Another solid month of reading – lots of disappointments, though, with only one five star book this month.
★★★★★: Superb
★★★★: Good
★★★: Okay/Meh
★★: Terrible
★: Worse than Terrible/DNF
Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard, 9/29-10/3, audiobook, 14 hours and 40 minutes, ★★★; lots of pointless information in the second book of the series.
Girls on the Line by Aimie K. Runyan, 9/30-10/3, audiobook/Kindle, 368 pages, ★★★★; a good historical fiction book about females on the front lines during war.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, 9/30-10/4, Kindle, 354 pages, ★★★★; a post-apocalypitical book which focuses on the lives of people who know a famous actor. I wasn’t into it at first, but by the end I saw the point of it.
Majesty by Katharine McGee, 9/30-10/4, Kindle, 384 pages, ★★★; I liked the first book enough…but this one didn’t further the plot for me.
King’s Cage by Victoria Aveyard, 10/3-10/5, audiobook, 17 hours and 20 minutes, ★★★★; better than the second book.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, 10/5-10/7, Kindle, 350 pages, ★★; I did not enjoy this book at all, both for writing and character development.
The Orphan’s Tale by Pam Jenoff, 10/6-10/8, audiobook, 12 hours and 57 minutes,★★★; it was fine.
War Storm by Victoria Aveyard, 10/5-10/10, audiobook, 22 hours and 15 minutes, ★★★; a disappointing conclusion.
The Dinosaur Artist by Paige Williams, 9/27-10/10, hardcover, 432 pages, ★★★★; the school librarian gave this to me to read. I liked it enough, even though it had three different story threads going on at the same time. It appeared she did not have enough material to just focus on a single story.
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, 9/30-10/11, Kindle, 280 pages, ★★★; it was fine.
Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff, 10/10-10/11, audiobook, 14 hours and 17 minutes, ★★★★; it was pretty good. I always thought Cleopatra was an Egyptian, but I found out she was Greek.
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson, 10/11, audiobook, 3 hours and 41 minutes, ★★★★; a good good book about some physics basics.
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, 9/30-10/12, 369 pages, ★★; I was not into this book.
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, 10/12-10/13, audiobook, 8 hours and 6 minutes, ★★; I was also not into this book.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzenne Collins, 9/30-10/13, Kindle, 439 pages, ★★; again, I was not into this book. I wish I had never picked it up.
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, 10/13-10/14, audiobook, 10 hours and 2 minutes, ★★★; it was fine.
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx, 9/27-10/15, Kindle, 354 pages, ★★; I did not like this book either.
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, 10/15-10/17, Kindle, 404 pages, ★★★★; I actually liked this book, which envisions an America where isolationist and crypto-fascist Charles Lindbergh wins the presidency in 1940. The only downside was the Roth gets a little too full of himself with his writing.
Broken Throne by Victoria Aveyard, 10/16-10/17, Audiobook, 14 hours and 17 minutes, ★★★★; I liked this series of novellas because it provided a lot of contextual information to Aveyard’s world.
March by Geraldine Brooks, 10/16-10/18, Kindle, 298 pages, ★★★; I only read this because it was a Pulitzer winner.
Sharks in the Time of Saviors, 10/18, audiobook, 10 hours and 38 minutes, ★★★; I listened to it because it took place in Hawaii, but I didn’t find it notable.
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, 10/18, Kindle, 162 pages, ★★★; only read it because it won the Booker Prize.
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout, 10/19-10/20, audiobook, 12 hours and 15 minutes, ★★★★; I liked it better than the original.
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe, 10/8-10/21, Kindle, 464 pages, ★★★★★; the best book of my month. Keefe expertly navigates between several story lines, and provides an ambiguous ending for a very ambiguous situation.
Thunderstruck by Erik Larson, 10/22-10/23, Kindle, 480 pages, ★★★; my least favorite of Larson’s book – it just didn’t work out for me.
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, 10/21-10/24, audiobook, 13 hours and 33 minutes, ★★★; I liked it enough, but it was a little too over the top for me.
The Shortest History of Germany by James Hawes, 10/23-10/24, paperback, 256 pages, ★★★★; a really good summary of German history.
Make Enterprise Great Again by EMP Mavericks, 10/24, Kindle, 143 pages, ★; I’m not even sure what this was. I won it from Goodreads.
The 2084 Report: An Oral History of the Great Warming by James Lawrence Powell, 10/24, hardcover, 240 pages, ★★★★; I won this from Goodreads too, and I liked it. It was in the style of World War Z, just about climate change.
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, 10/24-10/25, Kindle, 636 pages, ★★★; Atwood is just not my cup of tea.
The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gikuyu and Mumbi by Ngugui wa Thiong’o, 10/25, hardcover, 240 pages, ★★★; an African legend that I also won from Goodreads, but I did not like the prose style.
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold, 9/18-10/25, Kindle, 359 pages, ★★★★; this one was also educational, but it could get bogged down in all the information it provided.
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, 10/25-10/28, audiobook, 24 hours and 9 minutes, ★★★★; my first Franzen novel, and I enjoyed it. The author could get heavy handed with his characters, though.
Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak, 10/27-10/29, Kindle, 525 pages, ★★; I expected The Book Thief – and this was not it.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt, 10/21-10/30, Kindle, 594 pages, ★★; I expected The Goldfinch – and this was not it.
Return to Earth by Buzz Aldrin, 10/25-10/31, 301 pages, ★★★★; really a 3.5, but the topic moves it up to four stars.
American Rubicon 