July Recap 2019

I have no idea how August is here. I mean July was super busy and I actually got to read a lot, so I do, but summer feels almost as if it’s done even though I know we have another month (holiday wise) and almost two according to the seasons, but whoa time, slow down please. In July we went to Texas and the beach (why, it’s soooo hot??!?!) which allowed me to read a lot.

We didn’t get to go to the beach as much last year, but this year we’ve already gone a few times. For some reason we chose the hottest day of the year to go to Nahant Beach and then this past weekend we went to the beautiful Crane Beach (both north of Boston). The coolest part about Crane, aside from it just being really nice was the little free library! I had plenty to read with me, but was like “OMG YES this is the best,” especially if you forgot something or finished it while there.

We also made our somewhat regular trek to Texas to see Tim’s family where I ate delicious Torchy’s Tacos and we played WhirlyBall (wikipedia link) which was an insane combination of bumper cars, basketball, and jai alai.

Books and Bookish Things
I read quite a bit this month with four illustrated works balancing out the two nonfiction and one heavier “literary fiction” works. Overwhelmingly, I think the illustrated were my favorite. It was the perfect time of the year for them and the first three (Tagame’s and Panetta’s) were just so wonderful. Five of the books were library books and the pother three were galleys.

631. My Brother’s Husband, Volume 1 – Gengoroh Tagame
632. My Brother’s Husband, Volume 2 – Gengoroh Tagame
633. When Brooklyn Was Queer – Hugh Ryan
634. The Mother of the Brontës – Sharon Wright
635. Severance – Ling Ma
636. Bloom – Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau
637. The Vanished Bride – Bella Ellis
638. The Backstagers: Rebels Without Applause (The Backstagers #1) – James Tynion IV, Rian Sygh, and Walter Baiamonte

And speaking of libraries I went to the main Harvard University library (Widener) for the first time this month. I’ve been in Baker before (the business school library), but not Widener. I only had time to take a snapshot of the directory as I ran in to grab some DVDs on hold and run out, but I am DEFINITELY going back one day to just wander around.

Two months after it was published I came across this one which was fascinating. It’s an episode of one of my favorite podcasts 99 Percent Invisible where they talk about how libraries weed out books!

Weeding is Fundamental https://t.co/E0dNwzxZ9u pic.twitter.com/x7WKoPQhG1

— 99 Percent Invisible (@99piorg) May 14, 2019

We also FINALLY played a game (Don’t Quote Me) that my friend Jess got me when I left my last job and the card to the right came up. I nearly died laughing when it gave the choices. I may have had a few drinks throughout the evening, but it was too much when those were the three choices. My roommate got it wrong. The only card that might’ve trumped this was a Wuthering Heights card that came up and my roommate’s boyfriend started walking around the living room saying “I know it’s in here, it’s one of those ones you have dozens of copies of.” He wasn’t wrong, there were at least 6 copies of it in the living room, but unfortunately for him five were in foreign languages 😀

I also celebrated NINE years of blogging this month. I created a nested tweet with all my anniversary posts:

Nine years ago I started blogging about books. It's hard to believe it's been nine years. The number of bloggers I've seen come and go FAR outweighs those that have stuck around. Nested are all of my anniversary look backs over the years.

— Geoff Whaley (@geoff_whaley) July 22, 2019

What’s Next?
Work is picking up, as it usually does in the late summer, we have a couple of weekend trips planned out to Tanglewood and maybe up to Maine for Labor Day. I have a few more ARC/galleys to read and a few library books to catch up on too. Other than that I’m just moving forward and enjoying the weather (and by that I mean the AC and looking at the sunny weather).