What We're Reading, Vol. 11

Photo by Raquel Reyes.

August truly is the slowest month. Though it may seem as time passes just as quickly as any other month (or even quicker — really, where have the last fifteen days gone?), August is full of days where nothing might actually get done. Long awaited holidays, out-of-office replies, heat exhaustion... summer continues at its monumentally stilted pace and yet we feel ready for what’s next. But wait we must, and so we take what this last summery period gives us: lazy weekends, afternoon thunderstorms, cooler evenings to enjoy on a porch, deck, or terrace — all perfect places to enjoy our final summer reads. 

Whether dipping into a beloved author’s body of work, continuing our July reads, or finding something new altogether, here’s what we’re reading this month:

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Olivia Gündüz-Willemin

After the madness of July, with every single day of the month stretching into weeks, August has really truly been a case of “blink and you miss it.” With most of my time going into self-care, I don’t know where the month has gone. My reading has suffered along with it. At the beginning of the month, I picked up my first bad book in years – one I’d picked up solely because of cover art during an anxiety-driven stop at the bookshop, not even checking to see who had written it or pausing to notice that yes, indeed, it was written by a man. Details need not be shared, but I allowed my reading of the book to drag out over a week before finally putting it aside. A bad book need never be finished, and remembering that fact was exhilarating. Afterwards, I picked up Lara Williams’s Supper Club along with Esmé Weijun Wang’s The Collected Schizophrenias, and both have thoroughly made up for the one disappointing book of the month. Both are all-absorbing and thought-provoking and manage to finally put thoughts and feelings into words that had until now gone unidentifiable. 

Next up: whatever else I can salvage from my summer reading list before moving the rest of it into my autumn pile. 

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Raquel Reyes

After Toni Morrison’s passing earlier this month, I spent a few days reading whatever snippets of her I could find online, as well as dipping in and out of The Source of Self-Regard. Something about great novelists (and artists in general) always makes me wish for their wisdom, and I typically find myself seeking out their essays, opinions, and poetry when I don’t have the emotional energy for another novel. Specifically with Morisson, something in me remembered the story of her long-lost poetry, and after searching for hours, Believer Magazine made my dreams come true, resurrecting the volume and publishing it on their site. 

The rest of August has been a mixed bag for me, as summer restlessness finally hits and I try to motivate myself into better habits for the rest of the year. To that end, I've been reading James Clear’s Atomic Habits, an easy to read explanation of how habits work and how to build them over time. I don’t know anything of Clear as a person, but his introduction shares a bevy of sources and he’s quick to make no guarantees, simply to share what has worked for him through an eventful life and the many paths he has been on. In a world of snake oil and self help books promising to change your life overnight, his realistic words provide some balanced motivation. For some lightness after dealing with a broken air conditioning unit last weekend and the overheated stress that came with it, I spent a solid couple of days on my porch deck, drinking sparkling water and reading Jasmine Guillory’s The Wedding Party. A spin-off/sequel to last year’s smash hit The Wedding Date, Party follows Alexa’s feuding best friends Maddie and Theo as they inevitably fall in love over the course of planning Alexa’s wedding together. Just as fun as its predecessor, it provided an easy escape to the misery of yet another heat wave.

Next up: like Olivia, figuring out what of my summer reading list still stands and what will be postponed for new autumn reads to take their place.

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G.K. Andrews

August has been a whirlwind month for me, with tutoring, performing and preparations for the academic term all sadly decreasing my treasured reading time. However, the books I have managed to read this month have more than made up for the lack of time I’ve had to read them. After months of anticipation, I finally read Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls in snippets of time snatched on public transport and was on tenterhooks throughout. It’s a brutal but compelling read, beautifully giving voice to Briseis, a royal captive of the Trojan War forced into becoming bed-slave to so-called hero Achilles. Instead of taking a breather, I then threw myself into to Sara Collins’ The Confessions of Frannie Langton, another gripping story of a disenfranchised woman whose intellect and passion will not be crushed by the racism and misogyny of her time. Frannie is a standout heroine, her narrative voice recalling old favourites of mine such as Jane Eyre, Alias Grace and Wide Sargasso Sea, and Collins’ writing is masterful, reinvigorating the genre of gothic literature and replacing its supernatural elements with the true horrors that women of colour faced in 19th century London. 

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Eliza Campbell

As July drew to a close I tried a re-read of an old favourite of mine: The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins. I only managed the first book and a half before having to put it down. When I loved these books I was between the ages of 14-16, and so the plight of the characters and the horrors they suffered didn’t seem all that shocking. I, after all, was 15 and grown up — I would tackle the situations just like they did. Now, as an adult, I find the age of the characters a little shocking (something the movie glided over when they cast 22 year-old Jennifer Lawrence as 16 year-old Katniss Everdeen). I still love the books and they’ll always hold a special place in my heart but I think I’ve grown out of being able to connect to the series. Moving on, at the start of this month I went with my family to Greece, which gave me plenty of time to read on plenty of beaches. I bounded my way through Donna Tartt’s oeuvre (The Goldfinch as stunning as ever, The Little Friend as haunting as ever, and The Secret History sillier now with my older, graduated eyes). I also read Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere which is an absolutely stunning novel about family, motherhood, grief, and art. It can be a quick read but I savoured it for my final few days in Greece and read the final few pages quite literally as the plane was taking off.

Next up: After a lifetime of despising all literature from the 19th century I’ve started reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (mainly because I want to be in on the action for the film adaptation this Christmas). I’m also planning to read The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker which has had no shortage of praise on all my social media feeds.

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Now tell us below – what are you reading this month?

Photo by Olivia Gündüz-Willemin.

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