January 2013 Books

I'm a book-aholic. I love to read. I would much rather read a book than many other "normal" activities. My favorite genres include history, sports, trivia, biography, (cheesy) romance (historical generally), sci-fi, and sometimes fiction.

On January 1, a friend posted to Facebook that he had read 30 books last year. This made me wonder, how many books do I read in a year? I've never kept track. It's never something I thought about, I just read. So, this year I decided to check and see. Why not? So, you can see I have a page at the top about my 2013 books - what I've read and when I finished it.

I thought I might chat a tiny little bit each month about the best ones and the ones totally not worth the price. In case you are inclined to pick up a book and need some feedback on a good one. Here's what I read in January:



1. 90 Miles to Freedom by K.C. Hilton (January 1, 2013)
2. Dublinside by D.M. O'hEidhin (January 2, 2013)
3. Opening Dante's Gate by Paul William Bear Brewer (January 6, 2013)
4. Me and My Ghoulfriends by Rose Pressey (January 7, 2013)
5. A Cruel Wind: Pandemic Flu in America, 1918-1920 by Dorothy A. Pettit, Ph.D. and Janice Bailie, Ph.D. (January 7, 2013)
6. World War I: History in an Hour by Rubert Colley (January 8, 2013)
7. Letters from Alcatraz by Michael Esslinger (January 11, 2013)
8. Just This Once by Rosalind James (January 17, 2013)
9. Always The Last To Know by Crystal Bowling (January 23, 2013)
10. Lincoln's Diary by D.L. Fowler (January 27, 2013)
11. Sweetly Seduced: Why We Can't Say No To Sugar by NJ Rickman (January 28, 2013)
12. To Hell With the Scale by Lee Marcus (January 28, 2013)
13. Christmas Night of the Living Dead by Bill Robertson (January 28, 2013)
14. Rules For A Lady by Jade Lee (January 30, 2013)

Top Books

 Opening Dante's Gate by Paul William Bear Brewer
 A Cruel Wind: Pandemic Flu in America, 1918-1920 by Dorothy A. Pettit, Ph.D. and Janice Bailie, Ph.D.
 World War I: History in an Hour by Rubert Colley
 Letters from Alcatraz by Michael Esslinger

Don't Read

Dublinside by D.M. O'hEidhin

Christmas Night of the Living Dead by Bill Robertson

Opening Dante's Gate took Dante's Inferno and explained how Dante came up with the levels of hell and how the same method is used today. It jumps around a bit at first, which threw me in trying to follow the storyline, but it comes together so well that the bit of wandering early on turned out ok. I liked the end and wouldn't have minded more.

A Cruel Wind: Pandemic Flu in America, 1918-1920 to me was interesting. The first chapter was all medical and I had a hard time following along. After that, it became less technical and more about the pandemic and what happened during it. Since I'm working on a book myself concerning the Influenza Pandemic, this was a great book to read.

World War I: History in an Hour lied a bit. Took me about an hour and a half to read, but I thought it was laid out well and very simple to follow. I'm not a battle person and this book did not focus on battles/generals/etc. It laid out the war and in the end, there was a list of what happened year-by-year breaking it down into even simpler terms.

Letters From Alcatraz was cool! I read it on my Kindle (as with three of the four Top Books) so the letters themselves were hard to read as I couldn't make them larger, but the transcriptions were there. There is a bit of history on Alcatraz itself, then there are chapters with letters written by some of the more well-known inmates, including Al Capone. 

I'm not going into why not to read Dublinside and Christmas Night of the Living Dead. I don't want to give them anymore publicity that I am here. Let's just say, they were awful. I almost stopped reading Christmas Night of the Living Dead, but it turned out being a short story and just as I was to give up, it ended. Thank God.

Have you read anything good this month? Do you read frequently?

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