Monthly Reading: August 2008 « Books Worth Reading

Monthly Reading: August 2008

September 1, 2008 at 9:15 am | In Monthly Reading, Reviews | Leave a Comment
Tags: Classic, Emily Bronte, Food and cooking, Gothic, Horror, Joyce Carol Oates, Kate Wilhelm, Kathleen Flinn, Memoir, Nevil Shute, Post-apocalypse, Science fiction, Stephen King

Book cover via Amazon

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm – post-apocalyptic science fiction

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn — food and cooking memoir

On the Beach by Nevil Shute — post-apocalyptic science fiction

Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates — horror

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte — gothic classic

Miscellaneous Reading: Stephen King short story in McSweeney’s Issue 27.

My rating scale:

1 star: Abandoned before finishing. Don’t waste your time.
2 stars: Poor. Avoid with extreme prejudice.
3 stars: Average. Read it, have a good time and move on. Or not.
4 stars: Great. Push it on your friends and family.
5 stars: Excellent. Keep it, treasure it, reread it.

Disclaimer: My ratings are very personal and may have little to do with the book’s artistic or commercial merit, or its place in the literary canon. Rather, the rating reflects how the story, characters and writing spoke to me and augmented my understanding of the world.