It’s State of the TBR time again and there’s a lot of reading to report, a few missed targets (oh no!) and a great big lovely pile of Incomings with more on their way.
First off, how is the TBR shelf looking (pre-Incomings)? Not bad, and certainly shorter on the front shelf than at the start of June, even though some have joined the end!

I finished 15 books in June, the same as in May (and I’ve reviewed 15, too, but one was a May read and one is coming up at the weekend. I managed to read and review five of my planned six 20BooksOfSummer reads and have started the sixth (“Black and British” which has over 600 pages and will work its way through quite a lot of July, I think). I read and reviewed four out of the six NetGalley books that I had that were published in June (I have a lot for July but will try to squeeze the last two June ones in) and of course I also managed my two Anne Tylers, a couple of lovely Dean Street Press review copies and a Maya Angelou for my and Ali’s relaxed readalong (that’s the review that’s still to come). As well as reviewing Richard Ovenden’s “Burning the Books” for this blog on the Wolfson Prize Blog Tour, I also reviewed it with a slightly different angle for Shiny New Books.
Currently reading
I’m currently reading Stephen Rutt’s wonderful nature writing in “The Eternal Season” which Elliott & Thompson kindly sent me to review, and David Olusoga’s “Black and British” which goes into far more detail than his TV series could about historical and sometimes surprising Black British figures. It’s a big book but an important one and I am finding it fascinating and of course very well-written so far.
Up next

I’m working further through my 20 Books of Summer hosted by Cathy from 246 Books with her sign-up post here, and I’ve added in EIGHT books for this month in my two months of “The One With All The Diversity”. Of course I usually read pretty diversely but this year, instead of just picking the first 20 books from my TBR shelf, I’ve gone through picking out a special pile. Fortunately, two of these are very small books so I should get them all read. Afua Hirsch’s “Brit(ish)” will give me the female experience to mirror the male on in Akala’s “Natives” read last month, and also Jeffrey Boakye’s “Black, Listed”, which again takes an insider look at Black British culture. Nadiya Hussain talks about overcoming anxiety and finding her place in the world in “Finding my Voice” and Stormzy takes his place in music and publishing in “Rise Up: The Merky Story so Far”. Damian Le Bas’ “The Stopping Places” will educate me about Travellers in Britain, and Sophie Williams’ “Anti Racist Ally” and Emma Dabiri’s “What White People Can Do Next” are two slim volumes which help me to do the work rather than asking others to explain it, but give valuable pointers (I’m hoping they include personal as well as corporate allyship that I can actually practise.
In NetGalley reads, this is the set I have published in July (How We Do Family is a June book that I accidentally missed):

So here we have Otegha Uwagba’s “We Need to Talk About Money” (money and its intersections with race, gender and class for young, particularly Black women); Anisha Bhatia’s “What are We Doing About Zoya” (a comedy of manners set in Mumbai); Sara Nisha Adams’ “The Reading List” (an anxious teenager and her lonely grandfather find joy in a reading list tucked in a library book); Natasha Lunn’s “Conversations on Love” (various authors including Philippa Perry write on love; Bella Osborne’s “The Promise of Summer” (romcom revolving around returning a lost engagement ring); Tyrstan Reese’s “How we Do Family” (LGBTQ family adoption pregnancy and parenthood); and Georgia Pritchett’s “My Mess is a Bit of a Life” (subtitled Adventures in Anxiety).
Books in (many, many books in)
I can share a charity shop buy and one from The Works in Shirley (I innocently went to the opticians and meandered into there so I wasn’t early for my appointment).
“Usain Bolt” was written by one of the writers I work with (acknowledged on the title page, hooray), sadly before I started working with him as I would obviously have loved to transcribe Mr Bolt’s words. Craig Revel Horwood’s “In Strictest Confidence” is the follow-up to “All Balls and Glitter” which I read in 2014 (I note I said that one brought us right up to date, that date being 2008, so not sure how much overlap there is but oh well!)
I’ve also received the rather glorious “A Room of Her Own: Inside the Homes and Lives of Creative Women” from Thames & Hudson to review for Shiny. Of course taking as its title Virginia Woolf’s assertion that women writers need a room of their own, it highlights young creative women from around the (admittedly Western) globe and their sumptuous interiors.
