June Wrap-Up and a Look to July

In all of the excitement of getting ready for Book Expo America last month, I totally missed doing a wrap-up for May and book list for June. But oh well, that time has passed, and we’re already on the way for July (seriously, July?).

I had another really good reading month in June. My goal most of the year has been between eight and 10 books, each month, and I managed to accomplish that this month thanks to finishing two audiobooks — Catherine the Great and Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. Here’s the full list:

1. du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
2. Massie, Robert K.: Catherine the Great (audiobook)
3. French, Paul: Murder in Peking
4. Stone, Alex: Fooling Houdini
5. Iversen, Kristen: Full Body Burden
6. Jones, Tayari: Silver Sparrow
7. Booy, Simon Van: Everything Beautiful Began After
8. Lawson, Jenny: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (audiobook)
9. Towles, Amor: Rules of Civility
10. Sharpe, Katherine: Coming of Age on Zoloft

As you can see, I’m still working on finishing reviews for… almost all of them. That’s one of my goals for today, since boyfriend is working a double shift at work and it’s going to be too hot this afternoon to really enjoy being outdoors. We’ll see how that goes.

For those counting (mainly, me), reading 10 books in June puts me at 63 books for the year — well past where I need to be at to meet my goal to finish 100 books this year. And, happily, I’m still doing a pretty good job of balancing between my own books (22 books = 35 percent), review copies (25 books = 40 percent), and library books (16 books = 25 percent).

But what I suppose everyone really cares about is what books I have on my stacks for July. Next weekend, boyfriend and I are traveling to my parents’ cabin in Wisconsin to celebrate the 4th of July. As a birthday present to me, boyfriend has agreed to do all of the driving for the trip, so I expect to get a lot of reading done. I’m still picking out my reads for by the lake (always a fun challenge), but I have some idea of the books that will be on my plate when I get back:

• The Mansion of Happiness by Jill Lepore — This is my current read, a history of ideas about life and death. The author, Jill Lepore, is a staff writer at The New Yorker, which is fairly obvious in just the few chapters I’ve read so far. They read very much like New Yorker essays, which I’m really digging.
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald — This is the first selection for Book Riot’s first Riot Read, so I’d like to read it and participate in the discussion. I also want to do a list of nonfiction inspired by the book, but of course I have to read the book first!
• How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran — When I got pitched this book, the publicist described it as a book people who were fans of Mindy Kaling, Jenny Lawson, Tina Fey and Peggy Orenstein would enjoy. That sounds exactly up my alley. I’m excited for this one.
• Eat the City by Robin Shulman — I think the subtitle of this book will tell you all you need to know: “A Tale of the Fishers, Foragers, Butchers, Farmers, Poultry Minders, Sugar Refiners, Cane Cutters, Beekeepers, Winemakers, and Brewers Who Built New York.”
• Triburbia by Karl Taro Greenfield — The biggest appeal of this book — a story of a group of fathers who meet for breakfast after dropping their children off an at exclusive school in Tribeca — is that it is a collection of connected short stories, a format I have a total weakness for.

There are several other books I’d like to get to this month, many that I’ve checked out from the library — Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead, The Life boat by Charlotte Rogan, The Romanovs by Robert K. Massie — but I suspect those will be lake-side reads.

For now, I need some breakfast and a little time outside in the sunshine before the day turns oppressively hot. Happy Sunday everyone!

Photo Credit: Rob Warde via Flickr