July in Review

August 1, 2016

month in review

Newsworthy

The last month has been a bit melancholy, a bit bittersweet, and also super AWESOME. Weird month. I got some books read, as you can imagine. And my TBR list has grown a ton. I find myself thinking… is my blog really everything it can be? Not yet! But there is time to grow and improve yet!

July is the height of Summer, and I have been super busy. I went on a weekend trip to Galena, IL (where I read The Outsiders for the first time) with some of my closest friends. I saw Death of a Salesman and bawled my eyes out. I became the Music Committee chairperson on a Board I serve on, and we started to get things in order for the upcoming year. I hosted a Red, White, and Blue party with my housemate– the last party we will co-host as roomies. She moved out mid-July… That was incredibly bittersweet.

Summer keeps me busy, that’s for sure. I’ve been steadily reading, and feeling good about it. I haven’t challenged myself to read harder this Summer. But, well, it’s Summer!

 

List of Reads

Remember last month, when I was shocked at how little I read? Well, I just realized that my 9 June books totaled 3,801 pages– 400+ more pages than my 13 books from April. So, I need to just let it go. It’s not about the number of books I read. It’s just about reading. Come on!

July brought me back into the average number of books with an average number of pages. Which I’m all for- there are only so many hours of Summer! (For anyone who cares, I read 3,815 pages this month. 3500 seems to be my average. Good to know)

July Books:

Read – 11 total books

July Books 1 July Books 2 July Books 3 July Books 4

 

Currently Reading – 4 books

  • Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversations by David Mann
  • Influencer: The Power to Change Anything by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Greeny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Swizler
  • Let’s Get Lost by Adi Alsaid
  • Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz

(You can tell which of books are for work. I’m barely budging on them and they’ve been here for months. Oops.)

You MUST READ this month:

Trickster’s Choice! A unique twist on the strong female heroine deeply embroiled in world politics and spying. Danger, magic, adventure, romance– and all of it with fully realized female characters evenly balancing the male. There are also lots of great parallels with our current state of society around privilege and race. It makes for a compelling read. Plus, it didn’t hurt that this was a bit of nostalgia for me– I fell in love with Tamora Pierce’s world of Tortall when I was 10; I just didn’t know the world expanded beyond the Song of the Lioness quartet until this month!

DANGER! Avoid this month:

City of Bones. My review says it all: Inconsistent writing, flat characters, predictable plot, poor world building. It just makes me sad that such poor writing created such a multi-million dollar media empire for Clare. So sad.

 

Challenge Update

Over the Summer, I’m not participating in any monthly challenges. The weather is too nice to not spend time outside. However, I have been making progress on a number of my yearly challenges. I’m more than halfway done with the year, and more than halfway done with my challenges overall.

Do you participate in reading challenges?

Check out my challenge statuses as they update here.

 

Tsundoku Life

It wouldn’t be tsundoku if I didn’t have a gigantic pile of books waiting for me!

Well, the time finally came, and my roommate moved out of the house. It has been a bittersweet experience, for sure. But it compounded my tsundoku life, as now I only own two three small bookshelves! All the other bookshelves went with my roommate.

So where did all the books go? Obviously, they are covering the floor in the master bedroom and guest bedroom. Oops. I have lots of piles of books everywhere. It’s very much like this:

Piles of Books

I did catch up on my library pile. I don’t have any new library books coming in for a while unless they are specific books to help with my year-long challenges. However, I ended up having friends lend me 8 books. So, while the Library book pile has shrunk, we have a new pile! A pile of books for those loaned to me from friends. Which I need to push through.

Four of them are for my Listopia challenge, however. I think I can do it. Come on August!

TBR: Library Books

  • Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
  • Dutchman by Imamu Amiri Baraka
  • Naruto Omnibus 2 by Mashashi Kishimoto
  • Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
  • Kingdom Come by Mark Waid

TBR: Lent from Friends

  • Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
  • When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
  • Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
  • One Crazy Summer by Rita-Williams Garica
  • Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle
  • Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Planned reads for August

  • Book Clubs
    • Our Shared Shelf- Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein
    • Kids Lit – Alanna: The first Adventure by Tamora Pierce
    • West Side Stories – The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
    • Books n’ Booze – A Widow for One Year by John Irving
    • Brunch Books – Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Challenge Books
    • Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
    • How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

With my other half gone for a week this month, I hope to have some time to sit back and make a dent in the books from my friends. You can see I have fewer challenge books this month, but that is because a lot of the books from my friends double into challenge books. I can’t wait to dig into them!

Happy Reading,

Jackie B.

Jackie B Forman

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