I have not reviewed my past reading since the first of June, so bear with me as I review my reads. I really need to review periodically for my own sake. These posts are what prompt me to update my reviews database, for example. At any rate, I enjoyed my summer of Victorian literature and information about Victorian England. I’ve found I just want to keep reading Victorian — but maybe not quite so many at a time!

I read the following books for this project.

• We Two: Victoria and Albert by Gillian Gill (390 pages; nonfiction/biography)
• Armadale by Wilkie Collins (670 pages; fiction)
• Selections from The Victorian Art of Fiction: Nineteenth-Century Essays on the Novel, edited by Rohan Maitzen (about 150 pages read; nonfiction)
• Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (7 hours audio, equal to 225 pages; fiction)
• Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell (780 pages; fiction)
• Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte (200 pages; fiction)
• Victorian London by Liza Picard (310 pages; nonfiction)
• Middlemarch by George Eliot (880 pages; fiction)
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (485 pages; fiction)
• Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope (900 pages; fiction)

My least favorite was the Trollope (although even that had bits I liked). My favorites were Middlemarch and Great Expectations, both of which I intend to reread some day.

Finished Previously

These are the things I mentioned I’d finished back in my June post, but I had not written about yet.

• Jerusalem: The Eternal City by David Galbraith, D. Kelly Ogden, and Andrew Skinner (495 pages; nonfiction). Began in May.
• Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy DeLisle (176 pages/graphic novel; nonfiction/memoir), Read in June.
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (375 pages; YA fiction). Read in June.

Read This Summer

This list has all the non-Victorian books I’ve read since last June, with links where available. For those without links, I may or may not get to a post about them. It just depends on what I get to.

• The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama (abridged audiobook, narrated by the author, 6 ½ hours; nonfiction)
• Love in a Fallen City and Other Stories by Eileen Chang (about 250 read of 310 pages; fiction, short stories/novellas) Stories written about in depth on that post are indicated below.

o   “Sealed Off”
o   “Love in a Fallen City”

• Selections from The Viking Portable Nineteenth-Century Russian Reader (about 350 read of 550 pages; fiction/short stories/poetry). Stories written about in depth on that post are indicated below.

o   “The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol
o   “Princess Mary” (from A Hero for Our Time) by Mikhail Lermontov
o   “Oblomov’s Dream” (originally a short story, later included in the novel Oblomov) by Ivan Goncharov
o   Pushkin: Miscellaneous Poetry

• Winne-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne (160 pages; children’s fiction). A reread.
• The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee (about 200 pages; nonfiction/memoir)
• The Stranger by Albert Camus (200 pages; fiction).  A reread.
• Book of A Thousand Days by Shannon Hale (300 pages; Young Adult fiction)
• Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose (485 pages; nonfiction/biography)
• Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (182 pages; children’s fiction)
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (270 pages; fiction)
• The BFG by Roald Dahl (190 pages; children’s fiction)
• Pretties by Scott Westerfeld (385 pages; YA fiction)
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (370 pages; fiction)
• Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction by Richard Bushman (115 pages; nonfiction)
• The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale (380 pages; YA fiction).
• Haiku published by Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets (250 pages; poetry).
• Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain (320 pages; fiction)
• Kitchen (and Moonlight Shadow) by Banana Yoshimoto (150 pages; fiction)
• Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (120 pages; fiction)
• Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie (235 pages; children’s fiction). Read aloud to my toddler.
• Awakening Children’s Minds by Laura Berk (250 pages; nonfiction).
• The Princess Bride by William Goldman (320 pages; fiction).
• Seeing Past Z by Beth Kephart (200 pages; nonfiction/memoir).
• Brigham Young: American Moses by Leonard Arrington (410 pages; nonfiction/biography).
• Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (about 60 pages; fiction/short story)
• Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (250 pages; fiction)
• The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (375 pages; children’s fiction)
• Kindred by Octavia Butler (260 pages; fiction/fantasy)

And that’s all for now! My son and I have been busy working on our 1000 picture books project too, but I haven’t posted about it this summer. I’m also working on getting my new project in order. I’m excited.