August Wrap-Up and September Hopefuls

August reads

August Wrap-Up

• Finished: 5
• Started/continued but not finished: 4
• Total pages read: 1,949
• Average rating: 4.8

August was another great reading month for me. Four of the five books I finished were five stars, and one was four stars. The two fiction books I’ve written longer reviews of were both written by Madeline Miller, novel-length Circe (5/5 stars) and short story Galatea (5/5 stars). Needless to say, I loved them both! Click the links to read more about my thoughts.

 

Ronja the Robber’s Daughter by Astrid Lindgren

I also read one children’s or a middle grade book, Astrid Lindgren’s Ronja the Robber’s Daughter. The book tells the story of Ronja and Birk, two children of hostile robber families, who become friends and must convince their fathers to reconcile. Ronja the Robber’s Daughter is like a middle grade version of Romeo and Juliet – but with a happy end. Like all good children’s literature, it comes with a beautiful message of the importance of friendship, and like so many of Lindgren’s characters, the children are kind and resourceful. For some reason, I never read this book as a child, but I’m glad I’ve read it now. Highly recommend, and this was another five-star read.

 

Nonfiction Books

I also finished two nonfiction books. The first was Thomas More’s Utopia, which was a reread. Published in 1516 in Latin, Utopia describes a fictional island nation where people live in peace and harmony, both men and women are educated, and all property is communal. I had read this book before when I was in high school but honestly, I couldn’t remember much about it. No wonder, because I have to say this book isn’t very memorable. It is an interesting read, nonetheless, if only to see what people in the 16th century considered the ideal society.

The second nonfiction book I finished was a history book about medieval artisans in the Baltic Sea area, Perhe ja verstas by Maija Ojala-Fulwood. Unfortunately, it’s only available in Finnish, but it was a fascinating read.

 

September Hopefuls

September hopefuls

I’m currently in the middle of four books. Frances Burney’s Cecilia I will finally finish in the first week of September, and I’m almost done with Thea Guanzon’s fantasy novel The Hurricane Wars as well. I also started Megan Barnard’s fantasy novel The Winter Goddess. It’s a library book, so I have to finish it before I can get back to my actual TBR pile of books that I own! I’m also trying to read a nonfiction book in Swedish, but to be honest I’m mostly just flipping through the book. I think I need something easier to read if I want to brush up my Swedish!

Besides finishing the four books I’m in the middle of, I want to read Marjan Kamali’s The Lion Women of Tehran. It’s historical fiction, and I’m hoping it might work as a comp title for my own novel (even though the historical period they describe is very different). I’m also planning to start R.F. Kuang’s Babel, and I want to listen one audiobook while I’m knitting a new pair of wool socks for winter. I have no idea which audiobook I’ll choose, since I’m going to get it from the library and it depends on what’s available when I have the time to start knitting! Oh, and there’s one more library book I want to read, The Novel in the Ancient World edited by Gareth Schmeling.

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If you want to see more about the books I read in August, check out my reading wrap-up video below: