June 2025 Reading Wrap Up -- BOOK THOUGHTS

BOOK THOUGHTS

June 2025 Monthly Wrap Up

How about a big mug of coffee to go with a big stack of books!

I had a lull in my work schedule in June, giving me lots of time to read. I read 21 books last month, which is a personal record. Have you read any of these or do you plan to?

Here they are, in the order I read them. If they aren't in the picture, it's because I read them with my ears and don't have a physical copy. Oh, I also forgot to include a Ruth Rendell book in the picture, even though I read it with my eyes.

• Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Gartner. I loved this one and reviewed it here. I didn't know anything about Gartner before I read this, other than that she is called the Barefoot Contessa. Her story is inspirational!

• Maigret and the Spinster by Simenon. I have a lot of Simenon's mystery books on my shelves, but have been slow to read them. I found Maigret to be odd, but charming. I want to read more. This is my France book for the 2025 European Reading Challenge. I'm trying to read more books in translation for the challenge. 

• A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg was a disappointment. Read my review here to learn why.

• A New Lease of Death by Ruth Rendell. Now that's I've wrapped up a few other mystery series, I plan to focus on Rendell's Inspector Wexford books. This is the second one. I thought it was terrific, but I haven't really gotten into the series yet. I have time -- there are 24 books in the series. 

• The Punishment She Deserves by Elizabeth George. Her Inspector Lynley series is one I've doubled down on in the last few years. I enjoy the books immensely, this one in particular, but they are so very long! Fortunately, my library recently got many of the audiobooks and that has helped enormously. I can listen to a 24-hour-long audiobook faster than I can read a 900-page book, especially when I speed up the playback speed. 

• Table for Two by Amor Towels. I loved Rules of Civility and this collection of short stories and a novella is in the same spirit. The novella is a sort-of sequel to Rules of Civility. 

• A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler is an early international thriller, published in 1930. The plot was a little messy, but it was a lot of fun.

• A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene was excellent. It's the story of an architect who lost his passion for his work and his religious faith and goes to a leper colony in Africa to lose himself. 

• The Pilgrims Redress by C.S. Lewis. I wanted to like this Christian classic, but I struggle with allegory.

• The New Artisans: Handmade Designs for Contemporary Living by Oliver Dupon is a survey of contemporary arts and crafts. It was interesting, but a little dry to read straight through. 

• Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter. This short collection of three southern gothic novellas knocked my socks off. Porter is in the same school as Flannery O'Connor, with maybe a tough of Eudora Welty. 

• Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz, book five in his Hawthorne & Horowitz series. This is one of my very favorite series, but the fourth book, The Twist of the Knife, disappointed me. It was not as clever, more traditionally formulaic, than the first three. So I put off reading this fifth one when it first came out. I'm glad I finally read it because it is as snappy and fun as the first three.

• Meditations by Marcus Aurelias. Let’s just say, I’m not a stoic. This was a slog. 

• Transcription by Kate Atkinson. This story of WWII and Cold War espionage in London was a delight. I wish I read it earlier.

• Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki. This coming of age story about three sisters in Greece was fabulous, a highlight of my reading month. Another book in translation, this was my Greece pick for the European Reading Challenge. 

• Double Blind by Edward St. Aubyn. I greatly admire his Patrick Melrose books and Lost for Words is an all-time favorite, so I was excited to read this. It had way more brain science than I expected and not enough story about the human relationships, but it was good and I'm glad I read it.

• Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition by Roger Scruton. This one made me think! It's a survey of western conservative thinking from Plato to the 21st Century. 

• Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience, edited by Sean Usher. 125 letters from ordinary and famous people, with short introductions providing context. It's a fun glimpse into the historical record.

• The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan is his only kids book. It was a short, enjoyable read. 

• Travels with Epicurus: A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled Life by Daniel Klein, At the other end of the lifespan spectrum, this a thoughtful consideration of old age.

• The Ice Saints by Frank Tuohy, a forgotten classic that won the 1964 James Tait Black prize. It is the story of a woman from London in the late 1950s who goes to Poland to visit her sister who had married a Polish soldier after WWII. The story is sweet, a little funny, and sad, providing a clear-eyed look at life behind the Iron Curtain. This was my Poland pick for the ERC, even though it is not in translation. 

As work slows down, my reading speeds up! I used to read eight or nine books a month, around 100 a year. The last few years, as I've started to wind down my law practice and turn it over to my junior partner, I've been reading 15 or 16 books a month. June was the first month I really didn't have a lot of work to do and it shows in the number of books I read. I hope this trend continues because I might just have a chance to read all the books on my TBR shelves!