Dust and Spores

March was one of those months that took infinity years to pass by, and now April is zooming like a .... something something. Anyway that's why this is late. Because that explanation makes so much sense.

March was also very non-fiction-heavy. So, uh... ok here's what I've got:

Fiction

• The Expedition of Humphry Clinker / Tobias Smollett -- I petered out on this one. Overall: Feh.
• The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony / Roberto Calasso -- I haven't reviewed this yet because I'm having trouble doing so. This book was so good I don't feel like anything I can say will do it justice. Seriously.
• Fahrenheit 451 / Ray Bradbury -- Uh, I also didn't review this one because I read it in a couple hours and then forgot I did so until just now. So maybe later. It was... fine. It was what you expect from a book they make you read in high school.

Non-Fiction

• Women in Greek Myth / Mary R. Lefkowitz
• Greek Homosexuality / K. J. Dover
• The Nature of Greek Myths / G. S. Kirk
• The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory / Cynthia Eller

Anyway, April promises some interesting stuff. I just finished Rusalka by C. J. Cherryh, which wasn't my favorite book ever but still was pretty cool. (That link is to her ugly ugly webpage.) I'm also working on a book on the decipherment of an Ancient Greek writing system called Linear B, a history of philosophy series, and uh... yeah maybe I'll pick up Mists of Avalon again. Dunno why I stopped, actually, that book's pretty good.

February was a mixed sort of month in terms of reading success. I read only 5 books, all of which were pretty shortish, but I started a number of long things, many of which I'm almost done with. I'm almost through Humphry Clinker, almost through The Iliad, halfway through a really incredible book called The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony that I can't wait to get back to. So all is well.

So I finished:

• The Story of O / Pauline Réage
• The Metamorphosis / Franz Kafka
• The Breast / Philip Roth
• The Lightning Thief / Rick Riordan
• The Sea of Monsters / Rick Riordan

That's it, but since I'm at the end of so much stuff, I'll have plenty to write about over the next few days.

I'm also on a bit of a Greek mythology kick, so I've read a bunch of essays, most notably from a book called Interpretations of Greek Mythology edited by J. Bremmer. Good stuff. Sort of a pot-pourri of works approaching the study of mythology in different ways.

Ok that's it!

So it's been a pretty good month for me, book-wise. Unlike July where I read one short graphic novel that didn't really impress me, this month I finished a good amount of material and liked a good percentage of it.

Books

• Darkly Dreaming Dexter / Jeff Lindsay
• Villette / Charlotte Brontë
• Thousand Cranes / Yasunari Kawabata
• Eighth Grade Bites / Heather Brewer
• Norwegian Wood / Haruki Murakami
• The Golem's Eye / Jonathan Stroud

Graphic Novels 'n Stuff

• Gambit Classic, Vol. 1 / Chris Claremont & Howard Mackie
• The Infinity Gauntlet / Jim Starlin
• Teen Titans, Vol. 3: Beast Boys and Girls / Ben Raab & Geoff Johns
• Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? / Neil Gaiman
• The Death of Superman / Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern

I joined up to read some Japanese Literature with Bellezza, some screenplays with Michael, and some creepy stuff with Carl. That's all been going well since I'm now reading a book of Japanese ghost stories and a book of ghost stories that were supposed to be turned into teleplays (but weren't).

So all in all, I'm calling this month a good one. Kudos, me.