June and July Reads

Hi all! Hope everyone is enjoying their summer. 

It's time to tell you about what we've been reading. Please know that we would love to hear about what you've been reading, too! Share with us in the comments!

June Reads

Katie:

• All My Sons by Arthur Miller

I finished just this one thing in June. It's a play centered around two families, whose fathers were partners in business during the war. Their machine shop turned out defective airplane parts, causing the deaths of twenty-one pilots. (Yes, you read that right. Apparently this play is where Tyler Joseph got his band name.) Anyway, the play concerns the resurfacing of those events, and the conflict between and within the families because of them.

Sarah:

• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

As you can see, I did not make much headway in June. Tom Sawyer was a pretty fun read, but it did not make much of an impression on me.

July Reads

Katie:

• Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan
• The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems by Billy Collins
• Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
• The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery

After waiting in line for a few months, I got the short story collection by Ted Chiang back from the library and was finally able to finish it. I really enjoyed the vast majority of these stories. (Arrival, a film adaptation of "Story of Your Life," is also good - though not quite as good as the source material). I also enjoyed The Blue Castle, which was a light, cute romance brought to us by the author of Anne of Green Gables. Of Bees and Mist, which falls under the genre of magical realism was also quite good. My top recommendation for July, however, is Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. I won't say anything about it just now - this paragraph is already long enough - but perhaps I'll post about it in the not-too-distant future. I liked the Billy Collins poems, but I have found that I feel like I don't know how to properly read a book of poetry... which is funny, because I'm currently reading two more: one by Carl Sandburg, and one by Tracy K. Smith. If anyone has any tips for me, let me know!

Sarah:

• The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler by James Cross Giblin
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Huckleberry Finn was a decent novel, but it did not engage me the entire way through - it seemed to lag a little bit in some places. Probably my favorite thing about the book was the way that Huck's character developed over the course of the story. The dynamic between Huckleberry and Jim was also fascinating to observe. I am currently reading a biography by Elizabeth Partridge entitled All I Want is the Truth. It is a photographic biography of John Lennon, and I am finding it to be a very interesting read thus far. 

We really struggle with these personal goals we set for ourselves... weekly blogging, reading 100 books in a year, etc. etc... yet we persist in at least trying! That counts for something, right? Maybe it's time to look into some more realistic goals, though. Haha. Hey, we could blog about that!