We’re halfway through 2019 already, and just a couple of weeks into Summer. I am looking forward to the second half of the year, just because it gets us out of Summer. Bring me Autumn and sweater weather!
Books I Read in June:
- Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer
- The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad
- Parrish and Poetry: A Gift of Words and Art by Laurence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler
- Soul of the Sword (Shadow of the Fox #2) by Julie Kagawa
- Caliban’s War (The Expanse #2) by James S.A. Corey
- Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean
- The Blade of the Courtesans by Keiichiro Ryu, translated from the Japanese by James M. Vardaman
- Lucifer, Book One (Lucifer #1) by Mike Carey, et al.
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
- The Sandman, Vol. 4: Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman, et al.
- Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk, translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely
- The Sandman, Vol. 5: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman, et al.
- Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker, audiobook narrated by Steve West
I did not achieve my goal of reading 100 books by mid-year (July 2nd), but that’s fine. It’s not like I haven’t been reading.
Statistically speaking, my gender balance was way out of whack this month, with 76.9% of the books I read having been written by men, 15.4% written by women, and 15.4% (aka one book) written by men and women. Six books were written by British writers, three were by Americans, and one each by writers from Fiji, Turkey, and Japan, while Parrish and Poetry was a collection of poems by poets from Europe and the USA. 76.9% were physical books, 15.4% were ebooks, and 7.7% were audiobooks. Genre-wise, three books were adult fantasy, two each were YA fantasy, nonfiction, and general fiction, and one each were historical fiction, poetry, science fiction, poetry, and memoir. Just over half the books came from the library, while 38.5% were from my own shelves, and 7.7% were from NetGalley. The years of publication ranged from 1847 to 2019.
I had one definite DNF this month: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness, audiobook narrated by Jennifer Ikeda. I made it to 75% before I just couldn’t put up with Diana and Matthew anymore. At the beginning, Diana seemed like such a strong character with a great spark to her personality. She didn’t want someone to step in to protect her, because she felt capable of doing it herself. But by the time I called it quits, all her spark had vanished and she kept saying, “Why do I have to learn about magic? I have you to protect me”. Why would you do that to a perfectly good character? Change them from a smart, independant woman to a damsel in distress? I gave it a good try, but it was too frustrating to finish.
What I Plan to Read in July:
I will continue to listen to the audiobook version of Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, narrated by Simon Vance. Otherwise, I have a stack of big books on the docket:
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- Samarkand by Amin Maalouf
- Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
- Storm Warning (Mage Storms #1) by Mercedes Lackey
- Monkey: The Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en
- Lyric Poems by John Keats
- Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, ARC provided by NetGalley
- Storm of Locusts (The Sixth World #2) by Rebecca Roanhorse
I will probably finish up Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series this month. I have already checked out the remaining volumes from the library, so they are stacked up and ready to read. I want to see about getting to the rest of my ARCs in July and August and get the reviews written and scheduled, since I will be traveling in mid-September, and won’t have time or inclination to write reviews while I’m gone. I don’t have a lot of them, so it shouldn’t be a big deal to get to them all before the end of August.
I have no idea what I might end up watching in July. I have a lot of things on my Netflix queue, but no particular inclination. I may not watch anything at all there and just stick with BookTube and my podcast subscriptions. Whatever I end up watching or listening to, I intend to take it in while sitting somewhere cool and shady. Summer is here, and like every year, it’s a season I have to endure.
Traveling in Books 
I, too, am listening to a book narrated by Simon Vance! It’s interview with the Vampire, and even though he reads SO slowly, it fits the book. I know I could speed up the audio book, but I feel like that would defeat the purpose of his slow speech. Then again, after an hour of listening, I checked and found I had gotten through what would be 26 physical pages. Yeesh.
Yikes! That is super slow! He’s been going right through Bring up the Bodies, but it’s a pace that matches the quickness of the prose.
I think Louis is a thinker, slow and methodical, so it sounds like this voice actor actually takes the time to understand his characters, which is excellent! I recently listened to Orange is the New Black, and I just honked my hooter that the voice actor kept saying SHU as an initialism instead of an acronym. It’s basic prison knowledge! It made me feel like she didn’t understand the book she was narrating.
Derp! Simon Vance definitely knows his characters. He also gives individual voices to the women without giving them breathy falsettos, which I really appreciate. I’m approaching the end of Bring up the Bodies, though, so I will need to find something else to listen to.
Have you listened to The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes? It was a novella published in 1913 that is delightfully scary and intense! It’s based on the Jack the Ripper events. The voice actor was wonderful.
I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never read it. I’m not sure if my library has it. I will have to look into it.