TELL ME TUESDAY
NUMBER FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY-ONE
LAST. NOW. NEXT.
AUGUST READING WRAP-UP
TELL ME TUESDAY is a floating feature where I tell you what I read last, what I'm reading now, and what I will be reading next.
THEMES • BUDDY READS • SLOW READ
My August theme was Dog Days of Summer.
(books with dogs in them)
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My September theme is Witchtember.
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A Year of Brontë
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Little House Series Buddy Re-Read
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Dickens Year-Long Slow Read
★★
LITERARY FICTION
STANDALONE
CLASSIC
Published 1847 - Own Ebook
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This is my latest A Year of Brontë book. I wanted to get my buddy read with Liis finished before she went back to university. We were both underwhelmed. It was like Anne said, "Oh, my sisters are writing books; I will too!" Ha ha. I still have her other novel to read, but I'm not too optimistic because most readers think this is the better one. It counts towards Dog Days of Summer because there are several dogs in the story.
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You can read Liis' blog review: here.
★★★★
MIDDLE GRADE
SERIES NUMBER FOUR
HISTORICAL
HISTORICAL
LATE 1870s
PIONEER LIFE
FAMILY
Published 1937 - Own Paperback
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This was my most recent Little House series buddy re-read with Jolene. The descriptive writing in the book was lush and vivid. It also counted towards Dog Days of Summer because of the Ingalls' dog Jack.
★★★★★
MEMOIR
NEW YORK CITY
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Published - Libby Borrow
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Oh, this book; this book! The author seamlessly wove together his own life's history with the history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the histories of some of his favorite pieces in the museum. He then embroidered those histories with snippets of his more recent life as a museum guard, and the day-to-day workings of the The Met; along with musings on life and art, and his fellow humans. What a marvelous experience it was reading this memoir. I found out about it on my library's weekly, What Are You Reading This Weekend, Facebook post. It's most definitely a book I will re-read and also buy a hardcover copy of for my bookshelves.
★★★★★
(4.5)
MEMOIR
CLASSIC
Published 1961 - Libby Borrow
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I thought this was going to be the first title for my August Dog Days of Summer blog theme, but then I realized Agnes Grey had quite a few dogs in it. I don't think this book will be everyone's cup of tea. It just serendipitously happened to have a lot of esoteric themes that interested me.
★★
CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY
STANDALONE
GODS AND GODDESSES
RADICAL FEMINISM
Published 2024 - Hoopla Borrow
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I had been wanting to read this because Atalanta was the name given to me for high school Latin class. I never looked into her character traits before and was delighted she hung out with the guys doing guy things; which was me in a nutshell. I was also on the archery team. I was expecting a story like Madeline Miller's Circe, but this book was pretty dull. Imagine having all those wonderous mythological places to describe and creatures to flesh out and using bland basic adjectives. The story was about her being the only female Argonaut on Jason's voyage to find the Golden Fleece, but the author crammed in events and scenes from other quests, taking time away from needed development of the main storyline. Her Feminist views were for the most part radical, and I felt like the "all men are bad" ideology was being shoved down my throat. It had several different dogs in it for Dog Days.
★
MEMOIR
DISABLED DOG
ADOPTION
Published 2009 - Libby Borrow
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Oogy the dog is fabulous, but this book is a wreck. It's full of weak writing, contradictions, faulty reasoning, boring minutia, weird thinking, and cloaked boasting. The author also keeps comparing the adoption of Oogy in importance to adopting his twin sons, and sees dog adoption as equal to human adoption in general. I love dogs to the moon and back, but good grief. The author also talks too much about their expensive kitchen appliances, extravagant vacations, and his career successes. There needed to be more about Oogy and less about the author.
★★★
(2.5)
ADULT FICTION
FANTASY- SCIENCE FICTION
ENVIRONMENTAL FICTION
FAMILY & FRIENDS
Published 2024 - Libby Borrow
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This book had a wonderful premise, but as so many reviewers agreed it was confusingly scattered and wandering. According to the publisher's page on Edelweiss it was released as Literary Fiction; however I didn't feel it was much more than plain old adult fiction which sometimes read like Chicklit. The first half of the story which took place in the main character's childhood and teenage years felt more like Young Adult. It's a shame because the author's descriptive writing is stellar. It's almost like publishing houses don't have true editors anymore who give authors advice and guidance. It also counted towards DDoS.
