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August Reads | 52 Books 2016

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What I Read in August

I had a great reading month in August: a new favourite book arose, I chose good novels, and we had a great book club pick which provided over an hour of intense discussion.

Want to know which books I’m talking about? Read on for my August Reads.

 

My Summer Recommendations

Since I didn’t do monthly reading wrap-ups on my YouTube channel this summer, I posted recommendations from my June, July, and August reads instead. Watch for more.

 

Capsule Reviews

As always, I’ve also written up capsule reviews of all the books I read in August – those I’d recommend and the others I read and will offer my opinions on.

A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa
40. A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa, translated by Daniel Hahn
★★★★★ – When the Angolan Civil War breaks out, an older woman named Ludo bricks herself into her apartment and fends for herself for 30 years, writing poetry on the walls until a young boy finds her and they strike up an unlikely friendship. That’s the synopsis you’re given – and there’s plenty going on besides, but it’s here where this novel’s heart lies. I’ve not much to say beyond that; it was just fine.
 
 

The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss

41. The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
★★★★★ – I’m a sucker for a well-written interior monologue, and this book really did it for me. It follows Adam, a part-time academic and stay-at-home dad whose daughter collapses at school one day. It rocks his life, bringing worries and helicopter parenting tendencies to the fore. Moss’s voices are utterly credible and she successfully brews up a potent blend of thoughts, actions, worries, and a personal intellectual life within Adam’s mind.
 
 

Stranger on a Train by Jenny Diski

42. Stranger on a Train by Jenny Diski
★★★★★ – This has to sit on the top shelf as one of my favourite books. Diski brings together travel and memoir with these stories of stranger’s lives and her own in a mode that’s circular but also gives a sense of forward momentum. Moments from her journeys across the US by train harken back to her teen years being treated for mental illness, making unlikely friendships, and reading on London’s Circle Line for as many hours as the days allowed. She confers her own story with the benefit of hindsight and of empathy and acceptance, and the shared tales of her fellow passengers with warmth, humour, and understanding. Just a gem.
 
 

Play it As it Lays by Joan Didion

43. Play it As it Lays by Joan Didion
★★★★★ – I’ve been describing this one as a great book that I didn’t enjoy reading. Didion captures the bleak aridity of the American West, the veneer of glitz that barely coneals the misery and shallowness beneath. Her characters are spiteful, self-serving, careless people, chipping the glamorous sheen away where your F Scott Fitzgeralds would lay it on thick. It reads like a movie, but kicks like a book. I hated it, but it’s excellent.
 
 

The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick

44. The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick
★★★★★ – Arranged around celestial events, this novel follows comet seekers and romantics Roisin and Francois. It’s structurally sound but often focuses its details in the wrong places. Who are these people, beyond believers in ghosts and watchers of celestial events? They’re full of interests but lack clear motivation, and fall frustratingly often into immature habits of failed decision-making and simple interpersonal understanding. The implication appears to be that conversation doesn’t drive relationships, and it takes a little too long for its subtle complexities to take hold. I was more often impressed by its mechanics than involved in its story though, overall, it is good for a debut.
 
 

What was the best book you read in August?

July Reads | 52 Books 2015

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valley-fever
33. Valley Fever by Katherine Taylor
★★★★★ – A fairly mediocre novel about a country-turned-city girl who returns to her farming family in Central California and gradually finds a place. It’s engaging enough but lacks a drama, though I did enjoy reading about all the familiar places.

 
 
spinster
34. Spinster by Kate Bolick
★★★★★ – This was a total right-place right-time kind of book. I loved the rich historical context she gives to place the writers she admires and describe the society and the issues they faced. I loved her personal insights into writing, her descriptions of languid and frenetic days as a reader and aspiring writer. I even put up with the really cheesy self-assessments. I loved it, unabashedly. In fact it’s the kind of book I think I would write – though perhaps with a little less self-obsession.

 
 

7 in 7 Readathon

marco-polo
35. Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls by Marco Polo (Little Black Classic)
★★★★★ – This is a bizarre read. Prose style, totally straight. Stories told, utterly bonkers.

 
 
microscope
36. A Slip Under the Microscope by H.G. Wells (Little Black Classic)
★★★★★ – An excellent pair of short stories. I think maybe I need to read more H.G. Wells! The first story is a mystery told through a man’s reminisces on the past, which was heavy with possible readings. The title story was set at a university full of posh kids and focused, as such stories often do, around the poor boy and his romance and academic aspirations. Great sense of suspense – loved it.

 

 

oranges
37. Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
★★★★★ – A bit of a shielded memoir, this novel focuses on the coming-of-age of a young woman brought up in a religious household who comes do discover she’s gay and how the community reacts. It swings between hilarious and heartbreaking. It also features some forays into fairytale, which I wasn’t particularly gripped by. But it’s a great book overall.

 
 
walking
38. Walking by Henry David Thoreau
★★★★★ – What a pretentious willy this guy was.

 
 
the-reckoning
39. The Reckoning by Edith Wharton (Little Black Classic)
★★★★★ – Edith Wharton always seemed like a certain type of readers’ kind of book. I didn’t believe that kind of reader was me, but now I’m wholly convinced.

 
 
circe-cyclops
40. Circe and the Cyclops by Homer (Little Black Classic)
★★★★★ – Excerpts from Homer’s The Odyssey. Some stunning scenes here, though not the most readable translation. I couldn’t quite get the rhythm right in my mind. I think my copy of the full text is a more readable translation, so I’m keener to get to that now.