July was a strong reading month for me - I finished 10 books! Going forward, I think double digits months are going to be outliers for me. But I read on my flights to/from DC so ended up reading 2 books in about 4 days at the end of the month. Now that we don't have to sit in a chair in Paul's room while he falls asleep (which meant 30+ minutes of reading on my kindle ap), I spend less time reading and more time with Phil in the evenings - which is a good thing!!
Favorites:
The 6 books below were all really good/great. My favorites were The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot* (about a 17yo and 83yo who meet at a hospital and form a friendship), Bomb Shelter (collection of essays by Mary Laura Philpott - she's an auto-read for me), and The Violin Conspiracy (excellent page turner about a violin that goes missing that also discusses racism in classical music).
* Trigger warnings for the Lenni and Margot book as Lenni is terminally ill with cancer.
The other 4 were mostly "just ok." My least favorite was
The Count of Monte Cristo. I read this over the last 7 months using the serial reader ap. I wanted to like this classic but I just didn't... there were sooo many character lines to keep track of. If it was published in modern times, I feel the book would be 1/4 of the length (it's a 1,200 page book!).
The Postmistress of Paris was pretty good but I am sooo burned out on WWII books. There was a lot infidelity in the plot of
Detransition, Baby. I hate the use of infidelity as a plot device as I find it inexcusable and abhorrent.
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life was pretty good, but I didn't love the format - as you might guess, it's written in the format of an encyclopedia. But I was sad to find that the author died from cancer in her early 50s.
I DNF'd one book - Evening by Susan Minot. The author doesn't use quotation marks for dialogue which is a huge pet peeve of mine - why does anyone do this?? I can put up with that if I get drawn into the book right away but I was extremely confused from the start and the lack of quotations marks pushed me to abandon it at the 8% mark.
Paul's reads:
I can whole-heartedly recommend the 4 books below. See the Dog is the 2nd book in the series and we've loved both. There are many "Monkey with a Tool Belt" books and there is a spin-off show on Netflix called "Chico Bon Bon" that Paul is very into. The books are pretty clever, funny and make him laugh out loud. The World Belonged to Us is beautifully written and has a great rhyming cadence. Milk and Juice is about a milk and juice carton that get separated in a recycling center but - spoiler alert - eventually get reunited when they are made into a park bench.
Did you read anything great in July?
10 comments:
As you know, my reading dries up in the summer. I have mostly been re-reading (it feels like less pressure than finishing a new book).
I re-read Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig. I'm reading through Time Management for Mere Mortals again. I have have Bomb Shelter on Order.
I'm also slowly reading through the Office Ladies book. It's very low pressure and I'm making very slow progress, but it's nice to have a turn-my-brain-off book option.
I'm really itching for September, though, so I get back into my groove of reading (usually 6-8 books/month?)
The Milk and Juice book sounds like something Levi would really like! I'll try to get it from our library :)
Sometimes I really struggle with classics. I had to start The Picture of Dorian Gray so many times before I powered through it, I've given up on the Count of Monte Cristo and Jane Eyre more times than I can count, and I think I'm just not a classic literature kind of girl and I guess I have to acknowledge that about myself!
I'm not sure why, but "milk and juice carton that get separated in a recycling center but - spoiler alert - eventually get reunited when they are made into a park bench" made me laugh a lot. I mean, I guess it IS a spoiler, right?!
I'm burned out on WWiI books too -- at least those set in Paris related to resistance with either romance or danger thrown in. They are all the same. I want to read the Delia Ephron and the violin book sounds just fascinating!
I'm bummed that you didn't like The Count of Monte Cristo, which is one of my favorites! That said, I haven't read it in a couple of decades, so maybe I'd like it less now.
impressive reading month! I also find when flying, I can read more. I haven't read that much lately as work go busier but I am looking forward to read more in august, the trick is finding big chunk of time on weekends to do so.
I read What We Were Promised by Lucy Tan in a day and a half (slow days for all of us - kids are 12 and almost 10 and don't need me as much). It was really slow to start but drew me in and then I couldn't put it down.
The other books I've read are Malibu Rising, Effortless, Find your People, The Power of Rituals, and I read my first Mary Laura Philpot. I loved it! I Miss You When I Blink.
I enjoyed all of these books. Well, except I'm not a traditionally religious person and although I liked a few things from Find Your People, the underlining religious part of it, I did not like.
I read a lot more in the summer but alas I will be back to work soon and into a full blown meetings and then the semester starts Aug 22. Our weather has been so rainy I'm almost still waiting for summer...
I also don't like books where the author doesn't use quotation marks- as a matter of fact I'm not sure if I've ever read one- i always avoid them.
my best book of July was Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin- so, so good.
I'm impresed that you read ten books last month. I LOVE to read and always want to read more, but my norm is around four books a month. I guess I need to make it more of a priority!
I'm sorry you didn't like The Count of Monte Cristo! It is so very long and there are so many characters to keep track of, but there was something I just really loved about the Count.
I also can't do books that don't have quotation marks. There was some book I started reading last week but it wasn't using quotation marks and I just couldn't do it. Why is this a thing???
Like the cover of the second book.
I can totally see how you can get burned out on WWII books. Such a great genre, but they do tend to obviously just have so many similar themes... I read a couple great ones last year, which were my first WWII books in a while, and even after those I felt like I needed a break!
We are flying on Tuesday so I'm hoping to get some reading done. I always tend to get sleepy on planes though! hahaha. Even though I can't really sleep that well on planes, my eyes tend to get heavy. Must be the white noise of the engine, lol!
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