July Wrap Up & Pick of Month

Onward in my monthly statisic-gathering and a combo post with Kerrie's Crime Fiction Pick of the Month over at Mysteries in Paradise.

The July totals are up slightly from June (only by three, ah well), BUT I discovered that I made a boo-boo in setting my Goodreads goal.  It was supposed to match my top challenge goal (150+ Reading Challenge) and I had inadvertently entered 200 instead of 150....once I corrected that little error, I find that I am 23 books ahead of schedule.  Woot!  

Here we go on the totals...

Total Books Read: 15
Total Pages:  3,556
Percentage by Female Authors:  33%
Percentage by US Authors:  53%
Percentage by non-US/non-British Authors:  20%
Percentage Mystery: 60%
Percentage Fiction: 93%
Percentage written 2000+: 20%
Percentage of Rereads: 0%
Percentage Read for Challenges: 100% {It's easy to have every book count for a challenge when you sign up for as many as I do.}  
Number of Challenges fulfilled so far: 13(39%)



AND, as mentioned above, Kerrie is sponsoring a meme for those of us who track our reading. What she's looking for is our Top Mystery Read for each month.  This month I read 9 books that count as mysteries

 

And Four to Go  by Rex Stout

The 39 Steps by John Buchan 

Fatal Induction by Bernadette Pajer

The Nine Wrong Answers by John Dickson Carr
File No. 113 by Emile Gaboriau
DeKok & Murder on the Menu by A. C. Baantjer
Compartment K by Helen Reilly
The Fifth Man by Manning Coles
Murder at the Portland Variety by M. J. Zellnik

 

 and, of those, I handed out 3 four-star ratings to And Four to Go, Fatal Induction, and The Fifth Man.  Since Rex Stout is a well-known favorite and I have already honored Bernadette Pajer's first book, A Spark of Death, in an earlier wrap-up post, this month's winner is The Fifth Man by Manning Coles (click above for full review).  This very witty, spy thriller was great fun and my first introduction to the work of Coles.  If you haven't tried the stories written by two neighbors under the Coles pseudonym, then you really should.