put Magick Without Tears on this month's list too, just for the humor value of having it next to Knitting Without Tears. But then it turned out I don't care enough about humor value or Crowley and I read several novels' worth of Snape/Hermione faniction instead.
It's Raymond Chandler so you can't go too wrong. Nonetheless it's just not as good as The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely. Reading this one kind of broke my Chandler streak, but I know I'll go back to read more.
A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder--How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place. Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman
Popular non-fiction in the vein of Freakonomics and just as glibly argued. Still, I felt better about my messy ways after reading it.
Les Guerilleres. Monique Witting.
I guess it's science fiction. It's all about women fighting the gender war. No, literally; there is a war. This books is not written in a normal narrative style, but more like a series of sort-of-poetic vigiettes. I liked it but wouldn't recommend it to everyone.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. J.K. Rowling
If you've read all the others you might as well read this one.
The Hearing Trumpet. Leonora Carrington.
The stand out gem of this month's reading list. The Hearing Trumpet is a very funny book about and from the point of view of an 92 year old woman who is put into an old folks home which turns out to be a sinister cult. As far as I can tell this book was written especially for me as it has: 1. an argument about knitting vs crochet 2. old women 3. nuns 4. heretical nuns 5. magical bees 6. alchemy 7. a planisphere 8. the north star. Everyone should read this book.
Knitting Without Tears. Elizabeth Zimmermann
I'm kind of cheating because I haven't finished this book yet, but I'll forget by the end of the month so it's going to be listed here. Elizabeth Zimmerman waxes most poetic about knitting while giving some great technical advice. I think the first 20 pages of this book could be of interest to anyone based on the beauty of the prose alone. After that, it gets pretty technical and I don't think non-knitters would care. But if you are a knitter you already know about this book and Elizabeth Zimmermann, so I don't need to tell you about it.
I was really hoping I could put Magick Without Tears on this month's list too, just for the humor value of having it next to Knitting Without Tears. But then it turned out I don't care enough about humor value or Crowley and I read several novels' worth of Snape/Hermione faniction instead.