Read Women discussion

June is almost a wrap. Gulp.

Let's take a moment to discuss highlights or anything else memorable about what you have read this year. Take stock and share goodness along with any most anticipated excitement for your second-half TBR.

This year has zoomed by. I'm in a bit of a reading slump right now. The heatwave in the UK isn't helping but the first 5 reading months were great ones!

Firstly, I'm really loving my new role here as a moderator and am thankful to you all for welcoming and encouraging me :)

I really enjoyed our Han Kang author focus. We've had some great discussions too. Mr Loverman and Womb City spring to mind! I'm also really glad that you guys encouraged me to retry Their Eyes Were Watching God and have discovered a new passion for reading bingo!

My favourite reads of the year so far:
Things They Lost
Mina's Matchbox
Ten Steps to Nanette
Their Eyes Were Watching God
A Guardian and a Thief
The Vegetarian

I'm looking forward to trying to smash our second bingo challenge! Getting over this slump and reading some of my massive pile of nature reads, including our buddy read of The Blue Machine: How the Ocean Works. And exploring more for our Q3 sci-fi/fantasy challenge :D

The Han Kang author focus was a big win for me, too, Hannah. Overall, I've had a better nonfiction reading year than fiction, but I can't complain. I'm excited for how many of my most enjoyed reading discoveries were found with our group.

Best Fiction

Hunger: A Novella and Stories by Lan Samantha Chang

August Blue by Deborah Levy

Human Acts by Han Kang

Mallory's Oracle by Carol O'Connell (mid-1990s NYC police procedural/mystery series)

Best Non-fiction

Dead and Alive: Essays by Zadie Smith

Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown

Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital by Elise Hu

Humanly Possible by Sarah Bakewell

Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice by Rachel Kolb

Water, Wood, and Wild Things: Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town by Hannah Kirshner

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

Light and Thread by Han Kang

Most Anticipated Reads

Unsettled by Rosaleen McDonagh

Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage by Heather Ann Thompson

Our July group read: Fighting Chance: The Struggle over Woman Suffrage and Black Suffrage in Reconstruction America by Faye E. Dudden

Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor

Keeper of My Kin: Memoir of an Immigrant Daughter by Ada Ferrer, author of Cuba: An American History

Our Hilary Mantel and Arundhati Roy Author Focuses

Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor

and two by 2 of my fave male authors:

Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead

Etna by Paul Yoon

I have had a fantastic year of reading so far. Only seven of my books have been two or three stars. Everything else has been four and five stars.

Some of my favorites:
Both Career and Love: A Woman’s Memoir 1959-1973 by Anne Rankin Mahoney
The Lost Daughters of Ukraine by Erin Litteken
Women in Wonderland: Lives, Legends, and Legacies of Yellowstone by Elizabeth A. Watry
The Golden Cage by Camilla Läckberg
Phoenix Burning by Isabella Maldonado
The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
A Song for Rust-City by Simina Lungu
The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson

Misty wrote: "I have had a fantastic year of reading so far. Only seven of my books have been two or three stars. Everything else has been four and five stars.

Some of my favorites:
[book:Both Career and Love:..."

WooHOO!!! That's the kind of year I wish for all of my bookish friends. and now I'm adding several new titles to my TBR, too.

Always love seeing everyone's recaps! My reading year started off kind of sluggish until March or thereabouts, but thankfully, it has significantly improved. I've read 29 books and DNFed 15 (less than usual, on both counts). I'm pleased to have read so much from the various prize lists (Women's, International Booker, Carol Shields). As always, I need to pick up the pace on reading my own books and diversify a bit more. Some favorites thus far:

5 Stars:
Lion by Sonya Walger
Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats by Courtney Gustafson
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
Pete and Alice in Maine by Caitlin Shetterly
(I'm predicting that my current read, Whistler by Ann Patchett will be on this list by the end of this week.)

4 Stars:
Days of Light by Megan Hunter
Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins by Barbara Demick
She Who Remains by Rene Karabash
Writers & Lovers by Lily King (a reread)
The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People's History of Afghanistan by Lyse Doucet
The White Hot by Quiara Alegría Hudes
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
The Night We Met by Abby Jimenez
You With the Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate
Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly
And So It Is...A Memoir of Acceptance and Hope by Jamie-Lynn Sigler
The Gulf of Lions by Caitlin Shetterly

My faves of the year have been

Mild Vertigo by Mieko Kanai
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
With My Back to the World: Poems by Victoria Chang
The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield
Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg

In the coming months, the reading plans that I'm at the moment especially looking forward are

finally checking out Muriel Spark
finally reading again Arundhati Roy (planning on the recent memoir), and generally seeing what other plans I manage to stick to ... for example, I'd love the get to more Zadie Smith.

Melissa wrote: "Always love seeing everyone's recaps! My reading year started off kind of sluggish until March or thereabouts, but thankfully, it has significantly improved. I've read 29 books and DNFed 15 (less t..."

adding to my tbr. what a great range you’ve enjoyed. fun fun