Read:
A Circle of Quiet – Madeleine L’Engle (Harper Collins, 1972)
The Rise & Fall of Great Powers – Tom Rachman (Anchor Canada, 2014)
The Good Eye – Jess Gibson (Knopf Canada, 2026)
City Like Water – Dorothy Tse (Gray Wolf Press, 2026) (translated from Chinese by Natascha Bruce)
The Witch – Marie Ndiaye (Vintage Books, 2026) (translated from French by Jordan Stump)
Shooting Up – Jonathan Tepper (Constable, 2026)
Property Values – Charles Demers (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018)
Currently Reading:
Prophet Song – Paul Lynch
Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir
Damned If I Do – Percival Everett
Thoughts:
I haven’t written a lot of reviews in July and some of that is largely due to the fact that I’ve finished books and then felt like I don’t have that much to say about them. I closed the book, set it down, and then largely forgot about it. That sounds like “damning with faint praise” but I don’t necessarily mean it that way. I’ve enjoyed the books that I’ve read in July, it’s simply that many of them haven’t sparked much reaction from me. I have to wonder if that’s more about where my head is right now than the books themselves. I do have a review of Shooting Up scheduled for next week and am trying to plan my August reading around some things that hopefully excite me a bit more.
2026 Reading Goals:
69/100 books (7 in June)
Theological: 0/12
Translated Works: 8/12 (City Like Water from Chinese and The Witch from French)
Pre-2025 TBR: 11/25 (none in July)
Goliaths: 6/6 (none in July)
Owned: 15/25 (A Circle of Quiet, The Rise & Fall of Great Powers, and City Like Water)
Current TBR: 199 (previously 191)
What’s Next:
I’m not a big movie person but I was interested in seeing The Odyssey, so Peter and I went earlier this week and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Of course, I’m largely familiar with the story but I’ve never actually read it. So I think that’s going to be next off of my 10 Books of Summer List, while the movie is fresh in my mind and I can better compare. I also found a copy of Natalie Haynes’ Pandora’s Jar at a second hand sale so I’m going to try and read that at the same time.
The Golem and the Jinni – Helene Wecker
A Fortune of Sand – Ruta Sepetys
Prophet Song – Paul Lynch
The Boy from the Sea – Garrett Carr
The Odyssey – Homer (translated by Emily Wilson)
Abiding Dependence – Ron Block
Babel – R.F. Kuang
The Rise & Fall of Great Powers – Tom Rachman
A Horse at Night – Amina Cain
A Circle of Quiet – Madeleine L’Engle
What Pearl Read:
The War That Saved My Life – Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Top Story – Kelly Yang
Chef’s Secret – Kelly Yang
The Vanderbeekers Make a Wish – Karina Yan Glaser
Cream Buns and Crime – Robin Stevens
Death at the Lighthouse – Alasdair Beckett-King
The Vanderbeekers on the Road – Karina Yan Glaser
Hotel Magnifique – Emily Taylor
The War I Finally Won – Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Pearl’s Reading Goal:
61/100
Karissa Reads Books 
Call me silly if you will, but I really appreciated how the film version of The Odyssey made Odysseus loyal to his wife. The story bothers me because he spends the entire journey home sleeping with other women. Maybe that was a cultural norm or I was just missing the forest for the trees, but it always irritated me that this was supposed to be some kind of journey /romance story that just involved a woman waiting and a dude having sex with other women. I also like how Odysseus had that pivotal moment when he realized why he had to go on the journey and how it related to the Trojan war. At first, I wasn’t sure if I “enjoyed” the movie, but then I realized I was so immersed in it that I forgot that I was in a movie theater.
I enjoyed the film version. I thought it was an interpretation for a modern American audience rather than a 100% accurate retelling and it worked as what it was. I think it was culturally much more accepted for a husband to have sex outside his marriage then and so that isn’t seen as something wrong Odysseus is doing. If you read The Iliad, all the main characters have slave girls and “war brides” and no one seems to view it as dishonourable. I’m reading Natalie Haynes’ Pandora’s Jar right now and it’s given some great context for Greek history and mythology.
I don’t care about dishonorable, I just care about catching an STD! Or being the long-suffering wife! I will say, I’ve heard that people are buying the Odyssey like crazy now. Even if the movie is not accurate to the story, and I love how people are saying accurate as in historically accurate, it is getting them to read classic literature.
I didn’t think of the STD angle! Who knows what Odysseus could have brought back from some of those islands😬 My bookstore has sold so many more copies of The Odyssey recently and I think it’s great to see people interested in these classics.