Goodbye July and Hello August! I don’t necessarily hate the summer, but the heat and humidity always get to me in a way that cold and snow can’t. It’s seriously warmed up here in Boston we’re facing our third 90º+ (32C) day this week and I feel so groggy and slow .
Some of this comes from my finally kicking my butt back into gear and walking again, every step right?!, but the heat is just oppressive, it makes me not want to do anything. On the plus side, spending most of my time in Southie, I do get to walk along the ocean and there’s usually a great breeze so it’s cooler, but it’s still so hot! When this posts I’ve already walked more than 40 miles! Hopefully I can keep it going.
Not only did I consider bringing back Workout Wednesday, but Culture Corner also almost made a comeback. Last weekend we went to see the Hokusai exhibit at the MFA and it was wonderful.
Books and Bookish Things
I thought I’d done a good job of not buying too many books, but that was a fail and I’ll talk about that in recent acquisitions. The book highlight of the month was celebrating my fifth year blogoversery and reflected on it!
Yesterday recorded Episode 7 of Come Read with Me which was The Adventures of Captain Underpants! (I know right?! That’s me reading it on the subway to the right. I have no shame.) I already have plans for at least two more episodes which will be good and get me through the end of the year! And on top of that I read SO many books this month. I read so many books this month (nine ten – I snuck another in) that they’ll be posting well into August!
Of the nine ten books this month were two for the Classics Club, two galleys, one for my Jane Austen Book Club and two nonfiction books for personal research. If I had to pick the two that had the most impact it would shockingly be the two non-fiction books: Her Best-Kept Secret and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. (I know right?) And of course I loved my re-read of Mansfield Park. I definitely introduced the world to my new favorite hashtag #FPismyhomegirl. (Fanny Price, obviously.)
- #First Impressions, #Second Chances – Heidi Bellieu
- Don Quixote, Part 1 and Part 2 – Miguel Cervantes
- Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
- Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
- Her Best-Kept Secret – Gabrielle Glaser
- Burn After Writing – Sharon Jones
- The Brontë Project – Jennifer Vandever
- The Adventures of Captain Underpants – Dav Pilkey
- The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Marie Kondo
- Anthem – Ayn Rand
Recent Acquisitions
I went a little crazy with books this month. It’s bad because I’ve just finished learning about the KonMarie method, more to come in August, but most of are digital. 😀 I’ve already read one of the KonMarie book and am already planning to re-read it. I blame my friend Caitrin for such a splurge this month. We were meeting for yummy sushi on the first and she was running late and I went into the Barnes and Noble and came out with three books and it went down from there.
I picked up three more Austen fan-fiction and a biography and then a few books about LGBT studies. I’m excited about the A.M. Blair book, she’s a blogger I follow AND it’s about Persuasion which you don’t see many fan-fiction books about.
- Prejudice Meets Pride – Rachel Anderson
- Defining Marriage: Voices from a Forty-Year Labor of Love – Matthew Baume
- Are You My Mother? – Alison Bechdel
- Amelia Elkins Elkins – A.M. Blair
- The Last Days of Dogtown – Anita Diamant
- Only A Novel: The Double Life of Jane Austen – Jane Aiken Hodge
- The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Marie Kondo
- The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet – Bernie Su & Kate Rorick
- The Glass Castle – Jeannette Walls
- Not Gay – Jane Ward
What’s Next?
Because every section needs a picture, you get the lovely typo I found in my Signet Classic edition of Mansfield Park, it’s still not as great as “Darby” in Pride and Prejudice, but it still makes me laugh. I read a great post a while ago about why classics generally have more typos, but still!
I know I keep saying this, but I’m going to try to read more of my TBR pile. I plan on conquering Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Only one of my books this month was from my TBR pile 🙁 I really want to clear down a lot of books before I move at the end of the month, but I may wait until I get all of my stuff in one place again. At that point I can seriously consider whether now is the time to follow the KonMarie method. I don’t generally have a lot of things, but I definitely plan to use some of her methods immediately specifically with my clothing and my books. There are some books that have sat on my shelf for years and some I bought to buy and no longer have an interest in.
How is your summer shaping up and what are you looking forward to? And most importantly, what are you reading!?
July sounds like it was a busy month! I’ve mainly been borrowing Kindle books from local libraries for quite some time now and honestly can’t remember the last time I bought a book in a store… is that bad?? (Not to say I haven’t acquired new books as gifts…)
I’m on my second attempt to start Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell. I’m struggling to get into it a bit. I recently discovered they made a TV series out of it (I think it’s on BBC). I only watched some of the first episode with the hope that it might give me another look to boost my interest in reading it… let me know when you start reading it and what you think!!
It is definitely not a bad thing to use the library! I still checked out three books this month. And that’s exactly why I want to read JS&MN! The boyfriend wanted to see that series and I was like I can’t! Not until I’ve read it, I already had a copy. I’ll power through! I know Heather at Between the Covers just finished it and she enjoyed it.
I’ve had another good reading movie thanks to this lovely long summer holiday I’ve had, but hopefully I will have a new job in the next month or so even if it means less reading time! I really enjoyed the two J.K. Rowling detective novels (written under Robert Galbraith) and I’m eager to get my hands on the third one in the series that comes out this fall.
movie–I mean *month*! Not sure where my mind was at there…
Haahaa I thought you were just talking about adaptations.
I agree with you! I can’t wait for the next one.
Wow, five years of blogging! That’s quite an achievement. Congratulations! Thank you for mentioning Amelia Elkins Elkins. I hope it’s a fun read for you. I love Persuasion and tried my best to be true to Jane Austen’s wonderful characters. The location is loosely based on a real Gilded Age mansion in suburban Philadelphia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynnewood_Hall).
Oh fun! No idea when I’ll finally get around to it but it’s there when I do!!
Are you going to write a review of “Life-Changing Magic”? I read it last month also. Part of me thinks she has a lot of good ideas and part of me thinks that if I followed her approach it would drive me slightly insane!
I am. It’ll be out in about two weeks. I’m that far ahead reading wise. I pretty much follow a lot of what she says already and I’ll apply some of it but living with other people makes it incredibly hard to do a lot of it.
My summer is going well, especially now I have broken up for the school holidays. My reading upped to 6 books last month. Well done, 9 books is great 🙂 You might be pleased to hear I not long started to read Mansfield Park for the Austen in August 🙂
Yay for Mansfield Park! Can’t wait to hear what you have to say about it.
i had to do a quick search to find out what the KonMarie method is. I could certainly do with some of those skills but I know when I start I will get distracted and end up mixing up my sock clear out with the magazine clear out.
Yeah she’s pretty clear about keeping the different sections separate when you are cleaning them.