Bookish Chatter | The Last One of July

Can you believe it’s the last Wednesday of July? That sentence actually froze me for a few seconds and I couldn’t move past it. Unbelievable. The year is moving quickly and I am so excited to get to fall. You know that August is the hardest month for me and I’m hoping it moves just as quickly as July did. I’m definitely grateful for air conditioners and stacks of books! Today I’m sharing the books I finished since last Wednesday. It’s an eclectic list!

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Finished this week:

The House of Doors is another amazing novel from Tan Twan Eng. Lesley surprises herself by sharing some of her most intimate secrets with Willie Maugham, a writer who is visiting Lesley and her husband in Malaya in 1921. Like in The Garden of Evenings Mists, Eng describes the effects of English imperialism in modern-day Malaysia, but managed to highlight the sexism and racism of the time much more boldly in this novel. The writing is gorgeous and I love the details Eng tends to include. He is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors!

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A Mercy is set in the 1600s and focuses on the household of Jacob Vaark, a Dutch settler who is given a slave as payment despite his disinterest in slaveholding. This book is painful and dark and will require many readings for me to even begin to wrap my head around its complexity and depth. It almost felt circular and I had to reread the opening pages as soon as I finished the novel because I felt confused — but it made total sense once I went back to the beginning. The tragedies of slavery and its long-term effects on this country cannot be overstated.

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After finishing The House of Doors and A Mercy, my brain was fried. I tried a couple of other books but wasn’t ready for them so I returned to Maisie Dobbs, who can always help me push the reset button and find my bearings. Elegy for Eddie is the ninth book in the series and possibly my favorite? But I probably say that about all of them! Eddie is a man with special needs and his death is suspicious to those who love him. Maisie is asked to look into it and her investigation takes her to places she wouldn’t guess.

Maisie herself is such an interesting character. She is still chafing under her newly gained wealth and is feeling suffocated by her romantic relationship, despite loving James deeply. She is most content when in her small flat in the city, preparing her own simple suppers. And I love this about her!

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The Last (Endling #1) is our most recent morning readaloud. Katherine Applegate is one of my favorite authors to read with my children and still — it took us quite a while to get through this one! I think this series is a little too advanced for them right now so we won’t be continuing as a readaloud, but I’m planning to buy the second and third books to leave in Bryce’s room. He often surprises me by what he’s willing to pick up on his own when he thinks no one is looking!

This book is set in an imaginary world in which humans rule along with other species. Byx is a dairne, a dog-like species that is on the brink of extinction. When her village is viciously attacked, she’s alone in the world and believes she’s the last of her kind. She finds friends along the way that help her seek the mythical islands that she believes is the home of more dairnes. The Last is a wonderful book for fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings!

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Bronwyn and I finished Ivy & Bean: Break the Fossil Record last night. Bean’s teacher gives her a book of world records, which mesmerizes her entire class. They all head home at the end of the day with plans to break their own world records. The most spoons on your face, the most cartwheels, the most straws in your mouth — all sorts of ideas. After Ivy and Bean’s efforts fail, they decide to qualify for the book by digging up fossils. To their delight, they begin finding bones in Bean’s backyard! Could they really break the record and become the world’s youngest paleontologists??!

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And we finished the second volume of Curiosity Chronicles: Snapshots of Early Modern History! I know you’ve heard me to say this before, but I love this history series. We’ve learned about so much that’s not typically taught in public school history classes. And I love how the author shows cause and effect – such as how the industrial revolution in Great Britain created a lack of farmland but a high demand for wool, which meant that sheep farms moved to Australia, which destroyed the rich farmland the Aboriginals spent centuries carefully cultivating. Details like this are enlightening on a factual level, as well as creating a broader understanding of how every action has ripple effects. Anyway — I could go on and on about these history books, but will stop. Here’s the table of contents for Volume 2:

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I don’t think it’s necessary to add anything about what I’m reading now in today’s post — the descriptions above were plenty! I hope to be back on Friday with an update on other things happening around here. I hope the rest of the week treats you well – take good care!

PS – 6 days until the Booker longlist announcement! We will have the list by the time my next bookish chatter post comes out!