I cannot believe it’s already July! The summer is flying by and I wanted to take a minute to look back and reflect upon what I’ve read, listened to, and wrote last month.
In June:
- I read four new books:
- Suicide Club by Rachel Heng – Review coming soon!
- The Battle for Paradise by Naomi Klein – Review and resource list coming soon!
- When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri – Review coming soon!
- Hybrid Child by Mariko Ohara – Review coming soon!
- I re-read Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde – It had been years and years since I read this book and it is more amazing now than before. It is a classic in Black, lesbian, feminist writing.
- I listened to Future Home of the Living God (audiobook) by Louise Erdrich – I wasn’t planning on reviewing this one but enjoyed it so much, I may have to!
- I wrote two reviews, a blog post, and a book list for the site:
- My book haul:
- The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal (from the publisher)
- It All Falls Down by Sheena Kamal (from the publisher)
- The Battle for Paradise by Naomi Klein (as part of Haymarket Book Club)
- Every Body Has a Story by Beverly Gologorsky (as part of Haymarket Book Club)
- Friendship as Social Justice Activism by Niharika Banerjea et al. (from the publisher)
- Graffiti Grrlz: Performing Feminism in the Hip Hop Diaspora by Jessica Nydia Pabón-Colón (from the author) – This book will be reviewed in an upcoming issue of the review journal Resources for Gender and Women’s Studies: A Feminist Review, which my office publishes.
- I joined several book blogger discussion groups, book blog tour sites, blog lists, etc.
- I better organized my Twitter lists, followed a bunch of you on WordPress and social media…
- and I completely updated my site! I hope you like the new look.
All this while watching countless hours of FIFA World Cup matches! Seriously all but like three of the games…
I was unable to travel anywhere in June but did have a blast at LGBT Night with the Milwaukee Brewers!
IN OTHER NEWS: I have published my first academic journal article! It’s based on my doctoral research and is entitled “The Evolving Role of Public Libraries in South Africa in Addressing Information Poverty: A Historical Context.” It’s published in the journal Library Management (volume 39, numbers 6/7); if you’d like a copy, please let me know!
For the last two weeks, I have been really sick with whatever flu or cold is going around and it knocked me on my ass! I am finally getting back on my feet and so hope to be adding new content to the site more regularly now.
Here’s a look ahead to July!
- Books in progress:
- Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- The Teacher, the Seamstress and the Pianist by Ogenna Ojukwu
- Feminist Freedom Warriors by Chandra Talpede Mohanty and Linda Carty (editors)
- The Sound and The Fury (audiobook) by William Faulkner – Re-visiting this one after many years after discussing it briefly with Shruti from This is Lit. Love this book but listening to it as an audiobook is just not the same as reading it! If you’ve read it, you will understand this…
- TBR (To Be Read; tentative):
- The Golden Hairpin by Qinghan Cece (won on GoodReads)
- The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal (from the publisher)
- It All Falls Down by Sheena Kamal (from the publisher)
- Every Body Has a Story by Beverly Gologorsky (as part of Haymarket Book Club)
- Friendship as Social Justice Activism by Niharika Banerjea et al. (from the publisher)
- My Mother, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and the Last Stand of the Angry White Man by Kevin Powell (from the publisher) – I usually focus on womxn and queer writers but I do make exceptions!
- TBW (To Be Written):
- Resource Lists:
- Reads for the Rest of Us for August 2018
- Feminist Puerto Rico resource list
- Continue adding to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women #MMIW resource guide
- Reviews:
- Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
- Suicide Club by Rachel Heng
- The Battle for Paradise by Naomi Klein
- When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri
- Hybrid Child by Mariko Ohara
- Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- Discussion posts – TBD
- Resource Lists:
How was your June? Were you able to get some R&R? Did you read or travel or ?? What are you looking forward to in July?
This post is part of the Monthly Wrap-Up Link-Up hosted by Feed Your Fiction Addiction!
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I had that summer cold too—it was the worst! (Still have a bit of leftover cough, but otherwise it’s gone.) Glad that the rest of your month seemed to go really well. Congrats on getting your article published!
Thank you! It is the worst, STILL. Thinking of calling the dr again but they keep telling me to rest and take advil and drink water. It’s taking a long time. I still have the cough and the swollen glands/tonsils. Glad you are feeling better!
