It’s State of the TBR time again (a bit late in the day because the whole day keeps getting away from me, and because I keep putting off posting about incomings, I end up doing lots of weird mosaics etc in one go. So here we go.

So it’s slightly “fuller” than at the start of July but not tooo bad, not right along the shelf at least. The wonky pile to the right is review books publishers have kindly sent me, and most of those will come up for reading this month, but you might not hear about them for a little bit, until the reviews have come out. I finished 15 books in July again – that’s the same number three months running, which is pleasing. Quite a few have come in, though: see below. I read all but two of my 20 Books of Summer (but have altered my list!) and five of my seven NetGalley reads (one left to review) plus one ebook I was reviewing for Shiny New Books, and I finished my readalong with Emma book. I wasn’t too disappointed with that.

Currently reading

I’m currently reading Raynor Winn’s “The Salt Path” as my new read with Emma, certainly an easier read (though a more emotional one) than “London Underground”! Then Armistead Maupin’s “Logical Family” is my new Book 13 in my 20 Books of Summer (see notes below), and Maya Angelou’s “Singin’ & Swingin’ & Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas” is both Book 14 and next in my Maya Angelou readalong with Ali and Meg.

Up next

I’m still working my way through my 20 Books of Summer hosted by Cathy from 246 Books with her sign-up post here. My first two months were all about people’s lives that are different from mine, but I felt that I was burning myself out reading so many Black autobiography and allyship (or not!) books in a row, and also burning my readers out. I had Afua Hirsch’s “Brit(ish)” and Jeffrey Boake’s “Black, Listed” on the list and I’ve swapped them out (don’t worry: I will come to them, read them and review them when I’m back working through my TBR in order) for, respectively, the Armistead Maupin (LGTBQIA+ lives) and the second D.E. Stevenson above, which adds one book to my All Virago (and Dean Street Press and Persephone) / All August themed final month of 20 Books of Summer. I needed some fiction and I needed some lighter reads, and this felt like the right thing to do.

So I have Maya Angelou, who I’m already reading, then Dorothy Whipple’s “Random Commentary” which is her notes on her writing of the novels Persphone also publishes. Then the two D.E. Stevensons, “Music in the Hills and Winter and Rough Weather” are the two loose sequels to the wonderful “Vittoria Cottage” and the three Angela Thirkells, “The Headmistress”, “Miss Bunting” and “Peace Breaks Out” finally bring her Barsetshire series to a close (I’ve spent a while getting round to these).

In NetGalley reads, this is the set I have published in August (“The Reading List is a July book I don’t want to miss):

“The Reading List” by Sara Nisha Adams is an intergenerational story on the power of reading, “Sugar” by Bernice L. McFadden is a reprint of a book set in a small town in the American South, and Naomi Shragai’s “The Man Who Mistook his Job for his Life” is about the effect your real life has on your work life.

I do have a couple of other June/July stragglers but these are the books I really want to read this month. don’t want to overload myself, either!

Books in (many, many books in, again!)

I’ll divide this into print and e-book incomings. I did trip up and buy two bargains on Kindle. The print books are a mix of gifts and review copies, sorry to have mixed them all up but I took the photos as they came in

First those slightly naughty Kindle books. Emmanuel Acho’s “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man” has been on my watch list for a while, and looks at how he has had to discuss various matters with White colleagues and friends. “Kiley Dunbar’s “The Borrow a Bookshop Holiday” was a recommendation I had to snap up. I need to find another ebook source as am becoming more and more disillusioned with Amazon (“thank you to my customers and staff for sending me to space” – eugh).

I’ve not done too badly this month as in I haven’t “won” a million NetGalley books … There’s the aforementioned “The Man Who Mistook his Job for His Life by Naomi Shragai, out this month, then Bobby Duffy’s “Generations”, which looks at boomers, Gen Xers, etc, Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff’s (ed.) “Black Joy” – stories of Black joy which are important to read as well as stories of pain. Then Dennis Duncan’s “Index, a History of the” (great title) and finally Richard Osman’s “The Man Who Died Twice”, of course the sequel to “The Thursday Murder Club” which I’ve had to pick up (cheap from The Works).

OK, here we go with this mishmash (sorry!). Rob Deering’s “Running Tracks” is an Unbound book I subscribed to about running and music (hooray!). Jane Setter’s “Your Voice Speaks Volumes” is a review copy and looks at accents in English. Carola Oman’s “Nothing to Report” and “Somewhere in England” are two Dean Street Press books I bought with my Book Token Splurge. Paul from HalfManHalfBook kindly sent me Nicholas Royle’s “White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector” and Karen from KaggsysBookishRamblings also kindly sent me “Dancing on Ropes” by Anna Aslanyan which is about interpretation and translation. Ali from HeavenAli gave me “I Am Not Your Baby Mother”. “Goshawk Summer” by James Aldridge was a lovely surprise from Elliott & Thompson, who thought I might like it, and I have “Lion City: Singapore and the Invention of Modern Asia” by Jeevan Vasagar to review, too. Thank you to the publishers for the review copies!

Of course I have my two Anne Tylers for the month: “Back When we were Grownups” and “An Amateur Marriage”. That makes a few books on the TBR for August, but I think I can do it …

What are your reading plans for August? Are you joining me for some Anne Tyler?