I can also share that this month I’ve won from NetGalley Bella Osborne’s “The Promise of Summer”, Otegha Uwagba’s “We Need to Talk About Money” and Anisha Bhatia’s “What are We Doing About Zoya?” described above as they’re published in July, Johnny and Becki Agar’s “The Impossible Mile” (Johnny, born with cerebral palsy, goes on to complete an Ironman triathlon), and Jessica Nordell’s “The End of Bias” (how the unconscious bias I need to read about in “Sway” can be worked against).
And then because the TBR had gone down quite a lot, I decided it was time for my Book Token Splurge. I had Christmas and Birthday vouchers to spend (thank you, Meg, Ali, Sian, Matthew and Laura!) and as I usually get a lot of books around those two months, love spending them all in the middle of the year. Now Bookshop.org take book tokens I was able to spend them and send the profits to three indie bookshops, which felt good. Here’s what’s arrived so far …

In no particular order, in fiction I have Buchi Emecheta’s “Second-Class Citizen” which details the life of a Nigerian woman in 1960s London, oppressed by the city and her husband and Angie Thomas’ “On the Come Up”, a story about hip hop, prejudice and fighting for your dreams. In what I’d vaguely call nature and travel, Nick Hunt and Tim Mitchell’s “The Parakeeting of London” discusses just that (and is published by tiny indie press, Paradise Road), Richard King’s “The Lark Ascending” covers music and landscape in 20th century Britain, in “Wanderland” by Jini Reddy, a London woman with multicultural roots goes looking for the magical in the British landscape, Christiane Ritter describes Arctic life in “A Woman in the Polar Night”, republished by Pushkin Press, Joshua Abbott explores the modernism of London’s “Metroland” in another Unbound book I missed and A Kendra Greene explores “The Museum of Whales You Will Never See” and other peculiar Icelandic collections (I’m betting I’ve visited a few of these myself). Then in intersectional feminism, which I need to read more about, Mikki Kendall gives a searing picture of how that’s not yet worked in “Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women White Feminists Forgot”. And a running book: “Running in the Midpack” by Martin Yelling and Anji Andrews, a launch even for which I went to a while ago, finally talks about those of us who are practised runners and racers who still want to improve and protect ourselves against injury.
Quite a nice variety there, I think.
I’m still waiting for a few which I have pre-ordered or are on back order: Carola Oman’s “Somewhere in England” and “Nothing to Report” (on back order from Dean Street Press), “Your Voice Speaks Volumes” by Jane Setter (published 22 July), Paul Magrs’ “The Panda, The Cat and the Dreadful Teddy: A Parody” (published 30 Sept) and “Mixed/Other: Explorations of Multiraciality in Modern Britain” by Natalie Morris (published 14 Apr 2022 in paperback)
Of course I have my two Anne Tylers for the month: “Ladder of Years” and “A Patchwork Planet”. That makes something like 19 books on the TBR for July, but I do have a week off coming up …
What are your reading plans for June? Are you joining me for some Anne Tyler?
Jul 01, 2021 @ 14:06:05
So much good stuff in this post! Anne Tyler–I loved Ladder of Years. I’d like just about any of your NetGalleys from the sound of them. I’m interested in your review of Hood Feminism–I keep trying to get to it. “The Eternal Season”–I LOVED his Wintering about the geese. I’ll be adding some of these to my Tbr for sure.
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Jul 01, 2021 @ 14:16:34
Thank you for your enthusiasm about my massive piles of books! I am looking forward to this particular Anne Tyler as I even remember it … I might take a while to get to Hood Feminism as I’ll start drip-reading/feeding social justice books again once I’ve finished 20BooksOfSummer. The Eternal Season is excellent and if you loved Wintering, you will love this. And I must have read Emecheta back in the day but didn’t remember doing so, I saw a TV programme featuring her and am glad I’ve got one to start with. Which is your favourite?
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Jul 01, 2021 @ 14:06:58
Forgot-I devoured all of Buchi Emecheta’s wonderful books in ’91 when I came home from Peace Corps in Malawi. So memorable. I even did a post when she died.
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Jul 01, 2021 @ 14:26:16
Oh my, now my own TBR has grown even longer … Nadiya Hussein, Georgia Pritchett, “The Eternal Season”, “The Parakeeting of London” and more! So many great books
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Jul 02, 2021 @ 07:51:05
“The Eternal Season” I can confirm is excellent and you will love it. Hope you can get it over there. I couldn’t resist the parakeet book as we have them in one of our local parks, too.
