July 2024 Reading

I don’t track my reading by weight, but maybe I should.  This month, I read 13 books.

Four of those books were audiobooks.  I continue to enjoy listening to the Louise Penny books because who doesn’t want to live in Three Pines, eat fabulous food, and hang out with the cool people?  A murder or two is a small price to pay.  This month, I read The Long Way Home, The Nature of the Beast, A Great Reckoning, and Glass Houses.  Comfort reading that I can do while quilting!  What’s not to like?

 

As a person who majored in English with an emphasis on the medieval period (I am SO employable, right?), I consider Chaucer one of my homies.  Before this month, I had read more than the average person, but now I have read the entirety.  I have had this very gorgeous book sitting on my shelf for a long time.  I am glad I read it.  Before I talk about the contents, I need to talk about the book.  It is a facsimile of the Kelmscott Press Chaucer, printed by William Morris with illustrations by Edward Burne-Jones.  It’s just beautiful as an object and I bought it a bookstand so I can look at it more often.  The Chaucer itself is pretty awesome, if you’re into Middle English.  He wrote in diverse forms, so the book has everything from a treatise on how to use the astrolabe to a translation of the philosophical writings of Boethius to dirty stories about people getting poked in the butt with hot pokers.  I enjoyed some parts more than others, but still love Chaucer in all his scope and breadth.  Thumbs up.

 

The other book achievement this month was finally finishing The City of God by Augustine.  I don’t remember why I wanted to read it in the first place, but there it was on the shelf, so I did.  On the plus side, Augustine has a snarky way of throwing shade that can be really entertaining.  There is a certain fascination inherent in the notion that someone needs to do a reasonable refutation of belief in the ancient Greek and Roman gods.  He has a charming faith that everything can be reasoned through to the glory of God.  But that really isn’t enough to make more than 800 pages interesting, especially since he feels the need to reason through stuff in the Bible that is clearly metaphorical.  Let’s just say that he finds some stuff really important that is far from central to my personal faith.  He’s a saint and I’m not, so what do I know?  Well, I’m not reading it again.

 

Having accomplished Augustine and Chaucer, I deserved some more recreational reading.  Ursula Le Guin to the rescue!  I read the whole Catwings series (not a big time commitment):  Catwings, Catwings Return, Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings, and Jane on Her Own.  They are delightful.  Even in her books for children, Le Guin explores the differences between cultures, in this case, cat culture, human culture, and the special circumstance of cat-with-wings culture.  The adventures have real stakes, but end happily. 

 

Gail Carriger’s work is so much fun, too.  I am slowly working my way through all of her books.  This month I read The Sumage Solution, the first in the San Andreas Shifters series.  Adorable gay werewolves.  What else do you need to know?  A fun plot, an ingenious solution to a difficulty, and spicy bits.  Check it out.

 

I have written over and over about how much of a Rick Riordan fangirl I am.  I adore his writing.  I also adore the way he uses his power for good.  The Cursed Carnival and Other Calamities is a collection of short works by Carlos Hernandez, Roshani Chokski, J.C. Cervantes, Yoon Ha Lee, Kwame Mbalia, Rebecca Roanhorse, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Sarwat Chadda, Graci Kim, and the man himself as an imprint of Rick Riordan Presents.  Riordan uses his star power to lift up other voices.  Where other writers might appropriate the myths of other cultures in their work, Riordan makes a platform for writers from those cultures to explore their own myths.  That is being a good ally.  The stories themselves are pretty uniformly great.  Of course I liked some better than others, but there were no stinkers in the bunch.  I also feel like I have more writers whose work I want to explore more.

 

July total:  13

Summer total to date:  21

Year to date:  73