The Year in Books - July and August

I missed last months year in books. As I said in my holiday post - Austria has suffered (and I mean this word here literally!) from an incredible heatwave. Though I did some reading I really didn't get in the mood to type up a post about it. So here follows an extra long reading post - I try to keep my babbling about the books a little shorter this time. As always I'm linking up with Laura from Circle of Pine Trees.

Nick Hornby - High Fidelity
An all-time-favourite. A book that I've read a few times by now and I absolutely adore it, as it really speaks from my heart. Although I'm married I always had commitment problems and ran away from serious relationships - until I met my man. Similar to Rob and Laura. And oh, all that goooood music...

Robert Galbraith - The Cuckoo's Calling
A re-read. I forbid myself to buy new books. Well, at least not as many as I used to buy. I only have space for two bookshelves and they are FULL. Besides, I want to spend less money. In general.
Well, back to the book...Robert Galbraith isn't a man. As some of you might now it's an alias for J.K. Rowling. She wanted to write crime fiction without it being sold just because of her name. It was soon discovered that it was really her. Whether intentional or not - we'll never know.
The book is about a young supermodel who falls to death from her balcony. Her brother hires the investigator Cormoran Strike to solve the crime as he is sure, that his sister wasn't suicidal. Cormoran Strike is the main person and an interesting non-hero.
I love every J.K. Rowling book that she has written so far and I really liked this one too, though it tends to be a liiiiittle long in between.

Robert Galbraith - The Silkworm
I re-read the second Galbraith novel straight afterwords. Again a Cormoran Strike novel. Nothing much to say here. Interesting, compelling and I didn't know who the killer was until the very end. That's how I like my crime fiction. Though I must say that I would probably be the world's worst investigator as I NEVER know who the killer is. Have you seen The Sixth Sense or Fight Club? I really need to watch movies like this until everything is uncovered because I never understand it myself.

Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
I've written about this book here. Again a re-read. I read it because I bought the new Harper Lee book and wanted to freshen up my Mockingbird-Knowledge.

Giulia Enders - Darm mit Charme
A rather unusual read for me. It's a book about intestines, bowel, guts. I don't know which one of these words is the right english medical expression. It explains how the intestines work, what they have to do with depression and why this is such an important organ in our body. Sounds rather dull but this book is number 1 on the Austrian bestseller charts for more than one year now. So I really needed to know what all the fuss was about. Very interesting and it's written in a very funny and easy way. Took me just one day to finish it.

Harper Lee - Go Set a Watchman
Here we go. The new Harper Lee book. There was a loooot of talking about this book before it was published. The way the manuscript was discovered was a scandal and the content of the book was apparently rather shocking itfself. As I really liked To Kill a Mockingbird I was of course very curious - and in the end veery dissapointed. The book is really dull. Nothing happens! And when finally something happens the situation is so easily resolved that it really made me angry to read it. It reminded me of an unfinished story. So many loose ends that weren't properly tied together.

Stephen King - Finders Keepers
I read the first part of this trilogy on my honeymoon in Mallorca, in April. When I bought Go Set A watchman, the blue umbrella on the cover caught my eye and I knew, that this must be the second book in the series. Of course I had to buy it too! (Do you see now, why I have to forbid myself to buy more books? This is getting out of control!)
I loved it as much as I loved the first one. It was a whole other story and the main protagonist from the first book didn't arrive until the second half of the book. But Stephen King sure doesn know how to write a compelling thriller. Nothing more to add here. I won't tell you anything about the story as I don't want to spoil anyone the reading. Let's just say that there's a lot of blood.

Klaus Oppitz - Auswandertag
I took this home from work where I found it lying around. It's about a dystopian Austrian future, where people flee to Turkey, because there is no future in Austria. A quick read, but I'll probably never read it again.

Judith Hermann - Aller Liebe Anfang
Again a book I took home from work - and brought it back today, because I won't read that again either. It's about a young mother who get's stalked by a young man in her neighborhood. He never talks to her or gets near her, but he rings the bell at her house everyday and puts seemingly random stuff in her mailbox. Sounds interesting, and the beginning was very good - but that book doesn't have an ending. It just stops and let's the story hang loose in midair. I hate that. The ending is the best part about the book and the author really blew that. 

Isabel Allende - Das Geisterhaus (The House of the Spirits)
Oh how I love this book. I chose "Das Geisterhaus" as my book for our tour through the West and I finished it when we got back home. I've read this book a lot of times and I'm still fascinated by the story. I really love family stories, that tell the live of the participants through decades and generations. To be honest - I've never read anything else by Isabel Allende. I probably should give it a try...

I've you've made it all the way to the end - thanks for reading all of this! Next time I'll be up to date with my reading list, I promise!