Bonjour, mes amis!

Summer is slowly beginning to fade, and I can hardly believe it. Where has it all gone? It was just June 1st and we had all this time ahead of us. And now, there are bags of back-to-school supplies in my living room, but they’ll only be here for another two weeks, and then my daughter will be back to school in person!

Lots going on here, and I have a bit of an announcement, but I’ll get to that further on down this post. Let’s get this recap started, shall we?

Books I Read in July 2023

1. Little Sister by Patricia Walsh Chadwick

2. Burnt Bread and Chutney by Carmit Delman

3. The Teachers by Alexandra Robbins

4. Differently Wired by Deborah Reber

5. The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs

6. Plunder by Menachem Kaiser

7. Down to the Bone by Catherine Pioli

8. The Last Words We Said by Leah Scheier

9. The Jewish 100 by Michael Shapiro

10. Something Real by Heather Demetrios

11. Blood Matters by Masha Gessen

12. I Am Not Esther by Fleur Beale

13. We Pulled Together…and Won by Deb Mulvey

14. Kosher Nation by Sue Fishkoff

15. I Am Rebecca by Fleur Beale

16. Being Magdalene by Fleur Beale

17. Natural by Alan Levinovitz

18. The Grammar of God by Aviya Kushner

19. Unspeakable by Jessica Willis Fisher

20. The Children of Buchenwald by Judith Hemmendinger

PHEW. That’s a lot of books. And no reviews. I’ll get to that in a bit; it’s been a month. But I definitely made some progress on my reading goals here. 

Five fiction; fifteen nonfiction; one graphic memoir. FOURTEEN of these came from my want-to-read list on Goodreads. None were read for reading challenges. Speaking of which…

Reading Challenge Updates

Still here!

I have the book for that last category in my possession; I picked it up from the library yesterday (it just took all month for me to get to the top of the hold list!). I’ll be starting it in the next day or two, and then I’ll be done, woohoo!!!

State of the Goodreads TBR

Last month, we left off at 103 books, and this month…

Check this out…

94 books!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m pretty excited about this.

Books I Acquired in July 2023

There happened to be another big used book sale! A surprise one that kind of happened at the last minute, so my older daughter and I went over and grabbed a huge bag of books. (Ended up with a repeat we didn’t notice of one of the Dork Diaries books, but that’s fine; a Little Free Library benefitted from that!). I’ve been pretty thrilled with my book haul this summer!

Bookish Things I Did in July 2023

Other than that book sale…I don’t think there was anything, to be honest…

Current Podcast Love

I’m still listening to Digging Up the Duggars when I exercise, but I’ve switched over to listening to BBC Radio at night when I’m falling asleep (sleep? What’s sleep? Ugh).

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

Currently on hold for a bit.

Real Life Stuff

I don’t know about you, friends, but I am tired. Like down-to-the-bone kind of tired. Life has just been gunning for me recently and I’m completely worn out.

I need a break.

So that’s my announcement. I’m taking a little bit of a break from blogging for a while. I need a chance to step back, breathe for a while, have one less thing on my plate for a little bit, and focus on my mental health for a few. I started with a new therapist this week to try to get a handle on things and maybe shake this funk I’m in, so I’ve got my fingers crossed there. I’m definitely still going to do the monthly recaps while I’m on hiatus, just to keep up with where I’m at with everything, so even if you’re not getting reviews as frequently, I’ll still check in at least once a month during my time off.

There’s just a lot going on right now, so I need this, and hopefully I’ll be back sooner rather than later. Writing reviews helps me to remember what I read, so I don’t want to be gone for too long, but I’m going to take this time to just focus on getting myself together and finding a little bit of inner peace for myself. And I’ll definitely still be reading!

So that’s that, and I hope you’re doing whatever you need to to take care of yourself. It’s tough out there. Sending love to you all, and I’ll see you soon!