Summer is almost gone, and I am not here to mourn that. I’m a winter/ autumn girlie, with a touch of early spring, when I can enjoy the sweet scent of air and greenery without the oppressive heat. This year I had especially prolific summer reading plans, but big TBRs really only exist as lulz for my future self – I rarely manage to stick to a rigid reading list. Below, though, are the books that made it out of my ten foot ancient scroll of questionable summer joys to a reality of “I ought to read these before the leaves fully turn.”
Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury
Last year I tried to finish this book in the autumn months, and I just couldn’t. This is indeed summer joys distilled, and I want to read the story during the season. Gentle summer nights just EMANATE from this book’s pages. Plus, I really want to get to Something Wicked this Way Comes and Farewell Summer come October, and I’d rather read this one first.
I made a whole-ass list of summer romances I wanted to read during the scalding months of May, June, July, and August, but hardly got around to any of them, because I’m always distracted by the next thing. The full list would have to wait until next year, Lord willing, but I do want to cross out at least some reads off of it this summer, even if the season is heavily on the wane.
Problematic Summer Romance, by Ali Hazelwood
I chose Hazelwood from the list mentioned above, because I’ll be reading this one fresh in the footsteps of Not In Love, the first one in the series. You can’t really get any more summery than this title. And it’s set in Sicily. Plus I don’t want to wait a year to read the follow-up to Not In Love, even if the follow-up involves a different couple, and the tropes mentioned aren’t really my thing.
Just for the Summer, by Abby Jimenez
Another romance book on this list. I haven’t read anything Abby Jimenez yet – why not choose a summer book for my inaugural one? Plus I hear this one is good, so hopefully it will be a proper introduction to the author.
The Amalfi Curse, by Sarah Penner
Water witches, dual timeline, set in Italy — this book just screams ‘summer’ to me. I started reading The Amalfi Curse in late June or early July, but have yet to finish it. If not now, then when?
Day Boy, by Trent Jamieson
While Day Boy is not explicitly posed as a summer book, its setting is post-apocalyptic Australia overtaken by vampires. Something about this book says ‘scorching heat’ – apart from some mentions of surroundings and climate. Plus *minor spoiler* the vamps in this one are obsessed with the sun.
bonus:
Book Lovers, by Emily Henry
And bonus book #1, Emily Henry’s Book Lovers, about two New York editors vacationing in a small town. I won’t be mad at myself if I don’t finish this one before autumn is fully here, because oddly enough this book doesn’t scream SUMMER at me, but I would like to finish this one sooner rather than later – simply because I really enjoyed what I’ve read so far, so we’re putting it on the ‘goodbye summer’ list.
bonus #2:
The Running Grave, by Robert Galbraith
The last published installment in Cormoran Strike series, I really want to pick it up and finish soon, because The Hallmarked Man is coming out on the 2nd of September (omg that’s literally days from now), and I don’t want to wait too long to read it, because then I’d have to wait even longer to read the next. So the simple solution is to read it ASAP.
Any books you’re in a rush to finish before the season is over? Do tell, do tell.
Even though my instagram has nothing to show for it, I’ve been taking pictures of books for a long, long, looong time. And, of course, I would inevitably be taking photos of book hauls and TBRs.
Spoiler alert: Most of them are still that. TBRs, I mean.
Over the years I’ve come to realise that I’m not so much a slow reader, as I am just a distracted one. Depending on the subject and the language, I read anywhere between 40 and 70 pages per hour, which is not goddamn fast, but it’s not slow either. It’s just that apart from books, which I usually read several of, I also read magazines, newspapers, fanfiction (there, I said it), online newsletters, blogs, telegram channels, comics, etc., etc., etc. If we were to bind everything I read throughout the year in actual books, I would be somewhere around 200 probably, if not 300.
200 finished, and 100 unfinished.
Because as I mentioned, I read many books at the same time. I have the proud attention span of a fruit fly on psychedelics. Deal with it.
I’m still learning to.
Anyway.
While the list of books I am ‘currently reading’ we have dealt with elsewhere, behold The Bookstack Roast.
At one point in time I stacked books, and I took a picture of them.
And now I roast the stack, and me in tandem. Because most of these stacks are still unread, or at least unfinished.
Let’s start with a random one from September, the year that shall not be named, but I’ll name it anyway. 2020, the first year of the pandemic.
In September I recently returned home from Egypt, where I was stuck for half a year on a two week work trip gone awry. Planes did not fly, borders were closed, so I was stuck where I was, doing what I had to do. I also bought a car recently, and a day later found out that my salary was cut in two. Yes, in two, I’m not exaggerating. It was just another brush stroke to the wholesome portrait of my flourishing radicalisation.
I left that job years ago, and I’m still angry.
But back to the books. Let’s go from the top.
don’t judge the photo; i was probably only planning on sending it to a friend
Out of the tree on the top, all written by Louise Penny, I’ve read the one on the bottom of the three. Still Life, the first in her series of mysteries about Gamache. At that time I thought I wouldn’t continue the series, at least not beyond the three books that I had bought, but I have since then reconsidered and added the books to my ‘series i’m more or less reading’ list. I like my mystery fiction a little bit… I was going to say punchier, but that’s not it. Anyway, Penny’s work is not fully to my taste, but I’ll continue the Gamache series. As of now I still have the two books that I bought five fucking years ago proudly unread.
Next in the pile is Du Maurier’s The House on the Strand, criminally still unread. It is followed by Updike’s Rabbit, Run, also unread, also criminally so.
I can explain.
I have this thing where I desire to read books in their original untranslated selves if I have the privilege of speaking the language. I read Russians in Russian, Moldavians and Romanians in Moldavian and Romanian. I attempt to read Spaniards and Spanish Latin Americans in Spanish, and I strive to read writers who write in English in, well, English.
