July reading
July was a slow reading month by my standards, and I’ve even fallen behind on my Seattle Public Library summer book bingo reading—it requires reading books in 24 categories roughly between Memorial Day and Labor Day, which works out to 8 books apiece in June, July, and August, with a week or so of grace period on either side. Normally I’m running ahead of schedule at this point in the summer, but I’ve still got 10 categories to fill for my blackout. I’ve got a plan, and backup reads for most of the categories in case my first choice isn’t working for me, but I feel like I’m back in college procrastinating on big assignments.
Anyway, I did barely squeak into double digits with 10 books for the month:
The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst. SPL Book Bingo, Soothing. A completely cozy and whimsical romantic fantasy, which I thoroughly enjoyed. (It's also tagged and described as a romantasy, but to me that implies a certain level of angst and kinky and/or explicit sex that just isn't there. I mean, this is a book I would've shared with my very prim and proper mom, if she were still around, though she wasn't the SFF lover that I am and might not have liked it on that count.)
Celia's House by D.E. Stevenson. I wouldn't want all my reading to be quite this old-fashioned and wholesome--I mean, my mom really would've loved this one, and reading it filled me with the peculiar wistfulness of knowing exactly what I'd buy for Christmas for someone no longer in the world for me to give it to--but I'm glad I made the time to read it.
The Golden Road by William Dalrymple. A look at ancient India's deep, though often-overlooked impact on the cultures to its east and west from roughly 500 BCE to 1200 CE.
The Everlasting by Alix Harrow. Hugo finalist, Novel; SPL Book Bingo, Time Travel. Wow. Just, wow. That is quite a book. A gender-bent twist on the Arthurian legend and a twisty time travel love story that's something of a meditation on violence, PTSD, and the costs of empire. So good.
The Inescapable Love of God by Thomas Talbott. My deep dive into Christian universalism continues. I think the author made convincing arguments about logical fallacies in the Augustinian and Calvinist positions, though the more abstract, philosophical sections made my head spin a bit.
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson. Hugo finalist, Novel; SPL Book Bingo, Own Choice. I picked this for Own Choice because I slammed the book down (metaphorically, as it was an ebook) early at the first major plot twist because it made me SO ANGRY, and when I googled for spoilers I saw that it's not going to be undone, at least not in this book (I hold out hope for later in the trilogy). But then I kept thinking about it and wanting to read more, so I chose to pick it up and plow through all 600 pages though I'm still SO ANGRY about that plot twist.
The Unclaimed by Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans. This book tracing the lives and deaths of four people who ended up as unclaimed bodies in the L.A. morgue was tender and moving, and it also made me vow to work a bit harder on my family connections, keep up my community chorus membership, stop skipping coffee hour after church, and faithfully attend my virtual and in-person writers groups. Oh, and now that my husband and I have our wills squared away, figure out what we want done for our actual funerals and make some concrete plans (albeit not involving concrete--we're looking into green burial options, with my husband favoring human composting while I'm more interested in a traditional burial without embalming in a wooden or wicker casket).
Half American by Matthew F. Delmont. An account of Black Americans' service in WWII, in the teeth of the bigotry of Jim Crow. Often infuriating, always fascinating, and it made me see connections between WWII and the Civil Rights Movement I wasn't previously aware of.
Provence, 1970 by Luke Barr. A gossipy account of some of the very first celebrity chefs and food personalities spending a couple of months in late 1970 cooking, talking, and occasionally clashing in the way of big personalities with big egos.
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman. SPL Book Bingo, Recommended by an Independent Bookseller. Did I stay up till 11:50 PM to finish this last night so my book tally for July wouldn't be in the single digits? Why yes, I did. Anyway, this was a lot of fun and I might continue with the series, though I don't think I'm going to become a big fan of LitRPG in general.