Where has July gone, am I right? (I seem to be saying that for every single month of this year but seriously, I mean it this time.) How is it August? Where did the first half of the year go?! Enough incredulous questions, let’s just get onto what we’re all here to do, and that is to take a peek at what I read in this past month, ignoring the fact that we’re almost a week into August… cough… let’s just move on…
In July, I read a total of 6 books – 5 fiction and 1 non-fiction, amounting to 2009 pages in total, and, of these, 4 books were re-reads.
In terms of format: 1 was paperback, 2 were hardback, 1 was an e-book, and 2 were audiobook.
And as for genre, very broadly speaking, 4 books were fantasy, 1 was non-fiction/memoir, 1 was comic-book/superheroes.
Onto the books themselves…
Six of Crows – Leigh Bardugo
Rating: 5/5
Genre: young-adult; fantasy
Pages: 462
Read: 9th – 22nd July
Challenges fulfilled: Around the Year in 52 Books [Week 2]
The Art of Asking – Amanda Palmer [audiobook, read by author]
Rating: 5/5
Genre: non-fiction; memoir
Pages: 340
Read: 20th – 23rd July
Challenges fulfilled: Mount TBR
Stardust – Neil Gaiman
Rating: 4/5
Genre: fantasy
Pages: 224
Read: 22nd July
Challenges fulfilled: Around the Year in 52 Books [Week 26]
Ms Marvel: Volume 1 ‘No Normal’ – G. Willow Wilson & Adrian Alphona
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: comic book; young-adult; superheroes
Pages: 120
Read: 23rd July
Challenges fulfilled: Book Riot Read Harder #18
Crooked Kingdom – Leigh Bardugo
Rating: 5/5
Genre: young-adult; fantasy
Pages: 536
Read: 22nd – 30th July
The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman [audiobook, read by author]
Rating: 5/5
Genre: childrens; fantasy
Pages: 327
Read: 25th – 31st July
I started putting together this monthly post half-way through July, drafting a paragraph justifying why I’d read so few books. It was full of excuses about War and Peace taking up my daily commute reading time and how I just wasn’t getting through other books because I had to make this my priority every single day. Then, something weird happened… I started finishing books. No, I didn’t finish War and Peace (ha) but I did end up picking up some re-reads which I used as my daily ‘reward system’ for finishing my prescribed daily pages of Tolstoy’s tome. This method works, guys, I’m so amazed.
Also I can’t deny that I listened to a couple of audiobooks because work has been very quiet this month and I work in my own office with everyone else on the floors above me, the upshot of which is that I can pretty much listen to whatever I want and, if I’m working on a reasonably monotonous task, I can get through a good 4 or 5 hours of audiobook listening in the space of a work day. Obviously, this has made getting through books a lot quicker. (It’s a shame that this will change very soon as we’re moving into temporary offices whilst our building gets refurbished and I’ll be in an office with other people again. It’s probably good for me to not be on my own for a good few months though.)
You may have also noticed the trend of me choosing to re-read old favourite books, mainly via audiobook, as a way of continuing to read things whilst tackling War and Peace – obviously I would prefer it if I could read new things and War and Peace but at this point I’m happy to be finishing anything else so I’ll take what I can and roll with it. As you can see, re-reading also means I end up having quite a lot of reliably enjoyable reads but, again, I’m happy to go along with that moving forward into August!
So that was my month but how did your July reading go?
What was your favourite book you read this month?
Please do share in the comments below and let’s chat books!
The Terror of Knowing 
9 responses to “July 2017 | Wrap Up”
That looks like some great reading!! I want to read Six of Crows so badly!! I’ve heard nothing but amazing things about the duology!
LikeLike
I had a blast with my reading this month – mainly because I re-read the Six of Crows duology. :P It really is a wonderful series and the characters are amazing, so much so that I ended up being kind of sad it was only two books. I’d highly recommend it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
My favourite reads this month was The Girls by Emma Cline and Binti by Nnedi Okorafor :)
LikeLike
I’ve heard so many good things about both of those books, especially Binti – I must get round to them some day! I’m glad you enjoyed them and thanks for stopping by, reading, and commenting. :)
LikeLike
You are welcome :) you should pick it up. It’s a very quick read.
LikeLike
Sorry if I’m being stupid, but which two were audiobooks? Always on the hunt for good audiobooks!
I’m currently listening to a zombie audiobook which is quite good, and currently reading Zenith!
LikeLike
Whoops I forgot to mark them, thanks for pointing it out! The audiobooks were The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer – both of which I would highly recommend. To me, Neil Gaiman’s voice is like velvet and I love listening to authors read their own novels. As for Palmer’s book, I always prefer listening to memoirs via audiobook, and as Palmer makes music some of her songs are also on the audiobook so it made for a really great listening experience. :)
Ohh that’s so odd because I remember watching vlogs of Sasha and Lindsay writing that book (I love writing vlogs) and it seems only yesterday since then – time really flies! How are you liking it so far?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I need to read more Gaiman so I might try that after my current audiobook, thanks for the Rec ☺️
I know it’s happened so quick it seems!
Slowly getting into it. Going to give it a proper go tonight and hope that it grips me if I’m honest!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I would definitely recommend grabbing one of his audiobooks, esp the ones he narrates himself! :)
Good luck with Zenith, happy reading!
LikeLike