However.
The library I own predates my existence. It’s been composed by my parents, and their parents, and the parents of their parents before I was ever ideated in any form. And as much as I would like, say, to read Steinbeck or London in English, I already have their works in Russian, translated, published, procured, and shelved way before my day.
That’s the first reason.
The second reason is that I prefer paper books, and I am not made of money. We do have English shelves of questionable substance and quality in local book shops, but they don’t always have what I want, and when they do, it’s usually twice the price I’d pay online, even with shipping.
So I guess I should nip my inclinations in the bud, and read books in any language that’s available to me — I tell myself over and over again, but it just doesn’t work.
Recently I decided on a middle ground, which I have already breached a couple times, and which my briefly mentioned radical self calls a cop-out instead – but yeah, I told myself that I would read the books that I already own in a language that I already have them in, but if I do feel that the translation sucks balls, I will buy the book in English, and it won’t even count against my low-buy.
I think a lot about everything book related in my day to day, maybe even about as much as I actually spend reading.
Du Maurier I am not really worried about, as I read Rebecca in Russian, and it was fine. I think I only had one or two dissonances when reading. So if The House on the Strand was done by the same translator, I’ll be fine. Updike, however, I am not so sure.
I guess I just have to start reading and see.
Next in the stack lies Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans, and I worry about this one too, due to reasons outlined above. I notice that the classics are usually fine, and commercial trope fiction is usually shit (like, double shit), and litfic one never knows. It could fall into the hands of a good translator and shine, or it could fall into the hands of a good translator who doesn’t really understand the work and stink.
One would think that I consider myself a good translator – no. I’m bilingual, but I suck ass at translating. I even stopped doing it for money, even the bureaucratic stuff that brings in the most money anyway, because I just couldn’t stand it.
I apologise, by the way. You came for a book stack roast, and you’re getting half my biography and a bit of my family history as well.
As I said, I worry about Ishiguro, but other than that, I have no excuse for leaving this book unread for four and a half years.
Next in the stack are two books by Nesbo, both from Harry Holle series. We’ve got The Bat, and Cockroaches. I think they’re the first and the second in the series, but please double check elsewhere. The reason I haven’t read these two yet doesn’t particulary exist – I guess I was just distracted. I can’t decide if I enjoy Nesbo’s works or not. They’re okay, don’t get me wrong, some of them I might even rate higher than three – not that it should mean anything to you, but a three in my world is a good mark for a book. But still something is amiss. Anyway I bought them, so I might as well read them. I guess next time I’ll be needing a gorier thriller, I’ll pick up The Bat.
Finally we’ve reached another book in this stack that I have read. Remember this moment, kids, because next time we night not be this lucky.
Educated by Tara Westover is abook that I picked up at an almost random in Istambul airport. It was on my radar, but it wasn’t madly pinging. I picked it up, because it was one of the only books that sparked recognition, and I also really liked how it felt in my hands. I guess it just goes to show that it was meant to be, because it ended up being one of my favourite books of all time. I don’t reread books (thank my grandmother on father’s side for that), but I would break this rule for this book. The really aren’t many on the list, so I cherish this thought. I hope Westover has another book in her.
And finally, we have Atwood’s The Testaments, which is still unread, but will be soon. Back when I bought it, I was yet to finish The Handmaid’s Tale, and before I get to The Testaments, I want to read some of her earlier work.
Which we will get to in time – especially since some of it is also in the book stack pictures.
I grew up around books. Some of my fondest childhood memories are leafing through art encyclopedias in my grandfather’s study, or poking through the illustrations in the volumes of Russian classics, or sitting in my ‘under-the-table’ fort, reading for hours.
A book purchase has never really been frowned upon in this house. I remember a spell of being quite poor when I was a kid, and I really wanted the entire series of The Wizard of Emerald City. I saw it in the shop, but knew I couldn’t get it, and it was never available in the library. Even in the book shops back then it was a rarity. Somehow, I don’t know how, my parents conspired and got the entire series for me. I still have it.
I know that I will never fully stop getting more books. But for now I am content with significantly slowing down and enjoying what I have.
My instagram bio says I have 150 shelves of books, and it’s not a lie, nor even an exaggeration. I have a full room lined with shelves, aptly called “library”, and I have more in my bedroom, and yet more in the hall, the entrance area, the living room. Some shelves have double rows. Some deeper and wider cupboards have towers of vertically stacked books in them, because that way we could fit more. The entire house is a library. Some of these books I’ll likely never read, or at least not in full, but in my book (forgive the pun) that’s not an incentive to part with them. Books are memories, good and bad, and I haven’t got any inclination to erase memories.
I never wanted to put a significant limit to my book purchases, because I am a mood reader, and trying to follow a pre-existing TBR usually puts me in a reading slump. But I do have enough books in my library, both physical and electronical, to suit any fancy I might fall into. So one lovely winter morning I decided to stop using this excuse and put a limit to my book purchases for now. There are releases that I know I will want to get, and they’re on a special list, but apart from that, my shelves are full, and my wallet is guarded.
I know I would not be able to adhere to a complete book no-buy, so I’m on a low-buy, and the rule is: 3 out, 1 in. Meaning, when I finish 3 books, I can buy one new. I’m not the fastest of readers, so this has slowed down my purchases significantly. So far I’ve only got 1 ebook, 2 physical, 1 audio with an Audible credit, and one other ebook that’s been free on kindle (yet undecided if I’m going to count it against my book low-buy bank; likely I won’t). It’s not a perfect system, but if I didn’t have it in place, I would’ve got much more, so it will stay unchanged for now.
If you’d like to take a look at my book tracker, you can easily do it here. I usually update it once a month, or whenever I buy something new.
