Read:
God in the Dock – C.S. Lewis (Collins, 1979)
The Whalebone Theatre – Joanna Quinn (Alfred A. Knopf, 2022)
The Little Friend – Donna Tartt (Alfred A. Knopf, 2022)
Grief is the Thing with Feathers – Max Porter (Graywolf Press, 2014)
The Capital of Dreams – Heather O’Neill
Did Not Finish:
Santa Evita – Tomas Eloy Martinez
(Abandoned on page 26. I think I’m either not informed enough about the historical personage of Eva Peron or I just am not interested enough. Either way I kept forgetting I was reading this book.)
Currently Reading:
A Room of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf
The Journals of Sylvia Plath
The Fox Wife – Yangsze Choo
The City and the City – China Mieville
2024 Reading Goals
Goliath Challenge: 12, 081 pages read/30, 000 (1, 803 in July)
Goliath Books Read: 3 (Whalebone Theatre and Little Friend in July)
Translated Works: 3/15 (none in July)
Books I Already Own: 6/15 (God in the Dock and The Little Friend in July)
Pre-2023 TBR: 4/25 (God in the Dock – 2015, The Little Friend – 2016, Grief is the Thing with Feathers – 2019)
Current TBR: 213 (previously 210)
Thoughts:
Only 5 books in July but two of them were quite long. I don’t have as much time to listen to audiobooks while the girls are out of school in the summer and I think that’s being reflected a little in my reading numbers. I did The Little Friend in an audio/hardcopy combo which worked pretty well. While I didn’t love The Little Friend, I would say my July reading was generally of a high calibre. The Whalebone Theatre, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, and Capital of Dreams were all excellently crafted, powerful works of fiction.
And my 20 Books of Summer? Here’s how that’s going:
- The Epic of Gilgamesh
- As For Me and My House – Sinclair Ross
- The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
- Beowulf (trans. by Seamus Heaney)
God in the Dock – C.S. Lewis- Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander – Thomas Merton
- Why I Write – George Orwell
- The Journals of Sylvia Plath
- Sleeping Giants – Rene Denfeld
- The Cursed Friend – Salvioni
- The Coast Road – Murrin’
- River East, River West – Aube Rey Lescure
The Capital of Dreams – Heather O’Neill- The Golem and the Jinni – Helene Wecker
- The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith – Peter Carey
- The Back of the Turtle – Thomas King
- Far to Go – Alison Pick
- White Boy Shuffle – Paul Beatty
- The Hand that First Held Mine – Maggie O’Farrell
The Little Friend – Donna Tartt
Obviously it’s going swimmingly! I have read 3 of my 20 books. But I have read 11 books in the summer so far so I think there’s a good chance that I will end up reading 20 or close to that this summer. So maybe that’s a success?
Karissa Reads Books 
It sounds like you’re having a good reading summer (even if you aren’t reading the books you planned)! I have been completely sidetracked from my 20 Books of Summer list and have ended up rereading a few favourites, which is the opposite of what I intended, but I’m still enjoying it.
It has been a good reading summer and so I’m happy with my results so far. I might not be reading exactly what I planned but I have checked off a few titles from my TBR and I’ve read some good, unplanned books too.
Karissa, was that…..sarcasm??? 🤣
I read CS Lewis’s book The Problem Of Pain and I remember being really surprised by his description of non-christians. He said something to the effect of they do all these things that make them happy, though they aren’t really the things that are supposed to make you happy in Christ. He said a person in hell is someone who has locked the door from the inside and doesn’t want out. I kind of respect that description. If I’m happy, and I lock my own door, lovely Christians don’t need to worry about me.
Lewis’ book The Great Divorce is a really fascinating look at heaven and hell. Modern evangelical Christianity in the west has gotten so caught up in demons and end of the world and fiery damnation but the Bible talks about that very little. Jesus himself told his followers that if they were not welcomed by others they should simply move on. The aggressive proselytizing we see so much of now is really unbiblical to my mind.