August Reading / Life
- Overall, my August reading wasn’t quite as high quality as July. But I read nine books, which I’m kind of shocked about since the Olympics were completely taking over my brain!
- The blog briefly morphed from book-focused to all things Olympics with my Best of 2016 Olympic Swimming recap, Olympic Figures That Would Make Intriguing Book Characters, and 8 Books About the Olympics posts. Thanks to all you non-Olympics obsessed bookworms for tolerating my side passion!
- And, the Olympics of course inspired some of my August book/audio choices: Off Balance by 1996 Olympic gymnast Dominique Moceanu (audiobook) and You Are An Ironman by Jacques Steinberg, both solid sports books.
- Reading highlights from this month were Dear Mr. M, which kicked off my September releases with a bang, The Hopefuls, which was one of my top summer 2016 reads, and American Heiress, which hit home just how crazy the Patty Hearst kidnapping story actually was.
- My only real disappointment was How I Became A North Korean.
Best Book of the Month
Dear Mr. M by Herman Koch (September 6, 2016)
Fiction, 416 Pages
Affiliate Link: Buy from Amazon
September Releases I’m Excited About
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (September 6)
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (September 6)
The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride (September 20)
Top Backlist Books on my “To Be Read” List
Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo
The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Most Popular August Posts
My Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2016
Ten Quintessential, Contemporary New York City Novels
Ten Books from My Pre-Blogging TBR That I Still Haven’t Read
Favorite Posts by Fellow Bloggers
- I identified with a couple of Beth Fish Reads’ Confessions of a Book Nerd (particularly numbers 2, 3 and 7).
- I also identified with many of Wendy at Taking the Long Way Home’s reasons why she runs (i.e. “endorphins for mom” and “time alone to sort things out in my head”). Granted, sometimes I mix biking and swimming in with the running.
- I wish I’d discovered the Summer Olympics book tag early enough to participate…next Olympiad for sure!
- I loved Ann at Books on the Table’s commentary (and accompanying book recommendations) inspired by Edan Lepucki’s 2014 article asking “Are you a page-turner or a page-hugger?”
- Finally, seeing Katie at Doing Dewey’s discussion about unlikeable characters was serendipitous after reading Herman Koch’s latest novel!
August was a good reading month for me but I know September won’t be. I’ll be gone for two weeks straight. I don’t know what I was thinking when I planned that – I’m starting to feel panicky now!
Oh no – and right in the middle of all the amazing September releases! I hope you can work in some reading time.
Ha! Glad you saw a little of yourself in my confessions post! I have a big work month coming up, so I suspect I’ll be doing mostly audios.
Audios save the day! Hope you can find a little reading time in there.
Your August definitely rocked, and you spiced things out on the blog with those Olympics-inspired posts, which I loved, by the way. Olympics and all, I say you had a good reading month quantity-wise. I’m sorry you didn’t feel the quality was as per usual, but that happens from time to time. Overall, I don’t think this year has been that great book-wise, and I have read much less than in previous years, though I’m reviewing more movies lately and they take all weekend without reading squeezed in.
I’m glad you enjoyed the Olympics posts – I was a little nervous they’d turn off some people, but I loved doing them too much not to. And I agree about there not being as many great books this year 🙁
Dear Mr. M and Commonwealth look good. Enjoy September!
I’ve been hearing good things about Commonwealth, so I’m hopeful 🙂
Debating if I want to read Dear Mr M or not, since I didn’t die over The Dinner. Time will tell… And I still totally want to read The Hopefuls. I’m looking forward to The Lesser Bohemians in September as well, and the cover is just too pretty.
You know, I feel like Koch is a very love him or hate him kind of writer…sort of like cilantro. The style of Dear Mr. M is similar to The Dinner, but the story isn’t as tight. I think you’ll enjoy The Hopefuls…especially with all you have going on in your life right now…it’s an easy, but smart read.
Should I read A Gentleman in Moscow or Dear Mr. M??? Don’t think I’ll have time for both this month with all the other great books out and school starting up! Loved The Hopefuls!
I haven’t read Gentleman yet, but every blogger I follow who’s read it has rated it 5 stars. So, I’d pick that one. Dear Mr. M was really great, but wasn’t quite 5 stars for me and I have a feeling opinions will be all over the map with that one.
I listened to a conversation with the author of American Heiress on a radio show and I definitely need to read it! I visited Hearst Castle last year and it reminded me that the whole family is interesting in its own right. It might make a great followup to The Girls!
That’s so cool – I’d love to go there! And the Manson cult is actually mentioned in American Heiress…just in passing. So, agree it would be a great follow-up..or fiction/nonfiction pairing.