The first week of September, I was off of work. Therefore, I expected to get a lot more reading done than I actually did in the end. Spending a lot of time at the stables really doesn’t help with reading, but it was nice to be able to ride every day for almost two weeks. I was also able to pay a visit to ‘my’ bookseller, which brought on a lot of memories that I processed in this post.

I also visited my lovely publishing bff and Kosmos book dealer Shiku. The gist: lot’s of publishing talk, visiting bookshops, watching old Coldmirror videos (the Patzer vids really hold up!), filling in some gaps in my education (My Immortal), way too many horse non-fiction books added to my TBR, a visit to a tea house which turned into a full-fledged workout, and train chaos galore.

SuBsalabim

I did much better than last month and managed to read four of the five books.

1. Ultraviolet (Ultraviolet, #1) by R.J. Anderson • 3/5

   Huh, not at all what I expected. I found it pretty obvious right from the beginning which genre this one belonged to, which was a little unfortunate. I would have loved it to be much more subtle and twisted. Instead, huge parts turned out to be rather tedious and frustrating with interesting bits strewn in-between. And yet, I was kind of glued to the pages.

2. On the Fence by Kasie West • 5/5

   Awwwww. Really loved this one! West’s contemporaries (at least the two I have read) are so cute, but have a lot of depth to them as well. I got really emotional over this one.

3. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller • 4/5

   When it comes to mythology, I haven’t the best memory. I’d watched Troy years ago, but I had forgotten basically everything except that Helen got ‘kidnapped’ and that the whole thing ended with the Trojan horse, but that’s about it. Therefore, I got to read this one without knowing what would happen, which was nice. I really liked the slow pace and the attention the main characters were given. However, it didn’t manage to truly touch me emotionally. While the ending didn’t leave me cold, it wasn’t able to trigger as much of an emotional response the situation would usually entail.

4. Was ein Pferd nicht alles kann [A Horse Called September] by Anne Digby • 2/5

   This one began rather promising but then turned into one of those over-the-top unrealistic horse novels. Ugh, just no!

What I’ve Also Read

1. Reiten mit inneren Bildern [Riding with Mental Images] (Feine Hilfen, #21) by Claudia Weingand (Ed.) • 2/5
   

   Apparently, I’m not into mental images. At least not when it comes to riding. The thing is, while I liked some, others were kind of hard to grasp and then there were some concepts that just contradicted each other. Confusion ensured. Thus, this one didn’t help me much.

2. Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops (Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops, #1) by Jen Campbell • 4/5

3. More Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops (Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops, #2) by Jen Campbell • 4/5

   These two were a bit of a mixed bag for me. Some of the dialogues made me laugh out loud, some didn’t touch me at all, but most made me at least smile. It’s fascinating what some people spout off. I have a colleague who worked as a bookseller and she’s also got a couple of stories that could easily make it into these books.

What I’ve Read for Work

Disclaimer: I can’t really talk about the books, since they are scheduled for spring 2018 and haven’t been announced yet.

I finished two books (but actually wanted to should have finished six – I’m procrastinating way too much! Ugh!). One a sports MG that positively surprised me – although the most surprising was a certain scene that came very unexpectedly. The other the next instalment in a popular series for children aged 8+.

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