You’d think I’d have read quite enough fantasy by now after Wyrd and Wonder, but I was enjoying myself so much I’ve just kept going. However, reading to a list wore thin even though I left amazing books to read at end, so I needed a bit of light relief by mid-month. Thankfully a delightful avalanche of bookpost arrived just in time to help me out! Add in sunshine and some relief on the epic work-o-meter and June has been a good’un.

Reading Round-up 

By any yardstick, I’ve read some cracking books in June. Two weren’t to my taste, but still well-executed (honestly, I’d read Cass Khaw’s shopping list at this point) and the rest ranged from very good to scrape me off the floor I’m dying excellent. What will I do when I finish The Broken Earth trilogy?

• Metronome – Oliver Langmead     
• City of Stairs – Robert Jackson Bennett     
• The Court of Broken Knives – Anna Smith Spark    
• Charmcaster – Sebastien de Castell     
• The Obelisk Gate – N K Jemisin      
• Bite-size Books: A Song for Quiet – Cassandra Khaw   
• Born to the Blade     
  • Dreadnought – Cassandra Khaw
  • Refugees – Malka Older
  • Assassination – Malka Older
  • Shattered Blades – Marie Brennan

Review Round-up

• Godblind – Anna Stephens     
• Cibola Burn – James S A Corey    
• The Fifth Season – N K Jemisin      
• Born to the Blade     
  • Trade Deal – Malka Older
  • Spiralling – Marie Brennan

Stacking the shelves

Erm, most of these are ARCs so I think we all know what I’m doing this summer!

Reading statistics

My goal – as always – is to read diversely and to love every book. I’ve put no targets on my reading this year beyond a number of books, but I’m tracking some stats for my own interest.

• 45 / 75 books or novellas + 3 DNFs
• 17 male (38%) / 22 female (49%) / 5 trans, non-binary or genderfluid (11%)
• 16 (36%) – by authors of colour
• 5 (11%) – by LGBTQIA authors
• 9 ARCs / 3 off the shelf (it doesn’t count if I bought them to read them straight away)
• Game of Books score: 231 / 400
• 20 Books of Summer: 6 / 20

Other Challenges

We’re down to the juicy bit in the Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards process. I realised last month that I wouldn’t finish reading all the nominees in time – and that was before I burned out on reading to order in trying to get as close as possible (it turns out no matter how exciting the reading list is, I am a mood reader at heart and eventually the mood gets grumpy about not being able to read that other thing over there, which does nobody any good. I read the other thing. I’m very glad).

The upshot is that I won’t be voting in two categories (SF and Blurred Boundaries) even though I care deeply about the nominees I have read (over half of each category – but as I haven’t read them all, I can’t vote). The rules are tough but fair, and it’s not over yet – this round of voting will whittle us down to 2 finalists per category – so July will be reading any finalists I haven’t yet read and helping decide our winners. Watch out for the finalist list coming your way soon!

How has your month been?