Read:
The Sea – John Banville (Vintage International, 2005)
The Weekend – Charlotte Wood (Riverhead Books, 2019)
The Riches of Your Grace – Julie Lane-Gay (InterVarsity Press, 2024)
Universality – Natasha Brown (Knopf Canada, 2025) (narrated by Norma Butikofer, Anushka Chakravarti, Clare Corbett, Daniel Weyman)
Why I Write – George Orwell (Penguin Books, 2005)
Anne of Windy Poplars – L.M. Montgomery (Seal Books, 1981)
Run Towards the Danger – Sarah Polley (Hamish Hamilton, 2022)
A Guardian Angel Recalls – William Frederik Hermans (Archipelago Books, 2021) (translated from Dutch by David Colmer)
A Reluctant Mother – Deirdre Simon Dore (Ronsdale Press, 2024)
Did Not Finish:
Lost City of Cats – Tanya Lloyd Kyi
Nothing against this middle grade audio book but I downloaded it from Libro.fm for a recent family road trip. My kids were into it and say they want to eventually listen to it but unfortunately the narration was a bit too soothing and made us all feel sleepy while driving, including our driver.
Currently Reading:
The Tale of Desperaux – Kate DiCamillo
The Accidental Favourite – Fran Littlewood
Horsefly – Mireille Gagne
2025 Reading Goals
Pages Read: 19, 050 (2, 121 in July)
Hours Listened: 245 hours, 29 minutes (4 hours, 21 minutes in July)
Goliaths Conquered: 6 (A Guardian Angel Recalls in July)
Translated Works: 9 (A Guardian Angel Recalls translated from Dutch, in July)
Pre-2024 TBR: 19 (The Weekend from 2020 and Why I Write from 2018)
Current TBR: 130 (previously 140)
Thoughts:
I’m definitely behind in getting this post written because I’m not well into my August reading and the books I read at the beginning of July seem far away. I read 9 books in July, which is a bit of a drop again in my numbers but certainly nothing to be bothered about. My audiobook time has drastically decreased with the kids home from school so I only listened to one short audiobook. I started the month with a strong focus on my 20 Books of Summer list and then started to fade away by the end of the month and into the beginning of August. (I picked up a couple of books from authors who will be featured at our local Writers Fest later this week.) Despite my shift in focus, I have managed to continue to prioritize non-American authors and stay on track with my goals of reading translated work.
My July highlight was definitely Sarah Polley’s memoir. I enjoyed many parts of Why I Write and A Guardian Angel Recalls but love seems like a strong word for either one. I’m glad I read The Sea and The Weekend but struggled to relate to any of the characters.
What’s Next:
I’m entering the last few weeks in which to complete my 20 Books of Summer and I’m only about halfway through my list! Will I do it? Maybe? Realistically, I probably won’t get through the audio books I’ve picked out. This upcoming week will be a very busy one for me at work so I’m keeping my reading expectations low and then we’ll have to see what the end of the month holds. I’m definitely going to prioritize some of the shorter, more readable titles on my list. (Sorry Murakami.)
Why I Write – George OrwellThe Riches of Your Grace – Julie Lane-Gay- North of Normal – Cea Sunrise Person
Run Towards the Danger – Sarah PolleyRoom for Good Things to Run Wild – Josh NadeauSnap –Susin Nielsen52 Ways to Reconcile – David A. RobertsonUniversality – 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 
I didn’t realize Kate DiCamillo wrote The Tale of Desperaux. My niece recommended Because of Winn Dixie, which was a great audiobook, by the same author.
We haven’t read that one yet! Is it sad? This book and a previous middle grade we read from DiCamillo have been surprisingly sad for a kids book. I’m not against it but her style is really different than so many others who write for children.
I thought it was going to be sad for a moment, but it wasn’t. If you jump on my blog and search for the name of the book, you’ll find my review. I don’t think I mentioned anything sad at all. Nothing too grown up that I remember.