It’s been a while since I sat down and wrote a blog post about then books I’ve been reading. Since my last book post, I have been reading. Even though I really liked the premise of the books, I didn’t like all the ones I read. So, I didn’t bother writing a post about any of them. This changed in July.

Every July, I start to look forward to purchasing new books as well as reading more. There are many reasons why this is, but the major reasons is because July is when Arizona’s seasonal storms, called the Monsoon, occurs. The storms are so strong that it causes the power to go out, leaving me with nothing better to do but read a book.

This year, the Monsoon didn’t affect the power in July. In fact, there weren’t many storms or rain at all! Even though there weren’t a lot of storms, I had plenty to do that took my time away from reading. Thing changed in August, when I was able to sit down and read more often.

During the month of August, I was able to read more than five books, but I didn’t like all of them. Since I disliked so many books I read, I narrowed down the books I read to four I feel comfortable talking about online. I like some of them, but others I am starting to dislike, yet am not at the point when I want to stop reading completely.

And now, without further ado, here are the books I read in August 2023 and what I think of them!

What Happens After Midnight

by K. L. Walther

I preordered this book, which was released at the end of June. Ever since it was released, I’ve been reading it every now and then. In August, I decided it was time to finally sit down and make a decent dent in reading it. So far it’s good. It is a young adult book and is about a boy and a girl, who are seniors in high school and are exes, that try to pull of the well known tradition of a senior prank at their high school. Even though the book is good and I like it quite a lot, reading it has been a chore. I can’t put my finder on why I’m struggling to finish the book, but I have narrowed it down to two reasons: I’m worried about the children of my friends and their glamorization of high school or I’m just sick and tired of hearing about Taylor Swift. Like K. L. Walther’s previous book, The Summer of Broken Rules, this book has references to Taylor Swift. For the most part, I missed those references (Sometimes completely) but I know they are there. And if I can’t find them, I know my friend’s children will be able to tell me. Despite this, I enjoy the story enough to continue to read it. I just wish things in my life weren’t the way they are. If they were, I’d probably enjoy the book much more. Even if there are Taylor Swift references I don’t completely understand.

 

Return to Pretty: Giving New Life to Traditional Style

by Caitlin Wilson

This book is the newest book to my collection on this list. It is a coffee table book about the interior design called “Grandmillennial” and the author’s personal design process to create a place that is described in the book burb as being “…beautiful but also… lovely, classic, and comfortable.” I purchased this book because I do like traditional style, but I noticed a lot has changed since I paid a lot of attention to interior design many years ago. I have been seeing items that fit into the Grandmillennial trend available to purchase at home improvement stores for a few years now. This book has been enlightening about how the traditional interior design style I love so much has changed into Grandmillennial, as well as how the items I saw in the stores fit into the trend.

 

 

Historic Costumes and How to Make Them

By Mary Fernald and E. Shenton

Unlike the books I like to talk about on this blog, I have been reading and enjoying a sewing book quite a lot! Historic Costumes and How to Make Them is a reprint of a book by the same name. The book was originally published in 1937, but my copy was published in 2006 by Dover Publications, a company that specializes in reprinting older reference books in a variety of topics. The title of the book says what it is about: How to make historical costumes. The 1937 version of the book was published in London, England and focuses on the British historical costumes. The costumes discussed in the book range from the clothes worn during the Saxon invasion of England in 460 AD to the 1880’s. There are diagrams to create sewing patterns from as well as a description about the costumes and rough instructions about how to make them. I really enjoyed reading the book so far. Right now I’m considering what to make myself for a Halloween costume, so this book has given me an idea on what I may feel comfortable to make. I have other costume books I enjoy browsing whenever I need ideas, but this one is more advanced, especially since it was published in 1937, than those books, which were published in the last twenty years.

 

A Poem for Every Night of the Year

Edited by Allie Esiri

I purchased the poem books edited by Allie Esiri available, but so far I have only had time to read A Poem for Every Night of the Year. The poems for July and August have been really enjoyable. I don’t think I need to own every book in the series, but I am enjoying this one. I hope to start it, and A Poem for Every Day of the Year, from the beginning on January 1st.

 

Well, that’s all for now! Thank you for reading!

Featured Image is from Pexels.com