June Monthly Recap

Well, we’ve reached the halfway point for the year and it’s time for our monthly recap. Find out which books were favorites and which were duds for the month of June and for the first half of 2017. We’ll end our wrap up with a glimpse of our upcoming content. We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read this month and what you look forward to reading in July.Jen: I read a crazy number of books this month in part thanks to a reading challenge over at goodreads. I managed 13.5 books with 3 of them being longer than 500 pages. I gave up on one, Fascinating Folktales of Thailand, which was so abysmally written so that I just couldn’t keep slogging through it. Six books were written by women, only one was written by a person of color, and only two were set outside of the US — making it probably my least diverse month with respect to reading this year. Clearly I need to rectify that this month.

Favorite book read in June: 4321 by Paul Auster and The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah were my two favorites.

Favorite books of 2017 (so far):
4321
Lincoln in the Bardo
Exit West
The Leavers
A Piece of the World

Future Goals: I’m getting reading for Man Booker longlist announcement at the end of the month so want to dedicate some time to books published this year to facilitate my predictions. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Man Booker season!!

Book Worm: I had another slow reading month only 6 books read in June of those 5 were written by men (not good for diversity) and 5 were from outside the U.K. (Good for diversity)

Favorite book read in June: My favourite book was a re-read of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood to tie in with the release of the TV series. The adaptation is significantly different from the book but I am loving it and I am interested to see where they go with the story. Honourable mentions: go to Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks and I-Robot by Isaac Asimov both books from the 1001 list.

Favorite books that I read in 2017 (so far):

Heartless by Melissa Meyer (Jen and I disagree on this one)
Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
Wild Swans by Jung Chang
White Tears by Hari Kunzru
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

Future Goals: Like Jen I will also be attempting to read the entire Man Booker Longlist. I am also hoping to join the read around the world trip to Spain and to join in the American road trip. I have no doubt that I will fail at least some of these objectives.

What can you look forward to on our blog in July? We have a lot in store for July. First off, have we mentioned it is Man Booker season?!? I (Jen) am a bit obsessed. Our shadow panel will be back together to make our predictions and attempt to read our way through the longest. We’ll also be hosting a reading road trip across the US. We hope you join us. It starts tomorrow and you can sign up here. We’ll also continue with our Read Around the World reading challenge with all of you. July is Cuba!

We want to hear from you. So what are your plans for July? Which books were your favorites and least favorites in July?