It sounds like you had a really productive month despite being sick for much of it. I hope you are feeling better now. Yay for getting your article published. I hope you have a fantastic July!
Thank you! It definitely feels good to have met the goal of publishing in an academic journal. Now on to the next! 😀 Starting to feel better step by step so I hope that helps my productivity this month. Hope you have a great July as well!
Congrats on your paper. And that is a long list of books that you read this month. Glad that June was good to you.
Thank you! I am excited about the publication. Working on another essay now that I hope will be published in an upcoming ebook.
Actually I see how much a lot of other people read in a month and feel like a slacker! haha But I am happy to be reading more for pleasure again; that was one of my goals.
Some amazing looking books mentioned here that I hadn’t spotted anywhere else. I think I should read the Audre Lorde as it looks very relevant to now.
And I have managed to avoid every single FIFA game!!
haha Not a soccer/football fan?! 😀
Audre Lorde is amazing. And now that you mention it, Zami is still very relevant. Definitely stands the test of time and I could see how young lesbians, WOC, or any of us really could gain inspiration and feelings of solidarity from it! If you read it, let me know what you think!
No definite travel plans yet for July but we will be seeing a lot of the blockbuster movies that we missed!
Nice! I can’t even recall the last film I saw in a theatre… prob the last Star Wars one? And I LOVE going to the movies so I dunno why I don’t go more. What is on your list to see??
Hope you are feeling better. What a busy reading month! Some very interesting books I will definitely check out.
Thanks! I am getting there. I have been reading some really great books, to be sure. My favorites of this last month would probably be Suicide Club and Future Home of the Living God. Hope you are able to check them out!
Congrats on publishing your first article! That’s awesome! Sorry you’ve been sick – that’s a bummer 🙁
Thank youuuu!!!
Congratulations on publishing your first article, what a wonderful accomplishment.
Thank you, Jovita!
Summer is going fast, I know!! Although it sounds like your June was really productive and fun – and congrats on publishing your first academic article! I hope you are feeling much better now!
Thanks! The summer is going by fast and bc I’ve been sick, I haven’t been able to enjoy too much of it. But have def made the best of it by reading and writing more! I am FINALLY starting to feel better – thanks!
Congratulations on publishing your first article! How exciting. Being sick in the summer always seems worse somehow. Hope you are feeling much better.
Thank you, Tanya. Little by little, starting to feel better. But I agree: being sick in summer is the pits! Hope your summer is going well!
First time here, but congrats on the site changes. I hope you feel better. I’m glad you like Future Home of the Living God it’s such a underrated book to me. I’m planning on reading Suicide Club and Fruit of the Drunken Tree soon, so I look forward to your thoughts. Seems you had a very productive reading month.
Tori @ In Tori Lex
So glad you came by! I agree about Future Home – I loved it and had no idea what it was going to be about in advance so it was such a surprise. I am way overdue for those reviews… being sick really set me back – I have a lot of writing to do!
Congratulations on your article! That is awesome! It sounds like you had a wonderful June in books. I am glad you enjoyed Suicide Club. I hope to read that one this summer as well. I haven’t been following the World Cup all that close, although I did catch the end of the final game this morning. It was a good one. I hope you have a great July!
Thank you! Let me know what you think of Suicide Club when you read it.The World Cup is so fun – I am sad to see it go but next year it’s the women and it’ll be even better! Happy reading!
Being sick in the summer is awful! We watched World Cup games here too and our neighbors, who are from England, stayed glued to their TV until it was time to “fly” to the airport for vacation–good thing the game they were watching didn’t go into extra minutes. Congrats on your publication!
Thank you, Danielle! I am now feeling better, thank goodness. The World Cup was pretty exciting this year, even though all of my favorites were knocked out! haha Hope you are having a great week!
Oh my goodness, it sounds like you had a very busy June when it came to books and blogging! That’s amazing you were able to get all of that done! And I’m sorry that you were sick. Being sick in the summer just feels so wrong, so here’s hoping that July was a much healthier month for you! 🙂
Thanks Jen! Things are looking up, to be sure. Thanks for reading – hope your July is going well!