August Monthly Recap

It’s time for our monthly recap! Find out which books were favorites, which were duds, and which ones we plan to read the following month. We’ll end our wrap up with a calendar of book-related events/facts from the Month of August and we’ll highlight our upcoming September content. We’ve also added a list of upcoming book releases for September (scroll to the end for the list).

This month, one randomly selected follower (email or wordpress follower) will win a $10 amazon gift card. Scroll down to see if you are the winner. The prize is only awarded if you contact us with your email address so make sure to check these monthly recaps each month to see if you won! We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read in August and what you look forward to reading in September. 

Jen
Okay, so I broke my pledge not to buy any new books. I bought a lot of new books although to be fair, I mostly used a gift card I won from a Penguin books giveaway so I didn’t really spend more than $10 of my own money. So while I did make a dent in my physical TBR by reading 5 books, I added 7 books. August was a stressful reading month for me because I bit off more than I could chew and felt very pressured by deadlines. At times I was reading 4-5 books at once (not conducive to enjoyable reading). Why? I had 3 netgalleys arc requests approved for books due out in September, we decided to try and read as many of the Booker longlist books before the shortlist announcement (and I had read zero prior to starting this goal), and I had several books to read for my shelfari challenges. Anyway, I read some great books and some not so great books this past month. Here are my most and least favorites:

Favorite book read in August: I read a lot of books I loved this month. Most books I read in August were either 4 or 5 star reads – almost unheard of for me. My favorite was A Little Lifeby Yanagihara. Honorable mentions (that would have made my favorite had they been read in any other month): The Heart Goes Last by Atwood (release date: Sept 29); The Marriage Plot by Eugenides; The French Lieutenant’s Woman by Fowles; and The Heather Blazing by Toibin.

Least favorite book read in August: The Piano Teacher by Jelineke. This was so not my type of book. Overly sexual in a creepy way that disturbed me. I get that she was trying to make a point with the style and content, but I was so disgusted that I had to skim through a lot of sections.

September Goals: I will once again attempt to refrain from buying any new books this month. I also hope to continue making a dent in my TBR. Primary goals will be to finish Rushdie’s new book before the release date and read more of the Booker Longlist books before the shortlist is announced. I hope to get to The Chimes, The Illuminations, Sleeping On Jupiter, and The Moor’s Account.

Book Worm

Favourite Book read in August: The Illuminationsby Andrew O’Hagan. Honourable mention goes to Silence by Shusaku Endo and The Chimes by Anna Smaill.

Least Favourite Book read in August: I didn’t have a least favourite book this month. The lowest rating I gave any of them was 3 stars. So, mostly an average month on the book front.

Pages for Progress number of pages read: 3895

September Goals: Once again I have failed to read Life After Life my excuse this time? Reading as many of the Man Booker Longlist books that I can get hold of has put everything else on hold. For September I am setting a goal I can’t fail to achieve and that is to read as many Man Booker books I can before the shortlist is announced. I currently have on hand The Year of the Runaways and A Brief History of Seven Killings. Watch this blog for updates.

Here’s a look back at literary events in August.

What can you look forward to on our blog in September? We will feature our recurring posts: Love it or Hate it (Freedom by Jonathan Franzen), Read Around the World (England), Featured Author, and Kid’s Corner. We’ll also feature reviews of several of the Man Booker Longlist books. We have scheduled reviews for Rushdie’s latest book due out at the beginning of the month and Margaret Atwood’s The Heart Goes Last, due out at the end of the month. Finally, we will wrap up our Summer reading challenge and will award prizes to our winners. We will also announce our fall reading challenge that will begin in October — a chance for more prizes!

For more on upcoming content you can always check out our event calendar — featured on our sidebar.

Here are a few books that will be released in September:
Purity: A Novelby Jonathan Franzen: September 1
The Girl in the Spider’s Web: A Lisbeth Salander novel, continuing Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series by David Lagercrantz: September 1
The Story of the Lost Child: Neapolitan Novels, Book Four by Elena Ferrante: September 1
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie: September 8
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff: September 15
Undermajordomo Minorby Patrick DeWitt: September 15
The Blue Guitarby John Banville: September 15
The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood: September 29
After Youby Jojo Moyes: September 29

We want to hear from you. What books did you read in August? Which your favorites? Least favorites? Is there anything you are looking forward to in September?

The winner of our follower appreciation is a wordpress follower: MeglyMc. In order to claim the prize you need to reply to this post or email me saying that you want to claim the prize! Congrats, you win a $10 gift card to Amazon! NOTE: winners are randomly selected from pool of either wordpress or email followers of this blog.