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What I’ve Been Reading Lately (July 2024)

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Welcome to another round of “What I’ve Been Reading Lately”. My focus these summer months is the reading challenge at work. All of the books this month check off a box (or more) for that challenge. I’ve tried as much as I can to choose books that cross over with other reading challenges, but with less success than I had hoped.

August is Women in Translation Month so I’m making an effort now to support that initiative again this year. For our summer reading challenge at work, one of the prompts is “A book by a woman in translation”. I’m happy to know that others at work are reading women in translation this summer as well!

How is your summer reading going?

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley (2022) 📖

Lucy Foley has long been on my TBR list. I have two Book of the Month selections by her! And no time like the present with the Olympics in Paris to read the one set in Paris. It was fun to be back in Paris and read snippets of French (after junior year abroad and a somewhat recent vacation there), but otherwise it was not a very thrilling story. I enjoyed it, but too many clues just happened to appear. This experience won’t keep me from reading my other Foley book, The Guest List, though, which friends have loved. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

  • Summer Reading Challenge: A book related to the Summer Olympics (featuring a sport or set in Paris)
  • Read My Own Shelf: Unread BOTM selection

The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali (2024) 📖

When I saw this was a Book of the Month selection for June, I didn’t hesitate to select it because I had just seen that the author would be at a local bookstore to discuss it. I had read her previous book, The Stationery Shop, which I enjoyed, and the premise of The Lion Women of Tehran intrigued me, and it didn’t disappoint. It was an engaging and moving story of friendship, betrayal, and finally redemption between two girls from very different backgrounds in Iran. It spanned decades (1950s to 1980s) and provided insight into a turbulent history that is still unfamiliar to me.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

  • Summer Reading Challenge: Free Choice
  • Book Voyage: Read Around the World: Middle East (Iran)
  • #DiversityAcrossGenres: MENA/General or Historical Fiction

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney (2017) 🎧
Narrated by Xe Sands

This book takes place in a day, December 31, 1984, to be exact, but it actually spans decades as 85-year-old Lillian goes for a walk around New York City and reminisces on her life. She has lived a full life as a poet, the highest paid advertising woman in America, wife, mother, and divorcée. She was an impressive woman but it came at a cost. I loved her strong and vibrant personality and admired all her interactions with various people along her walk. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

  • Summer Reading Challenge: Takes place in a day AND Book with a character over 60
  • Book Voyage: Read Around the World: North America (New York City)

Sandwich by Catherine Newman (2024) 📖

I had read rave reviews about this one and surprisingly my hold at the library became available much earlier than I expected so I jumped at the opportunity to read it. It takes place over a week during the summer when Rocky, a 54-year-old woman, is on the family’s annual vacation to Cape Cod with her husband, young adult children and a girlfriend, and elderly parents. She is menopausal and nostalgic — and maybe she was too much so that I was turned off a bit. I did laugh out loud at some parts and enjoyed their multigenerational family time, but I wasn’t blown away by it as much as I thought I would be.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️

  • Summer Reading Challenge: Food in the title

Drømmen om et tre (Klimakvartetten #4) by Maja Lunde (2022) 📖
(The Dream of a Tree, available in English translation October 2024)

This is the finale to The Climate Quartet, a loosely connected series of books that each explores a different climate issue. This one is about seeds and features the Global Seed Vault located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Svalbard archipelago. The story takes place in 2110 and is about a small group of people living there. They live in isolation having cut off contact with the rest of the world where, due to climate issues, hunger is a constant concern. I loved being immersed in the setting of Svalbard and it was interesting to see how subject matter and characters from the earlier books come together in this one.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️

What have you been reading lately?

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Halloween with a Tween

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Aquarium costume at schoolFor the first time in my 10 ½ years of parenting I actually made a homemade costume for Halloween. It kind of happened by default. At my kids’ dentist appointment at the beginning of October, the receptionist for some reason started talking about an aquarium costume she’d seen that she thought was cool. It was made out of a box. The idea and vision stuck in my head.

As Halloween approached, Sonny expressed no interest in a Halloween costume. He even said he might not go trick-or-treating, that he was getting too old. He said he would maybe just stay home and help his grandmother pass out candy at our house.

Halloween is big at my kids’ school. He needed a costume. In the morning, they have a Halloween parade with all kids in their costumes. There are always several amazingly creative homemade costumes. Awards are given out by the student council in a variety of categories. My kids have never been close to winning any kind of award. Their costumes have always been store bought and shown little creativity. I’ve always admired the many creative, homemade costumes and thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun to actually make a costume one year?”

This year I did it. I googled this aquarium box costume idea and got some ideas of how to start. It turned out I had practically all the necessary supplies already. We recently moved so we had a ton of boxes from which to choose. From being a teacher and a person who has a hard time throwing away potentially-useful-in-the-future toys, I also already had a good collection of plastic, aquarium-themed toys. I had a glue gun and even spare glue sticks, black spray paint, and funky blue cellophane. All I needed to buy was some aquarium greenery. “I can do this,” I thought to myself.

Morph duoWe didn’t win an award at school for the aquarium, but both he and I were proud of our creation. We saw no other aquariums which was fun, and we got some praise. That was enough for us.

Coincidentally, Doobie and a friend did win an award this year. They were given an award for Best Pair dressed in matching morph suits.

Sonny did eventually agree to go trick-or-treating with us. For the evening, I added an extra touch to the aquarium which made a huge difference since it was dark and it would have been hard to see the aquarium scene. I attached glow sticks around the edges of the box opening. It looked like a lit aquarium scene. It attracted a lot of attention along our route. It was pretty cool, if I may so say myself. My tween was happy with his Halloween.

Aquarium costume at night

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