This month, I have really enjoyed taking part in The Reading Women's Reading Women Month bingo challenge. I never set out to get a line or a bingo but my aim was to read as many of the prompts as possible to challenge myself and make me consider what I have been reading. At the time of this post (22nd June) I have read 10 books and have a couple of others on the go.
I love these prompts, but I can tell you now there are a few that I will not to get to by the end of the month. These are: Re-reading a Favourite, Road Trip, About Food and Mental Health. I don't tend to re-read as there are too many great books to get to! I'm coming up blank on a Road Trip book I already own, and I don't want to buy anymore books this month. Books about food just bore me, if my sister is reading this I don't mean your books (this'll be a test to see if she's following). Years ago, I read The Gourmet by Muriel Barbery and loved it but I've already read it so that's off the table. I am all about Mental Health in books I just don't own any that I haven't already read. I did start A Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion but I sobbed my way through the first 90 or so pages and had to stop. I will return to it but at a time when I'm feeling slightly more emotionally together.
As it is 22nd June I think I'll only get to two or three more, at the most. I'm having surgery next week which will either mean I'll have loads of resting time to read or I'll be so tanked on pain meds I won't be able to see the words. I shall see how it goes. I have a work deadline to meet before all that so reading this weekend isn't high on the agenda, sadly.
Starting from the top this is a list of books I have read this month:
In Translation - That Last Children of Tokyo by Yoko Tawada translated by Margaret Mitsutani
Memoir by Woman of Colour - Rise by Gina Miller
Beach Read - I'd Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel
LGBTQ - Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Summer Read - The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips
Muslim Author - Adnan's Story by Rabia Chaudry
Kiddie Lit - Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson
Graphic Novel - Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
On Feminism - The Power of Women by June Sarpong
Mystery - The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
Here are the contenders to finish off the month:
True Crime - The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson
Short Stories - Salt Slow by Julia Armfield
Aussie Author - The Lost Flowers of Alice Heart by Holly Ringfield
Free Square - Real Murders by Charlaine Harris
Essays - Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud by Anne Helen Petersen
Romance - Whiskey and Ribbons by Leesa Cross-Smith
I won't get to all of them but I'll check in again for my monthly round up next week and see how I finished up.