I also liked this cover.
★★★
(2.5)
CLASSIC
LITERARY FICTION
THE HUMAN CONDITION
FRENCH SOCIETAL CLASS SYSTEM 1800s
TRANSLATED
Published 1882 - 0wn Ebook
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The downfall of this story was its seventy-seven characters. The families had similar sounding names and Zola would switch back and forth between the characters' surnames, first names and nicknames making things all the more confusing. Many of the secondary characters were unnecessary in my opinion. I'm sorry this was my first experience with Zola's writing. I most definitely would have stopped reading it if I hadn't needed it for a reading challenge square. It had a dog in it for a short time so it also counts towards my August reading theme.
YOUNG ADULT
TRILOGY BOOK ONE
FANTASY/PARANORMAL
FOUND FAMILY
WITCHES
Published 2019 • Own Ebook
Almost to sixty percent and so far, so good.
CHICK LIT
STANDALONE
PARANORMAL
WITCHES
Published 2014 • Own Ebook
I read another witch-themed book penned by this author, The Witch of Little Italy, and despite it being Chick Lit, which is usually not my cup of tea, it was one of those rare times I liked it. When I was looking for an ebook of the Little Italy story (because the narrator of the Libby audiobook was a mouth-breather) I saw this one was 50¢, so I scooped it up.
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I stopped adding LAST read books at the end of August because this post was already going to be too long. I have read four books for Witchtember so far and ditched one.
AUGUST READING WRAP-UP
⚫
BOOKS READ
EIGHT
ARCS
NONE
PHYSICAL BOOKS
ONE
EBOOKS
SIX
AUDIOBOOKS
ONE
MANGA - GRAPHIC NOVELS - COMICS
NONE
MIDDLE GRADE
ONE
YOUNG ADULT
NONE
ADULT FICTION
FIVE
NONFICTION
TWO
RE-READS
ONE
BOOKS READ FOR AUGUST'S DOG THEME
SEVEN
MY FAVORITE BOOK IN AUGUST
★★★★★
2026
YEAR TO WRAP-UP DATE
TOTALS
51
PERSONAL CHALLENGES
NONFICTION 9/12
MIDDLE GRADE 12/12
NATIVE AMERICAN/FIRST NATIONS AUTHORS 0/3
MUSIC 0/1
PLAYS 0/1
BACKLIST ARCS 0/3
CLASSICS/VINTAGE 17/12
RE-READS 7/12
FREEBIES/99¢ KINDLE BOOKS 8/12
NYT 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY 1/3
BOOKER PRIZE FIRST PLACE WINNERS 0/3
•••
MIDDLE GRADE • 12
YOUNG ADULT • 4
ADULT FICTION • 26
NONFICTION • 9
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GRAPHIC NOVELS/MANGA • 1
AUDIOBOOKS • 9
EBOOKS • 35
PHYSICAL COPIES • 11
BORROWED • 29
Prompt for AUGUST, A Book That Could be Considered Taboo, completed!
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Pot Luck by Émile Zola was very risqué for the 1800s. I couldn't think of any book considered taboo today that I would be interested in reading, so I went to the Catholic Church's now defunct Index Librorum Prohibitorum: The Index of Forbidden Books. It was a continuously updated list which was kept from 1557 until 1966. The entire body of Émile Zola's work was still on the list in 1966!
What are you reading? Tell me!
Adding All the Beauty in the World to my TBR. It looks amazing. I wasn't the biggest fan of Travels with Charley but am glad to see you enjoyed it. I've never really heard anyone rave about Anne's books and I think I agree with your assessment. I imagine if your two sisters were writing you would want to be included in the discussions as well! I'm reading Haunting on the Hill at the moment which is the only book sanctioned by the Shirley Jackson estate to continue the world of Hill House. Mixed feelings about it currently. Enjoy your reading!
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