The August List

I have no idea what is in store for August. I didn’t have any vacations planned. I didn’t have any stay-at-home plans. This was a month of wide open schedules with little to no expectation. However, and this is a BIG however, I was supposed to see Natalie Merchant twice in July. Due to illness the rest of her summer July tour dates were postponed with the promise of an attempt to reschedule. So. I thought of August. No luck, but the month did become just a little more interesting with a trip to Maine. And speaking of interesting, here’s the book list. It’s huge so I would like to think August is going to be filled with la-hazy days reading pool-side:

1. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh
2. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams
3. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin
4. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee
5. “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” a short story from Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges
6. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch
7. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro*
8. ADDED: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
9. ADDED: Absolute Zero by Helen Cresswell (to finish the series)

*Audio book Here is how the rest of year eight should go:

1. Andorra by Peter Cameron (November)
2. Any Four Women Can Rob the Bank of Italy by Ann Cornelisen (November)
3. Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman (September)
4. Beaufort by Ron Leshem* (November)
5. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall (September)
6. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (October)
7. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney (November)
8. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (October)
9. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan* (October)
10. Grass Dancer by Susan Power (November)
11. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (September)
12. In a Strange City by Laura Lippman (October)
13. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway (September)
14. Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (September)
15. You Get What You Pay For by Larry Beinhart (November)

*Planned as audio books

FINISHED:

1. After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat
2. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow*
3. Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin*
4. Angels Weep by Wilbur Smith
5. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler.
6. Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
7. Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser
8. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life by Walter Isaacson
9. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
10. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks*
11. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West (DNF)
12. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
13. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
14. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink
15. Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks
16. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
17. Dancer and the Thief by Antonio Skarmeta
18. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall
19. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes (DNF)
20. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
21. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler
22. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
23. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam
24. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
25. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
26. First Man by Albert Camus
27. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
28. French Revolutions* by Tim Moore.
29. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley
30. Herzog by Saul Bellow
31. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
32. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow – attempted
33. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
34. In the Graveyard of Empires by Scott Jones*
35. Inside Passage by Michael Modzelewski
36. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating
37. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
38. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
39. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith
40. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
41. Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli
42. Lulu in Hollywood by Louise Brooks
43. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
44. Neighborhood Heroes: Life Lessons from the Greatest Generation by Morgan Rielly
45. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
46. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
47. Oedipus by Sophocles
48. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
49. ADDED: Price of Silence by Liza Long (an Early Review book for LibraryThing)
50. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
51. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
52. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
53. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart
54. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet
55. Running for Mortals by John Bingham
56. Seeing in the Dark by Timothy Ferris
57. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
58. Thrush Green by Miss Read*
59. Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland
60. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
61. Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook.
62. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley
63. Zero Days by Barbara Egbert

Poetry:

• “Aftermath” ~ a poem by Siegfried Sassoon
• “Romance” ~ a poem by W.J. Turner
• “Kubla Khan” ~ a poem by Samuel T. Coleridge

Short Stories:

• “The Huckabuck Family” by Carl Sandburg
• “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life” by Hannah Tinti
• “Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury
• “Thirty Year Old Women Do Not Always Come Home” by Mark Winegardner
• “Birdland” by Michael Knight
• “Killer Inside Me” by Jim Thompson
• “Down There” by David Goodis
• “Crossing the Craton” by John McPhee.
• Lukudi by Adrianne Harun
• The Eighth Sleeper of Ephesus also by Adrianne Harun

For another year (because, as I said before, I screwed up):

• Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith.