July 2025

Henri Matisse. The Music Lesson, summer 1917, Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation.
The painting featured in The Art of Vanishing 

Finding (stumbling on?) the true story Lost and Found (and Found!) Books by Suzanne Karr Schmidt  was a great way to start off a reader's month! How did I find it? I did my usual daily check at Shelf Awareness (the Book Trade issue for July 1, 2025) where I found an item (and link) about the winner of the Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award. Of course I followed the link which led me to the Newberry Library and I started exploring. And I said to myself "What a wonderful blog!"

 

It seems there's no end to the "last" titles.  (See February 28, 2025 post.) I Found a few good ones (and a  couple of real duds) this month. I also made a mini-prompt (for this month) to salute the season with some books with "summer" in the title. Not surprisingly, the two prompts overlapped.

 

And what is summer without road trips? Richard Ratay gives a mixture of memoir and history of such trips in Don't Make Me Pull Over! His family trips in the 1970s mid-USA were not like our family trips in California in the 1940s and 50s. Then again, no two road trips are alike. Isn't that why we take them?

 

I read bunch of really good books this month. Even the lesser ones were mostly pretty good. And considering how much I read there weren't a lot of DNFs. I didn't read as much online as usual. Also I haven't been reading as much lit in translation as usual.

 

August may be a challenge. There seems to be some sort of problem with our library system deliveries. I have two books on the holds shelf and ten "in transit." Several have been "in transit" for over a week.  So today twelve books are being returned and only two are being picked up. No browsing because someone else is doing  the transporting for me. I have a list but it's going to be another scorcher today so she will just want to get the errand done as quickly as possible. I won't push my luck and ask for more.

 

I may be working on my "owned but unread" TBR shelf for a few days. I'll spend tomorrow  (the 31st) choosing some and doing some online stuff.

 

Update: She offered to take my list! (Four books.) 

 

But I'll still work on that TBR list. Really, I will! Sure.

 

Here's what she checked out for me: 

   Love Forms by Adam, Claire 
  The Woman in Suite 11 (Lo Blacklock, #2) by Ware, Ruth
  A Burning by Majumdar, Megha
  City of Night Birds by Kim, Juhea
  Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Mann, Sally
  Pan by Clune, Michael 

I'm not sure I will finish a couple of these. There are still ten in transit. 

 

Really, I will read from my TBR shelf. Maybe, if more holds don't come in. 

 

Here are the July reads. The fiction list is in jumbled order with the 'last" and "summer" prompt books singled out.

Fiction:

Blame by Huneven, Michelle 

Flawed characters galore trapped in a great story of recovery.

Off Course by Huneven, Michelle

Another good one by a favorite author. 

Far and Away by Poeppel, Amy 

House swapping between Berlin and Dallas. A fun read.

The Correspondent by Evans, Virginia 

Wow! It's been a while since I read a novel straight through in basically one sitting (taking time out to eat). Really, really good.  

Endling by Riva, Maria 

Wasn't sure I liked the meta bit but finally decided it was ok and ended up giving it four stars.

The South by Aw, Tash 

Another good one. Coming of age in rural Malaysia. 

The Accidental Favorite by Littlewood, Fran 

Three generations of a family spend a week in a glass house.  Nobody, except the reader, has a good time. 

The Art of Vanishing by Pager, Morgan 

What would happen if a viewer could climb into a painting? In this story it's Matisse’s The Music Lesson. 

The Hymn to Dionysus by Pulley, Natasha 

Excellent.  

The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes by Hogan, Ruth

Wavering between two and three stars. Almost everyone in the story is dealing with grief,  but in very different ways. I wish she'd spent more time developing characters and less on detailed descriptions of rooms and furnishings. 

Welcome to Murder Week by Dukess, Karen 

Fun. A bunch of Americans participate in a mock murder investigation in an English village.

I'll Be Right Here by Bloom, Amy 

Interesting characters.

The Misfortunates by Verhulst, Dimitri; translated from the Dutch by Colmer, David

Beer boozing Belgians. 

The Impressionist by Kunzru, Hari

I liked most of this... 

The Homemade God by Joyce, Rachel

There were problems with this. The beginning was good and I liked the ending but I got bogged down and skimmed  a bit in the middle.  

The Horse by Vlautin, Willy

A washed up musician reminisces about booze, women, songwriting etc. while he tries to figure out what to do about a stray lame horse. Only 194 pages but 50 would have been enough.  Meh.

 

Chronicle of a Last Summer by El Rashidi, Yasmine 

A very nice reward for my personal prompt to read books with the word "last" in the title. 

Last Summer at the Golden Hotel by Friedland, Elyssa 

Three generations of two families face the decline of their Catskill resort. 

Our Last Resort by Michallon, Clémence  

This resort is not on its last legs in the Catskills. It's an upscale one in the Southwest. It has a dual timeline and both drag. It has its good points but it could be much better, My least favorite "last" book for this month. Or, rather, it my least favorite of those that I read. See DNF below for a couple that were worse! 

 

Summer at Gaglow by Freud, Esther

Also really good.  

Kakigori Summer by Itami, Emily 

What a lovely surprise.  When I first saw the title I thought "Kakigori" was  a place name. But it's not a place - it's a Japanese summertime treat. And so is this book. 

    

One Day When You Leave the Black Mountains by Lena Ruth Stefanović; translated from Montenegrin by Will Firth

Nonfiction:

The Last Sweet Bite: Stories and Recipes of Culinary Heritage Lost and Found by Shaikh, Michael 

A decent but difficult read.  

Last Call at Coogan's: The Life and Death of a Neighborhood Bar by Michaud, Jon

A bit of northern Manhattan (Washington Heights & Inwood) history (1985-2020). 

Don't Make Me Pull Over!: An Informal History of the Family Road Trip by Ratay, Richard

Was getting there half the fun?  

 

You’ve Been Fictionalized! an essay by Michelle Huneven

 

Constantinople painted by Warwick Goble and described by Alexander Van Millingen (1906)

Rome painted by Alberto Pisa; text By M. A. R. Tuker and Hope Malleson (1905)

Two Gutenberg finds that I skimmed most of the text and enjoyed the pictures. 

OPEN-AIR CAFÉ, STAMBOUL

AT THE FOOT OF THE SPANISH STEPS, PIAZZA DI SPAGNA, ON A WET DAY

  

Chinese recipes by Nellie Choy Wong. Original publication date: 1927

Basic recipes but the cover is neat.

 

DNF:

The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese by Paterniti, Michael 

Or, How to turn what could have been an interesting article on a foodie site into 344 pages of bullshit and blather. Abandoned at page 82. 

My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Allende, Isabel; translated from the Spanish by Riddle, Frances

Every so often I decide to give Allende another chance. Got to page 54 (of 336) this time. 

Food Person by Roberts, Adam D.

Lame. Quit at about 20% 

Last Light over Carolina by Monroe, Mary Alice 

Didn't keep my interest. 

Last Night at Chateau Marmont by Weisberger, Lauren 

Just awful!