June 2024 Reading Recap
Catching up on recent reads after a vacation!
Mid-July isn’t too late to do a June reading recap, right? I’m going to say it’s not!
This is coming so late because I spent the end of June and the first week of July on vacation. It was the longest stretch I’ve been away from work in several years, and I definitely needed the time to disconnect and reset.
One of my priorities while I was off work was to also be mostly off screens, so I tried to stay away from my computer and avoid scrolling as much as possible — my best “no screen time” day was July 6, when I was on my phone for just 36 minutes!
In any case, back to June! May’s “books with blue covers” theme was so fun that I decided to go with another arbitrary theme for June — books with red covers (plus some library holds that arrived and needed to be read). Here’s what I read last month:
📘 The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott (Historical Fiction)
At the height of the Cold War, two women find themselves working together on a covert mission to smuggle copies of Doctor Zhivago into the USSR. Their story alternates with that of Olga Ivinskaya, the author’s mistress and muse. I was really enamored with all three female characters in this book and loved the way the book shifted perspectives through the narrative. Plus, it’s a great defense of the power of literature and storytelling to push back against oppression and those in power.
📘 Time’s Convert by Deborah Harkness (Fantasy)
I marathoned the first three books of the All Souls series a couple of years ago but wasn’t initially interested in this book, which tells the story of two side characters – Marcus and Phoebe – and their different experiences becoming vampires. I don’t know that the book added much to my enjoyment of this series, but I am a completist, and so I wanted to read it ahead of a new book in the series, The Blackbird Oracle, coming out in July. I don’t think it’s required reading by any means, but I liked it well enough.
📘 Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland (Fantasy)
Five criminals are summoned together for a nefarious plot: to kill the God King of Yusan. They’re lured to participate in the assassination for different reasons and don’t trust each other, but form an alliance to complete this mission anyway. It took me a little bit to get into this one, but once I fell into the flow it was a lot of fun. It’s the first of a duology, and I loved the cliffhanger at the end. A treat!
📘 Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant (Nonfiction)
In 2016, the Canadian town of Fort McMurray was overrun by a wildfire. John Vaillant uses this natural disaster as a jumping-off point to explore how climate change is making fire disasters like this one more common and destructive. He also does some great writing connecting humans to fire, and how fire has enabled us to create the changing conditions for fire to destroy us. It’s a lot, and often pretty depressing, but the writing is excellent and I felt like I learned a lot. I can see why this book was a finalist for this year’s Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.
📘 Chaos Terminal by Mur Lafferty (Mystery)
This is the second book in Mur Lafferty’s Midsolar Murders series, which follows an amateur detective on a sentient spaceship in outer space. I loved Station Eternity, and thought this one was equally as delightful. I liked that the main character, Mallory Viridian, had different challenges in this book (beyond just murder), and that many of the side characters got more time in the spotlight. These books just drop you immediately into the story, which I liked rather than found disorienting, but your mileage may vary.
📘 Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work by Jeanne Marie Laskas (Essays)
In this book, a journalist goes behind the scenes to tell stories about “the unseen people who make this country work” – coal miners, fruit pickers, oil rig workers, air traffic controllers, long-haul truckers, and more. While this book gives facts and context, I loved that these pieces were more impressionistic stories about the people and the work. This book was originally published in 2012, so there are definitely parts that feel dated or quaint after everything we’ve collectively been through over the last 12 years, but it was a lovely read anyway.
Final Thoughts
One thing I’ve appreciated about my reading this year is the variety. Fantasy has definitely been a big part of it, but there’s been a nice mix of other genres — mystery, historical fiction, literary fiction, and memoir — to round things out. I hope to continue that through the rest of 2024.
Other than that… I am happy with my single goal of reading 24 books from Mount TBR. I’m at 13 right now, which actually puts me ahead of schedule into July. Fingers crossed the momentum continues!
What was your favorite book of June? What are you considering reading for the next few months? What’s the best spot to read when it’s hot outside?
Oof, I've had Fire Weather on my list because it sounds so GOOD but so, so heavy.
I was a big fan of Vaillant's book about the amur tigers a bunch of years ago. i'll look for this one!