I hit a bit of a binge-reading phase at the beginning of July. Not sure what happened there but, hey, I got lots of reading in! It must be my new kindle reading setup. I did say it was peak reading efficiency. I used Libby to check out digital versions of physical books I owned and needed to read. Zach and I were adding to our bookshelves more quickly than we could make room so I felt the need to read much faster and make more room.
Some highlights from my reads this month…
Finished my first audiobook this month. I’ve always wanted to add audiobooks to my reading formats, but I have such a hard time concentrating to audio for long periods of time. My mind constantly blanks out and I get distracted. I think I figured it out though- I was always able to listen to true crime podcasts so maybe it was a content-specific issue? I’ve had a few non-fiction books on my list to read and some memoirs so I gave that a shot. It worked quite well and I think I’ve found my preferred audiobook content! Solo walks and driving are about to get much more productive for me on the reading front.
I hit 100 books read for 2024 this month! I already knew I was headed there but it was nice to hit another goal. I may not remember all the details of the books I read but I can tell you the vibes are good. 
I only wanted to read 52 books this year (1 book per week), so I was quite pleased. I’m not trying to burn myself out on reading though; I’m just curious to see how many more books I can get in this year. It’s been a little bit of a struggle picking where to spend my free time (not a real problem, I know). I intend to spread my free time across more of my various hobbies. We’ll see how that goes.
My favorite read(s) this month goes to Lisa Jewell’s book The Family Upstairs and its sequel The Family Remains. I picked up a physical copy of The Family Remains at a used bookstore on one of our trips this past winter not realizing it was a sequel so, naturally, I needed to quickly get my hands on the first book. Remains is written in a way that it could be read as a standalone, but the story and the characters were much more impactful after reading the first book. Those books were a wild ride and made me wish more authors did sequels for mystery/thriller books. I always feel like there’s more that can be dug into when reading mystery/thriller books but they’re often standalones. That’s not a problem because a sequel should only be done if done well and not just for the sake of it. I was just pleasantly surprised to be able to experience a well done one in this genre.
Moving on- unsurprisingly, Emily Henry has made me cry twice this month. Happy Place has been hanging out on my bookshelf for a few months and I’ve been afraid to start it. I needed to be ready to feel the emotions. I sure was glad I was ready for that but I don’t know that being ready helped much. Emily Henry continues to pull at my heartstrings. Naturally, I then jumped into her newest, Funny Story, not long after. I’ve loved the recent Emily Henry books more than I thought I would! I haven’t read all of her older works. Book Lovers was my first Emily Henry book and it was good, enjoyable, but didn’t really stand out to me. She sure changed that! I’m looking forward to the next Emily Henry release and will be going back through her bibliography and reading the ones I’ve skipped over so far.
I honestly read so many great books this month. If I dug into my thoughts on all of them it could be a short novel. Here’s a quick snapshot of my ratings this month. I’m expanding my 5
reads list!
I’m anticipating next month’s read summary to be much shorter. Based on how many books Zach and I added to our bookshelves this past month, we still have a lot of work to do to make room. Piles are forming where there isn’t enough space to actually shelve books. It’s very possible we’ll just get another shelf instead. 