My Bookish Month of July 2023

Hi and welcome to another monthly overview!

July was a rather difficult month. Our neighbour from across the street died very suddenly while on holiday with her husband and daughters. She was only 45. You can imagine what kind of shockwave went through our neighbourhood. The funeral service at the crematorium was beautiful but heartbreaking, it was very personal with photos and music and loved ones reading out letters to the deceased. The room was packed and half of the attendants, including me, were bawling their eyes out. Her being that young, just a few years older than the hubby and me, also made us quite introspective. So yeah, July in a nutshell: crappy weather and an unexpected death and its aftermath.

Life goes on until the moment it stops forever, so here’s August, bringing a total of three weeks off work. We can only hope the weather picks up cos I (and my tomato plants) have had it with this rain. I will be taking a bit of break from blogging and reviewing and I’m really looking forward to reading just for fun!

My bookish month was okay. I had some trouble focussing and I read a bit slower than I usually do, but I did enjoy most of what I read.

Honourable mentions to Delicate Condition, Look Both Ways, Coffee Gives Me Superpowers and The Only Good Indians, but these were my favourite reads of the month:

In figures July looks like this:

July
Novels: 5904 pages across 18 books
Audiobooks: 55 hours across 10 books

And here’s what I did in July and some of what I’ll be posting in August:

What I read:

The Square of Sevens, Laura Shepherd-Robinson
L Is for Lollygag: Quirky Words for a Clever Tongue, Molly Glover
Dead Rich, G.W. Shaw
Delicate Condition, Danielle Valentine (review to follow)
Look Both Ways, Linwood Barclay
A Death in the Family, Michael Stanley
Coffee Gives Me Superpowers, Ryoko Iwata
La última jugada, Fernando Trujillo Sanz
Sing Me to Sleep, Gabi Burton
All the Little Liars, Victoria Selman (review to follow)
The Murmurs, Michael J. Malone
Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone, Benjamin Stevenson
The House of Whispers, Anna Mazzola
The Kaiju Preservation Society, John Scalzi
Mirror Image, Gunnar Staalesen (review to follow)
The Only One Left, Riley Sager
The Roanoke Girls, Amy Engel
Fungi, edited by Orrin Grey and Silvia Moreno-Garcia

What I listened to:

Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Gillian McAllister
Follow the Money, Matthew Costello & Neil Richards
Dragon Teeth, Michael Crichton
The Liar’s Wife, Samantha Hayes
City Heat, Neil Richards & Matthew Costello
Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt
Scared to Death, Neil Richards & Matthew Costello
The Troop, Nick Cutter
The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones
The One I Left Behind, Jennifer McMahon

What I read earlier but reviewed in July:

One Good Deed, David Jackson
Whisperwood, Alex Woodroe
Silver Nitrate, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Opposite of Lonely, Doug Johnstone
Someone Like Her, Awais Khan

I also had a look at my bookish quarter in pie charts.

Let’s have a look at the books that landed on my lap in July:

Two I couldn’t resist and two for the Orenda collection I’d already read digitally:

Three 99p deals, one I couldn’t not buy even though Sager’s books have been a bit hit and miss, and three digital proofs, courtesy of Orenda Books:

I hope you had a good month and that you are safe and well! Thanks for joining me today and happy reading xxx