Doesn’t summer speed by? Though I’m hoping for a few more weeks of sunshine, and though it’s many many years since I left school, I still tend to think of 31 August as the last day of summer. I will be picking out some autumnal reads for September, whatever the weather. Maybe a murder mystery.

This month I got back on track with short stories, though I didn’t finish all the novels I’d planned to. I saw Margaret Atwood talking about her new book, which was pretty darned great. And Tim and I celebrated 11 years together. A third of our lives. That’s kinda crazy. We were so young back then!

Books read

White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (review here)

The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene (review here)

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (review here)

All Dogs Are Blue by Rodrigo de Souza Leão (review here)

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman (review to follow)

Short stories read

“An inch and a half of glory” by Dashiell Hammett (New Yorker, June 10 & 17, 2013)

“From the diaries of pussy-cake” by Gary Shteyngart (New Yorker, June 10 & 17, 2013)

“Twisted” by George Pelecanos (New Yorker, June 10 & 17, 2013)

“Rough deeds” by Annie Proulx (New Yorker, June 10 & 17, 2013)

“Slide to unlock” by Ed Park (New Yorker, June 10 & 17, 2013)

“A & P” by John Updike (New Yorker Fiction Podcast)

“The twain” by Fabian Acker (Popshot Magazine, Issue 9)

“How to be a writer” by Kirsty Logan (Popshot Magazine, Issue 9)

“Together and parting” by Elahzar Rao (Popshot Magazine, Issue 9)

“Spine” by Patrick Griffiths (Popshot Magazine, Issue 9)

“The ingenium” by Kirstie Smith (Popshot Magazine, Issue 9)

So how has your August been? Any plans for September?