Having a look at last month’s picture, I feel like I’m doing pretty well – the top shelf has shifted considerably, the pile of Virago Travellers on the bottom shelf is a pile no more, AND there’s a bit of space at the end! This is down to having read more print books than I’ve acquired (though not sure the actual balance is as good if you include e-books).

I completed 16 books in June, with two more half-way through each, and I’m pleased with that, especially as one was quite a substantial hardback. I read all five NetGalley reads I had that were published in June and read and reviewed six and am part way through the seventh of my 20 Books Of Summer, which were all also from my TBR challenge – I now have 28 books to go on that from now until 05 October (update coming in a couple of days).

Shiny New Books

I reviewed Miranda Roskhowski’s “100 Voices” which prints essays by 100 women about their achievements, many in writing but in other fields as well, and Katherine MacInnes’ “Snow Widows“, about the wives and mothers of Scott’s Antarctic expedition, drawing together so many archived materials to bring their voices out on Shiny New Books in June. Do pop over to have a read.

Incomings

I was actually quite restrained with print books in this last month.

Paul from HalfManHalfBook kindly sent me Jason Cowley’s “Who are we Now? Stories of Modern England” which takes a snapshot of post-Brexit England, and “Dorset in Photographs” by Matthew Pinner which I’ve already been through greedily. I saw Wendy from Taking The Long Way Round talking about Stacy T. Sims’ “Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond” and felt this exercise and nutrition orientated guide could help me at this tricky time of life, so bought myself a copy immediately.

I bought three e-books for Kindle this month; well, one was a free one from the First Reads initiative, and the lovely folks at Dean Street Press sent me two upcoming new reprints:

Scott from Furrowed Middlebrow posted about the Susan Scarletts and Elizabeth Fair here with all the covers here. Susan Scarlett was Noel Streatfeild’s nom de plume for her lighthearted romances for grown-ups and I have the delightful-looking “Clothes Pegs”, and the Elizabeth Fair, “The Marble Staircase”, is a previously lost and unpublished work by this lovely author.

Meanwhile, “This Way Out” by Tufayel Ahmed was an Amazon first reads special and is a novel about a gay Muslim British Bangladeshi man with a White partner. Racheal Lippincott and Alyson Derrick’s “She Gets the Girl” I think I saw on a blog and then was cheap for Kindle; it’s a YA campus romcom and looks fun. “It Takes Blood and Guts” is the memoir by Skin, lead singer of 90s and beyond band Skunk Anansie – I liked her insights on the recent Top of the Pops history programmes and grabbed this when it was in the sale.

I won several NetGalley books this month:

“Femina” by Janina Ramirez (published in July) is an alternative history of the Middle Ages, told through the women of history who have largely been forgotten. Charlene Bauer’s “Girls They Write Songs About” (July) I was trying to ignore but someone incited me to request it on their blog, set in 1990s New York it’s about friendship and changing lives as you come of age. I was made aware of Hakim Adi’s “African and Caribbean People in England” (September) by Annabel on her possible Shiny reviews roundup and found it on NetGalley – it takes the long view of history from Roman times onwards.

Mohsin Hamid is well known for his provocative, interesting work, and “The Last White Man” (August) is a fable where people with white skin find it turning darker … Derek A. Bardowell’s “Giving Back: How to do Good Better” (August) looks at how we can redefine charity and reimagine philanthropy and all make our giving count more. “What a Mother’s Love Don’t Teach You” by Sharma Taylor (July) looks at what happens when the son a woman gave up for adoption 18 years ago in Jamaica comes looking for her in the US, and Ronali Collings’ “Love & Other Dramas” (July) has three women and two cultures engaging with one another in a novel about family and friendship

So that was 16 read and 15 coming in in June – a balance of sorts and at least tilted vaguely in the right direction!

Currently reading

I’m currently reading “Running in the Midpack: How to be a Strong, Successful and Happy Runner” by Anji Andrews and Martin Yelling, which is a book written for runners who aren’t new to the sport, aren’t elites and aren’t right at the back: these groups have lots of books written for them but they claim, probably rightly, that “midpack” runners don’t. Lots of mental health and all-round health advice so far. I’m also reading the first of my July NetGalley reads, “Take a Chance on Greece” by Emily Kerr, which is a fun novel with a heroine who runs back to Greece to find out where and why she got that tattoo.

Coming up

Coming up next, I have my Larry McMurtry for this month, “Moving On” – all almost 800 pages of it, but his books ARE compulsive reading, thankfully, and the next seven books on my 20 Books of Summer list (books 8-14):

My NetGalley TBR for July is a little alarming, although I am already half-way through the first one, “Take a Chance on Greece”. I do also have a Christie Barlow but still need to catch up on the rest of her series first (the publisher said they will be patient with me, as I’ve gone and bought all the earlier ones!).

… and of course my two Dean Street Press lovelies. Ten novels, a few of them what I’d consider “light” and two non-fiction, I know “Femina” is quite a long one.

With the ones I’m currently reading (not including my readalong which will take a while), that’s 2 books to finish and 18 to read. I will note that quite a lot of the NetGalley books are light novels this month, and I have a week’s actual staycation (staying at home with a week off work) coming up this month so maybe it’ll work …

How was your June reading? What are you reading this month? Have you read or picked up any of my selection?