Summer reading, continued

I'm now up to 58 books read on the year, 10 of which count toward my library's summer reading program.  Miss Fraser is kicking my butt in that regard--she's up to 24. Even allowing for the fact a lot of hers are manga and graphic novels, she's turning into one bookish kid, I'm proud to say.  Her chapter books are from the Warriors and Wolves of the Beyond series, neither of which is short or easy for a rising third grader.

Anyway, my latest reads:

55) Lessons After Dark, by Isabel Cooper. This is Cooper's second book, a sequel to No Proper Lady. Unlike many fantasy romance authors, Cooper gets the balance of romance and fantasy just right, with solid world-building. This book isn't as fast-paced and high-stakes as her debut, but it's still well worth reading, IMHO.


56) Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Properly speaking, the book doesn't release till November, but Baen is selling eARCs directly from their website, and I couldn't resist.

It's a fun, lovely book, and I enjoyed seeing Ivan in an adventure of his own, revealing himself when out of Miles's orbit to be capable and intelligent in his own more deliberate and level-headed style. It's something of a romantic comedy of manners meets crime caper story, and while I'd rank it below my all-time favorites, Memory and A Civil Campaign, I'll definitely be re-reading it.


57) Watching Baseball Smarter, by Zack Hample. For the most part, this book just confirmed that I'm already a fairly savvy fan, but I learned some new things. I'd never noticed that all catchers are right-handed, for example, and I'm surprised singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh inning stretch only dates to 1971, since the song itself is so much older.

58) Hearts and Harbingers, by Olivia Waite, is an erotic historical romance novella, one that, frankly, is more explicit than I'd feel comfortable reading as a steady diet. That said, the writing is polished and the heroine in particular an engaging character, so if you like super-hot reads, I recommend it.

Buy and Read Challenge: Cordelia's Honor

One of my resolutions for 2011 was to buy at least one leisure reading book per month, and to READ at least one book purchased in 2011 each month.

I started out with Cordelia's Honor, another entry in Lois McMaster Bujold's masterly Vorkosigan series. I've already gushed about them at length, so I'll just say that this volume is an excellent entry point for newbies to the series. It's an omnibus of two prequel novels, Shards of Honor and Barrayar, about the meeting and early marriage of Aral Vorkosigan and Cordelia Naismith, parents of the series' main character, Miles Vorkosigan.

OK, I'll say a little more. As much as I enjoy Miles, it's Aral who is my latest Fictional Secret Boyfriend. They're both intelligent, decent men who serve causes larger than themselves. But where Miles is mercurial and a master manipulator (because that's the only way someone with his physical limitations can succeed in his world--I don't blame him for being sort of the good-intentioned Napoleon of the Wormhole Nexus), Aral is all steady and stalwart and kinda taciturn but with desert-dry wit. Hot.