September in Review

September has come and gone, and now on this early October morning, I have to share my reading experiences. Well, I do not have to, I want to. The biggest problem with this being October is I am very very far behind on my reviews, I still have books from August to review. I will hopefully begin working on this starting later today. So, on to September. I read 18 books this month. Some were really good, while others were really bad. My favourite read for the month is hard to choose. So, my top five (in no particular order) were:

Mister Pip
Peony in Love by Lisa See
Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje
Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself by Alan Alda
Golden Fool by Robin Hobb

The break-down. I read four sci-fi/fantasy books:
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (for the Cardathon)
Something from the Nightside by Simon R. Green (for the R.I.P Challenge)
Agents of Light and Darkness by Simon R. Green (for the R.I.P. Challenge)
Golden Fool by Robin Hobb (Counts for the Cardathon Challenge)

I read some non-fiction, which I seem to be doing very well at lately. I read:
Why We Read What We Read (Which actually greatly disappointed me)
Baptism of Fire (Really interesting)
Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself by Alan Alda
Be the Pack Leader by Cesar Millan
Cesar's Way by Cesar Millan
The Staircase Letters
The Dangerous Book for Dogs (A parody, but does have truthful information)

I read two of the books short-listed for the Booker:
The Reluctant Fundamentalist (If this book wins, I am never following the Bookers again)
Mister Pip (I hope this book wins. It's my favourite of the three I have read, and the only reason I have not read the other three is because one just became available, one takes several weeks to ship, and one is not available. So, I read what I could easily read.)

I read a few Canadian books:
Baptism of Fire
Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje (for my Giller-a-thon)
October by Richard Wright (for my Giller-a-thon)
The Staircase Letters

(More Giller-a-thon in October, I got a bit side-tracked!)

The other books I read were:
Mademoiselle Victorine (Horrible book)
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale (started off slow but was really good by the end)
Peony in Love by Lisa See (Great historical fiction book)

Challenge Break-down:
2 Giller-a-thon books (Diversadero and October)
3 R.I.P. Books (I hope to read more in October. I just was not in the right mood for this genre last month).
2 Cardathon Books (Ender's Game and Golden Fool)
3 Four-Legged Friends Books (Cesar's Way, Be a Pack Leader, and The Dangerous Book for Dogs)

My least favourite reads of the month...
Mademoiselle Victorine
Why we Read What we Read
The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Biggest disappointment of the month?
October by Richard Wright. (Do not get me wrong, I really liked that book, but I have been reading him for years, I always get excited about his new books, but I cannot seem to get into them. I keep expecting a book that is better than his Giller and Governor General winning book, and I have not seen it yet. But, until I do, I will keep reading!)

I will review the books that I have not reviewed already sometime soon!

This month was interesting. I seem to have bailed on the R.I.P. challenge. The thought of some of those books just did not work for me last month. I hope to read a few more this month, but not sure how that will work out.

The biggest thing in September was losing Sandy. I am still having some issues with that. Things are getting better, but when I wake up in the morning I still have moments where I expect her to be there. Then I wake up fully, and I am sad. Sometimes that will happen through the day, I will have moments where I hear things and think 'that's just Sandy doing something' and then it will register with me that she is not making that noise. It has been hard. I also lost two cats, too, and I have similar moments with that. I come home at night and there is no cat to let in, I don't use the top of the dryer because that is where their food dish used to be (habit), etc. I am still not used to having such a quiet house.

So, it would not be fair to review the month without the final good byes.

Snowball
14 Years Old
February 1993-September 2007

Sam
15 Years Old
May 1992-September 2007

Sandy ('Rascal')
12 Years Old
August 1995-September 2007
(Also included in above picture are 'Baby' Atra and 'Baby' Miko)

September was a horrible month. I have had all three of those animals since they were really little, and I was not that old either. I picked them out, named them (well, I called Sandy 'Rascal', but my father named her), and cared for them for years. Thanks to everyone for all your well-wishes! At least I have my challenge going on!