A Big Book Haul for July 2021

What do a controversial forgotten classic, a hard-boiled neo-noir revenge story with an LGTBQ twist, a memoir about race in the culinary world, and a magical realist love story (with recipes) have in common? They're all books in my July book haul.

I brought 13 books into my library this month for a multitude of reasons. Some are library builders, some are for my Pulitzer Prize project, some were to support indie bookstores, and some were recommendations from trusted sources. So let's get to them!

Further viewing 🎥:

Titles mentioned 📚:
After Francesco, Brian Malloy
Like a Love Story, Abdi Nazemian
Razorblade Tears, S.A. Crosby
Scarlet Sister Mary, Julia Peterkin
The Late George Apley, John Marquand
Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner
Like Water for Chocolat, Laura Esquivel
How Much of These Hills is Gold, C. Pam Zhang
Stronger, Gareth Thomas
Notes from a Young Black Chef, Kwame Onwuachi
The Man with Night Sweats, Thom Gunn
Gay Bar: Why We Went Out, Jeremy Atherton Lin
There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job, Kikuko Tsumura

My husband made a cookbook! Check it out here:

But wait, there's more!

#BookHaul

[planningforperfection]

My fave books I hauled this month that I'm looking forward to reading are Summerwater by Sarah Moss and At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop! But I really need to stop adding to my TBR haha 😂 great video as always, keep them coming!

[hillA]

You don't cry watching It's A Sin - you UGLY CRY.

Scarlett Sister Mary sounds fascinating.

That copy of Like Water for Chocolate is gorgeous. It is one of those books I have been on the fence about reading.

There's no such thing as an easy job sounds like a fab choice for #WITMonth!

Have a great weekend!

[belaisout]

Your videos always make my day better.

[jillianhasner]

I’ve read Gay Bar, Like A Love Story, and Razorblade Tears. They were all fab!!

[ameliareads]

What a haul! I have only heard about two of these previously.

[jacquelinemcmenamin]

I DNFD How Much Of These Hills is Gold. I might pick it up again after I hear your review.

[geickmey]

I'll be curious what you think of the Zhang. I read it with my book club last year. I really liked the writing but the plotting left me a little wanting. Will definitely read more by the author, though. I also have the Tsumura but haven't seen too many people talk about it. I might give it a go. I bought a few books this month as I went to Portland and met up with a fellow BookTuber (Stephanie from time to read!). I got Seek You by Kristen Radtke, Sweet Lamb of Heaven by Lydia Millet, Grove by Esther Kinsky, and Winter Pasture by Li Juan. I'm excited for all of them.

[ProspectivePlans]

I’m adding all of these books to my reading list, thanks for sharing! 💫 Keep rising to be who you want to be! #keeprising #risingtobe #aswerise #riser

[johncrwarner]

I was doing the #ReadingEurope2021 challenge
so a lot of the books I brought into my library were from that.
It was based on the performance of 24 men's soccer teams in
the postponed 2020 European Cup Championship.
I drew Slovakia - who knew there was a Slovak literature
so I bought some poetry in translation
The poetry was anti-war poetry from the start of WW1
which was interesting
I also bought a novel about dementia
written by a Slovak writer who had trained as a film director
so a lot of the interior monologue is done through dialogue
like a film
As Slovakia lost to Sweden in the championships
After reading a Strindberg play
(not my favourite playwright)
I bought "An Elderly Lady is up to no good"
a short story collection by a Swedish writer
about an 88 year old woman who murders
those people you always wish would drop dead.
It was hilarious.
Slovakia also lost to Spain so
I bought some plays from the "Golden Age" of Spanish Literature
(similar in time to the Shakespearean period in England)
Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
(all of them wrote plays but all ended up being priests or nuns)
I also read some Lorca plays too:
The House of Bernarda Alba and Blood Wedding
In the semi-finals Spain lost to Italy
so I was reading Pirandello and watched some Dario Fo
The Accidental Death of an Anarchist on the night of the final
As Italy won the championship beating England
I purchased and am reading (and enjoying reading)
"Qualcosa sui Lehman" (the English title is the Lehman Trilogy)
It is an 800 page verse novel about the Lehman Brothers
from their beginnings arriving in New York in 1844
moving to Alabama getting into cotton trading
the civil war where one half was in NY and the other half in Alabama
moving the business to New York and handing on the business
through the generations.
I am truly enjoying this book.
I have also bought the biography of Iris Murdoch by her husband
and have bought some of her philosophy rather than her novels.

I today discovered that my Russian teacher from school
when I learnt Russian in 1977-8
is still alive at 102 and his daughter has written his biography
so I need to get hold of a copy.

[DuncanMcCurdie]

I need to read S.A. Crosby as well. He gets a lot of love on the hard boiled crime fiction groups.

[madeleine]

really interesting new picks! i got some german plays, my first sci-fi book, a selection of agatha christie's crime stories and maurice by e.m. forster! really all over the place haha

[probablyhyperfixating]

Im also obsessed with the aids crisis time period and need to jump into some good books! I had a list going then spilled a reed oil diffuser on my book that held the list of books I want🤦

I do know the nurse who wrote a book about how she held a lot of these men as they died and gave them burials? Im trying to find that one if anyone knows what I'm talking about?

[mradcaqbdb]

Wow! You haven’t read How Much of These Hills is Gold yet? It is tremendous! In my top 5 last year. I can’t speak to the audiobook experience, but I loved reading this on the page. And it is such a gorgeous book.

Whew! I brought a lot on non-fiction into my library in July. Multiple Trump books, which I understand you aren’t into at this point. I’ll just name a couple others. Seek You by Kristen Radtke, subtitled A Journey Through American Loneliness, is a graphic non-fiction with gorgeous artwork. I’m hoping to get to this one very soon. Perversion of Justice: the Jeffrey Epstein Story by Julie Brown, the Miami Herald reporter who did a lot of the groundbreaking reporting on the case. The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris. And I just started Godspeed by Nickolas Butler last night. Interesting so far. I’ve got Razorblade Tears out from the library. Not sure if I’ll get to it before it’s due back, but I do want to read it.