What Are We Reading in July?

A new month! I'm starting it out by reading The City of Mirrors, the last installment in The Passage trilogy by Justin Cronin.

Shark Week has taken a huge bite out of my reading time, but I love it and wouldn't have it any other way.
I am still reading The Blood of Others by Simone de Beauvoir, which is not long but I can't seem to make much headway with it.
Also, still listening to the audiobook of The Scent of Secrets by Jane Thynne which I am enjoying very much, if only my commute were longer!

I finished End of Watch which was a great end to the trilogy. This last book had more of the creepiness factor that Stephen King is known for.

I've finished my first Random book for this month - The Two Minute Rule by Robert Crais and think I'll probably start my Dewey book next - When Elephants Weep by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.

I've just started Coast Lines: how mapmakers frame the world and chart environmental change by Mark Monmonier. It's a bit technical for me, but amongst the bits that I'm skimming are some interesting points that I'd not really considered before (not least how much I've just taken maps for granted). And I'll also start Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days.

I kicked July off with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, and now I am moving on to The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri and The Forever Queen by Helen Hollick.

>3 lsh63: Yay!

Today I really must finish A Battle Won, by S. Thomas Russell. It's the second in a series featuring Charles Hayden of the Royal Navy and set in the late 18th century. I have to return it to the library tomorrow -- someone went and placed a hold on it so I can't renew it!

I am listening to the audiobook of First King of Shannara which I had forgotten I had checked out from the library (as an F book for the AlphaKIT)! Oh well... And I am reading The Good Soldier Svejk and some mystery short stories in The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century.

I am kicking off the month with Sayonara Slam and the audio of Of Mice and Men. I thought a baseball mystery would be appropriate for the 4th of July! I'm still working on several other books that are proving to be slow reads: Middlemarch, The Bloomsbury Reader on Islam in the West, and The Orenda.

>2 VictoriaPL: Ha! I hope it doesn't hurt too much!

I've just finished @psutto's book A Tiding of Magpies, which was a great read!

Currently working on The Elephant's Journey and am starting Before Night Falls for the GeoCAT.

I ending up skim-reading Go Figure: The Numbers You Need for Everyday Life for the DeweyCAT - just not that much very useful or interesting information for me. Then I started Treasure Island for the GeoCAT and finished that today - can't I believed I missed this one as a kid, quite a good swashbuckling yarn. And now I'm reading Just After Sunset, a collection of short stories by Stephen King for the RandomCAT and AlphaKIT.

Still listening to The Scent of Secrets by Jane Thynne and starting on my LTER book Tokyo Girl: A Frank Ryan Mystery by Brian Harvey. Also, probably The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure.

When I realized that my Dewey book When Elephants Weep was going to be a little bit dry, I decided I'd fit in some other books around it. So I took a little break to read Death in the Small Hours by Charles Finch for a Random book for this month. And I think I might start Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith next.

I just finished the very good The Tilted World and am reading The Distant Hours.

Tonight I think I'll finish up HMS Ulysses, by Alistair MacLean.

Just finished The Paris Architect.
Still listening to The Scent of Secrets in the car.
About to start Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart by Stefan Kanfer.
And after waiting for months, Phillip K Dick's The Man in the High Castle is waiting for me at the library!

Ancient Egypt and some very wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey settings in between are what I'm getting with my current bus book: The Sands of Time, a Fifth Doctor adventure by Justin Richards.

Just started The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes which has been a lovely book so far. Looks like I should get through it pretty quickly as it's short and a fairly fast read.

I am reading The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina and just about to start The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Alexie Sherman.

At home I've just started Down to the Sea in Ships, by Horatio Clare, and on the bus I'm reading McGarr and the Politician's Wife, by Bartholomew Gill.

I've just started reading a 2-for-1 volume of Dr Johnson's A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and James Boswell's The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, the two men's separate accounts of the journey they took to Scotland in summer 1773. So far I'm only a little way into the first, but am enjoying it very much - it's very much of its time, so is interesting from that point of view (an English sense of superiority is very present, which from my point of view as an English person living in Scotland is a bit cringeworthy!), but he is also bitchy, snobby, yet also at times really taken with the country without over-romanticising it.

