Read:
Nightbitch – Rachel Yoder (Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2021)
Good Dirt – Charmaine Wilkerson (Penguin Random House, 2025) (narrated by January LaVoy)
Honeydew: Stories – Edith Pearlman (Little, Brown and Company, 2015)
Tenth of December: Stories – George Saunders (Random House, 2023)
The Wedding People – Alison Espach (Macmillan Audio, 2024) (narrated by Helen Laser)
Room for Good Things to Run Wild – Josh Nadeau (W. Publishing Group, 2024)
52 Ways to Reconcile – David A. Robertson (McClelland & Stewart, 2025)
Dark Like Under – Alice Chadwick (Biblioasis, 2025)
Heart Lamp: Stories – Banu Mushtaq (translated from Kannada by Deepa Basthi) (And Other Stories, 2025)
Snap – Susin Nielsen (Harper Collins Publishers Ltd., 2025)
Shy – Max Porter (Penguin Random House Canada, 2023)
Currently Reading:
Anne of Windy Poplars – L.M. Montgomery
The Riches of Your Grace – Julie Lane-Gay
Universality – Natasha Brown
A Guardian Angel Recalls – Willem Frederik Hermans
2025 Reading Goals:
Pages Read: 16, 929 pages (2, 160 in June)
Hours Listened: 241 hours, 8 minutes (29 hours, 39 minutes in June)
Goliaths Conquered: 5 (none in June)
Translated Works: 8 (Heart Lamp translated from Kannada in June)
Pre-2024 TBR: 17 (Tenth of December from 2022 and Shy from 2023 in June)
Current TBR: 140 (previously 201) While I have been reading a lot from my TBR, this dramatic drop isn’t simply due to that. I filled up the notebook I was using and so transferred my list to a new one. While doing so, I took the opportunity to cull the list a bit and cut out books I’m no longer interested in reading.
Thoughts:
I read 10 books in June which is not as much as I have been reading but still a number I can be pleased with. June has been…a lot in our house so I certainly don’t feel bad about this number. It also doesn’t surprise me that my choices in June leaned a little more to a lighter fare. Nighbitch, The Wedding People, and Snap were all quick to get through and easy to absorb. Likewise, I read three short story collections – Honeydew, Tenth of December, and Heart Lamp – all of which I could read while reading other things. Both 52 Ways to Reconcile and Shy were quite short. Dark Like Under definitely took me the longest to read but was satisfying to complete. I’d say the definite highlight of my June reading was Nighbitch which I’ve already reviewed. Reviews for 52 Ways to Reconcile, Dark Like Under, Heart Lamp, and Snap are all scheduled in the coming weeks.
What’s Next:
More from my 20 Books of Summer, of course! My list is below and I feel like it’s going well so far. I do have some holds I’m waiting on at the library that are not part of this list but are books I hope to read before the local Writers Fest in August.
- Why I Write – George Orwell
- The Riches of Your Grace – Julie Lane-Gay
- North of Normal – Cea Sunrise Person
- Run Towards the Danger – Sarah Polley
Room for Good Things to Run Wild – Josh NadeauSnap –Susin Nielsen52 Ways to Reconcile – David A. Robertson- Universality – Natasha Brown
- White Nights – Fyodr Dostoevsky
- Song of the Sun God – Shankari Chandran
- Compass – Mathias Enard
- Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki – Haruki Murakami
- A Guardian Angel Recalls – Willem Frederik Hermans
- The Cursed Friend – Beatrice Salvioni
- I Who Have Never Known Men – Jacqueline Harpman
- The Weekend – Charlotte Wood
- Where Angels Fear to Tread – E.M. Forster
- The Golden Age – Kenneth Grahame
- The Sea – John Banville
- The Hand that First Held Mine – Maggie O’Farrell
Karissa Reads Books 
A good cull is so satisfying, isn’t it? I also finds it renews my enthusiasm for the books that stay on the list!
Yes! It worked to also remind me of why some titles were on the list in the first place!
Where Angels Fear to Tread is waiting for me on my shelves, so I will be interested to see what you make of that if you review it. So far EM Forster is a bit like Edith Wharton for me – an author I admire and respect, but can’t bring myself to love – but I keep thinking I should give him another go!
I like Forster though I don’t know if I’d say I love him. I read my first Wharton this year and definitely did not love it. I do prefer Forster so I’m hopeful about this one!
My mom is getting ready to read Wedding People for a book club. I’m so jealous that she lives in Michigan. In that state, you basically have access to every single book in every library across the state. You just get on a website and request it. So while her own library has about 40 or 50 people waiting in line for the Wedding People, it’s already in transit from another library. Why do I live in Indiana!?
Also, Winnie the Dog’s booty 🥹
That’s wild! I use the inter-library loan system here in BC but new books are off limits and the major cities are not included so there’s still plenty of books I can’t get. Michigan sounds great!