Books for July, 2004

Realized I'd forgotten to do this. My list is quite short this month:

Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World by Verlyn Flieger. I'd mentioned before how impressive I found this book. Would be happy to read more of her work anytime.

Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. Ahem. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but this is a first time read. I'd attempted it before but never finished it. Reading the Flieger first made all the difference.

The Iron Ring by Lloyd Alexander. This was sent to me by sdn. (Thanks, sdn!) It's a little embarrassing to admit this, too, but this is the first book of Lloyd Alexander I've read.

And that's it. Right now I'm re-reading The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers, so that will be on next month's list.

Edited to add: I did a quick count and the first six months of this year I've read 28 books. Some new, some re-reads. Hmm. That's probably more than the American average--substantially more, I guess (although I haven't combed through the report at length), but still less than I would have thought if I had hazarded a guess how many books I read in six months. Should I be embarrassed?

Most literate city

Hurrah! Obviously, I'm living in the right place. Minneapolis ranks #1 as the most literate city in the U.S.A., based on a study coming out of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

(I am amused but not surprised to find that of the last ten cities in the ranking, five of them are in Texas.)