When I need a break from that and need something a bit more contemporary, I am going to be reading One Hit Wonderland by Tony Hawks.

I finished Just After Sunset, a collection of short stories by Stephen King, yesterday. And started my re-read of The Passage by Justin Cronin - just as awesome as I remember it. Going to truly enjoy it and then jump right into the rest of the trilogy!

July has been a really slow reading month for me! So far I've only completed one book, It Happened One Wedding by Julie James. I'm currently in the middle of Deanna Raybourn's A Spear of Summer Grass, which is fine but not really holding my attention.

I'm halfway through my Dewey cat read - The Secret Life of Lobsters and it is actually quite fascinating.

I read Silent Spring for my DeweyCAT book - even though it is ~50 years old, it is still a compelling read.

I'm reading A House for Mr. Biswas for the GeoCAT and I'm listening to Anne of Green Gables. That one's a reread for me, but in a new medium. I'm still working on The Bloomsbury Reader on Islam in the West and Middlemarch.

On the bus I am reading Twenty-Six, by Leo McKay, Jr., and on Overdrive I have started The End of the Wasp Season, by Denise Mina.

I am still listening to The Scent of Secrets by Jane Thynne in the car.
I am still reading Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart by Stefan Kanfer on breaks at work.
I'm just about finished with All She Ever Wanted by Patrick Redmond and starting Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys with @christina_reads.

I finished The Passage and I'm about a third of the way through The Twelve.

I'm still reading my book for the Dewey When Elephants Weep and since I was at the library yesterday, I decided to pick up Island's End by Padma Venkatraman.

I am currently reading Lab Girl and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

I am rereading via audiobook the swashbuckling classic Captain Blood for this month's GeoCAT -- so much fun!

I'm reading an Agatha Christie which is not a Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot, which is really good, Crooked House.

Finished The Twelve on Saturday and now well into the third book in Justin Cronin's viral vampire trilogy, The City of Mirrors.

I'm in another non-fiction groove. My bus book is The Game: A Thoughtful and Provocative Look at a Life in Hockey, by Ken Dryden (the long title is the fastest way to bring up the touchstone -- SO many books called just "The Game"!), and at home I just finished The Family That Couldn't Sleep, by D.T. Max, and am planning to start The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli (translated by Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa).

I just finished Trespassers in Time for the RandomCAT, and I'm getting ready to start Dark Water: Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces about the 1966 flood in Florence that threatened to destroy many famous art works. I've made a good start on A House for Mr. Biswas for the GeoCAT. I'm about halfway through the audio of Anne of Green Gables. I'm still working on Middlemarch and The Bloomsbury Reader on Islam in the West.

I'm in the middle of Wait for me!: Memoirs by Deborah Duchess of Devonshire (one of the Mitford sisters) and enjoying it a lot. Also in the middle of a crime novel Gutshot Straight by Lou Berney that is so far looking like a good one. And I just finished Death of My Aunt by C.H.B. Kitchin an excellent Golden Age mystery from 1929.

I keep getting sidetracked from my July Dewy book When Elephants Weep by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson so I'm still reading it. I need to buckle down and get to it. I finished Island's End a YA book by Padma Venkatraman, a local author. And I started The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny and will probably finish that today or tomorrow. Also reading The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin as my treadmill book and almost done with that one too.

I am currently reading a couple of books that are holding my attention. The Empress of Ice Cream is an interesting historical fiction story that intertwines the story of Louise de Keroualle, mistress to Charles II with that of a fictional character, Carlo Demirco, who masters the art of making ice cream. I am also enjoying These Broken Stars a sci-fi survival and romance story.

On the bus I've started reading Black and Blue, by Ian Rankin. (NOT The Hobbit -- what the heck, touchstone??)

>40 rabbitprincess: Yeah, the default Touchstones seem quite wacky lately! I noticed that one (The Hobbit showing up as the default choice for Black and Blue) a few months ago and there have been some others.

So far in July I have read Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, a couple of thrillers--Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott and After Midnight by Helen Nielsen--and an older post-apocalyptic novel, Vanishing Point by Michaela Roessner. I am currently reading, and already sucked into, Heartsick by Chelsea Cain.