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Jul 02, 2021 @ 13:37:00
The parakeet book is a must for me as I always consider them “my” birds since the first time I saw one outside our house in Sheppertom about 20 years ago – that’s what my mum calls them too, even now they have spread everywhete.
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Jul 02, 2021 @ 14:22:40
Ah, brilliant! The first time we saw them here was on Christmas Day and we thought it was so exciting, put something in the local FB group – oh, yes, those. They’ve been here for years but the group has increased the last couple of years.
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Jul 01, 2021 @ 14:56:56
My goodness!! What an impressive amount of incomings!!! But you’re right – this was definitely a good time to splurge, and you have some fascinating reads lined up for July!
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Jul 02, 2021 @ 07:52:01
Thank you for your support of my big buy – it is right in between the big incomings times so seemed appropriate – and more to come, of course! I am looking forward to my July reads – have enjoyed “The Eternal Season” so far.
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Jul 01, 2021 @ 20:50:33
Off to find The Impossible Mile! I haven’t seen that one here.
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Jul 02, 2021 @ 07:52:21
I hope you can locate it – it looks fascinating and inspiring!
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Jul 02, 2021 @ 16:38:25
I love the variety of your reading, happy July!
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Jul 02, 2021 @ 16:50:44
Thank you for noticing that, and happy July reading yourself!
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Jul 03, 2021 @ 11:09:17
Your shelf is looking very tidy and in control despite your splurge! But maybe you’re just hiding the worst of your TBR on your Kindle… 😉
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Jul 04, 2021 @ 11:15:38
That was the shelf pre-splurge … but I have just fitted the splurge on and it all fits, I just had to turn the Pile round. But yes, if the Kindle was physical books I’d be in big trouble!
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Jul 04, 2021 @ 19:12:19
Omg yesss love the bookishness of this blog post! I read Hood Feminism and gave it four stars and hope you enjoy it. Appreciate the emphasis on authors of color here and am glad to read about you reading books that will help you do the work as a white person instead of having to ask POC IRL for that feedback. I hope your reading choices help influence those of other white folks who may read this blog, regardless though it’s cool to follow your reading journey and to also see what the titles/books look like for social justice-focused works in the UK.
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Jul 05, 2021 @ 08:49:31
Thank you, and I’m glad that seeing what there is in the UK side of things is interesting to you. I feel Hood Feminism might be a bit US-centric but it’s such an important topic and something I fear I’ve been complicit in (through omission rather than commission but of course that’s just as bad) and hopefully even if it is it will give me some pointers to UK-centric stuff. I do hope getting these books shared and out there helps other people find and see them.
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Jul 05, 2021 @ 13:59:48
What a great month! And the shelf really does look different this time. So many of the books on your stacks I would happily read (the only one I’ve read is the Emecheta) and Wanderland looks particularly interesting to me in this moment. Yes, I’m joining for Ladder of Years, but that could mean I finish in three months. So far, my year of reading new (to counter my couple years of reading backlist) is kicking my butt with library duedates…but a nice problem to have!
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Jul 05, 2021 @ 20:35:05
It’s always nice when the TBR manages to look different!! I think I’ve read the Emacheta years ago but really looking forward to it. I’m really really enjoying Ladder of Years so far – it’s the second Tyler I ever read and I can see why I fell in love with her books. But I don’t mind when you read it, you know that! Hope you can beat the library dates …
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Book review – Nick Hunt and Tim Mitchell – “The Parakeeting of London” | Adventures in reading, running and working from home
Nov 11, 2021 @ 10:11:34
Book review – Buchi Emecheta – “Second-Class Citizen” | Adventures in reading, running and working from home
Nov 29, 2021 @ 09:01:06
Book review – A. Kendra Greene – “The Museum of Whales You Will Never See” | Adventures in reading, running and working from home
Jan 07, 2022 @ 10:00:34
Book review – Christiane Ritter – “A Woman in the Polar Night” | Adventures in reading, running and working from home
Jan 09, 2022 @ 08:10:46
Book review – Richard King – “The Lark Ascending” | Adventures in reading, running and working from home
Mar 29, 2022 @ 08:00:37