Monthly Wrap Up: June 2010

Total Books and Current Status

Since January 1, I've finished 59 books, and abandoned 3. In June, I posted 15 full reviews. I also posted 2 recipes. I am behind on 1 review. I am currently reading The Opposite of Me by Sarah Pekkanen and listening to The Maytrees by Annie Dillard.

What I Read and Reviewed

Here's what I reviewed in June. Click on the link to see my review; the letter in parentheses is my rating.

Full Reviews

• The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano (A-)
• SOS! The Six-O'Clock Scramble to the Rescue by Aviva Goldfarb (A)
• The Turning: What Curiosity Kills by Helen Ellis (B-)
• Tea Wisdom by Aaron Fisher (B-)
• The Brain Full of Holes by Martin Chatterton (B+)
• Day for Night by Frederick Reiken (B+)
• Private Life by Jane Smiley (B-)
• Two short stories by M. F. K. Fisher
• Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater (B+)
• Charm City by Laura Lippman (B-)
• Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd (A)
• The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon (B)
• Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher (B+)
• Linger by Maggie Stiefvater (B)
• All Mortal Flesh by Julia Spencer-Fleming (B+)

Read / Not Reviewed Yet

• Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan (click for spotlight; review next week)

Holy cow. I can't believe I read 16 books this month. And there is a good chance I'll have finished my current audiobook before this is posted. Of course, if you look, you'll see that this month was a bit YA heavy. Still that's a lot of books for me. Solitude of Prime Numbers (adult, literary fiction) and Bog Child (young adult, coming of age) were both excellent and I highly recommend them.

Other Posts and Activities

Guest Posts

• CJ West wrote "Fictional Food and Character?"
• Helen Ellis wrote "New York, New York, a Hello-Kitty of a Town"
• Aviva Goldfarb wrote "My Poor Lucky Family: Life in a House Where Each Dinner Is an Adventure"
• Martin Chatterton wrote "Holes: They're Full of It"
• Erica Barmash wrote about Harper Perennial Books
• Marta Perry wrote "Uniquely Pennsylvania" as part of the Literary Road Trip

Imprints

• I wrote a post about Pamela Dorman Books.
• I wrote a post about my advocacy of imprints.
• I introduced you to Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins.

Beth Fish around the Internet

• I hosted two mini-challenges for Bloggiesta.
• I announced that I'm on the executive board for Book Blogger Appreciation Week (and thus am ineligible for an award).
• I was the guest for the #FollowReader chat on June 17 with Charlotte Abbott. You can read the summary of the chat here and our Q&A here.
• My review of Private Life by Jane Smiley was published by The Book Studio.
• I participated in the first annual Audiobook Week.
• I was a first-bracket judge for the Nerds Heart YA tournament.

Challenges

• Yesterday marked the end of my Sookie Stackhouse Reading challenge. I learned a lot about hosting challenges from it, and I also totally failed it! Or as Michele from A Reader's Respite said (and I paraphrase), how could it be a failure when I introduced so many people to Sookie? Almost 175 people signed up and we had almost 250 reviews.
• It is never too late to join the What's in a Name? 3 challenge, several people (including me: yay!) have finished but you still have a 6 months to read 6 books.
• The Amy Einhorn Books Perpetual Challenge is very active. New people took up the challenge last month, and you can do so this month! I am thrilled that 49 people have joined me in my quest to read through the imprint. You can be part of the fun even if you're not sure you'll read every book.
  
• Despite having failed a couple or three challenges, I have already completed 11!

What's New, What's Coming Up

I don't plan on making any changes to my blogging schedule or my blog at this point.

I do want to alert you to the new tab (right under my header photo) that will be going up later today. It will lead to a page with a Mr. Linky for linking up reviews of Harper Perennial books. I am not hosting an official challenge, but I am so excited about the imprint, that I'd like to collect the reviews so we can all find them in a single place. I hope you feel free to link up any older Harper Perennial reviews that may be published on your blog.

Also I want to stress that I will be spotlighting all new Amy Einhorn books as they are released and you can now expect to see a steady stream of Amy Einhorn Book reviews.

Talk to Me

Hope your reading month was fabulous. But before you click away, here are two things I'm always curious about:

• What was your favorite book in June?
• Are you caught up with your reviews?