Without wanting to turn into a moany old bat, I have to say that July was not without its issues… The heat, for one thing, was phenomenal in my part of the UK, and I don’t deal with it well. There was ongoing stuff to do with the Aged Parent, work was screamingly busy and I was so tired all the time that I often strugged to read. What I did read was marvellous, though, and here it is – things picked up a little towards the end of the month, though I can only show here one of the latest chapbooks from Nightjar Press (the other was a digital copy), both of which were wonderfully unsettling! No duds as such, although I *was* slightly underwhelmed by one title!

I’m now on the summer break from work (hurrah!) and have found that my reading speed has picked up a little. Looking forward to this month’s plans, again I’ll be keeping things simple.

August has traditionally been a month which is designated by the LibraryThing Virago Modern Classics group as ‘All Virago/All August‘, where we try to focus on reading as many Virago and related books as possible (so Persephone, Furrowed Middlebrow etc). There is also our monthly Virago prompt, which for August is a book about a journey, whether factual or fictional. I have had a dig and have the following options, though it will very much depend on my mood!

Two of those are possibles also for the following event… 😊

August is also, of course, Women in Translation month. Now, I do read a fair amount of translated women already, but I shall definitely look to be reading some of those unread volumes on the stacks – here’s my initial heap of potentials!

There are some lovely titles there, though the risk is as always that I try to take on too much!!

Another August event is a Twitter readalong of Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin”, which is very tempting… I have these two physical copies in the TBR:

and I think there’s a digital copy of the controversial Nabokov translation lurking somewhere too. Knowing me I will run out of time, especially as there’s also an Alkmatova readalong, and I just can’t decide. We shall see…

2022 has, of course, been a bit of a year of re-reading for me, and I think that tendency may be continuing! Annabel announced a few days ago that she’s hosting a monthly readalong of Susan Cooper’s ‘The Dark is Rising’ sequence, running from August to December;  and I’m most keen to join in!

I’ve meant to revisit these books so many times in recent years as there are often readalongs around Christmas time, usually spurred on by the enthusiasm of Robert Macfarlane! I always run out of time, but one book a month worked for me with the Narnia books and I’m sure it will with these! Here are my fragile old editions, dusted off and ready to go!

Apart from these, there’s one book I’m pretty sure I shall be picking up. I hope to be off on my travels for the first time since the pandemic began, visiting my Aged Parent and the Offspring, and I plan to take this one with me:

“Only one book???” I hear you cry? Well, it’s a chunky one (as are most of Victor Serge‘s books) and I suspect it will keep me company for most of my travels. And if I finish it – well, there are bookshops in Leicester, and I *will* have some e-books on the tablet if things get desperate!!

So simple plans for August, and I suspect there may be some incoming titles too! What reading plans do *you* have for the month??