In late June, inspired by Chantel Klassen’s Booktube videos, I made up a TBR list. For the first time in years, I actually had some space in my reading life to pick books I wanted to read! (That’s not to say that I don’t normally get to pick books; it’s just that over the past few years, I’ve always been behind on the books I got for review, so I always felt like the next books I need to read are those, to try to catch up. Then about the time I caught up, I would get more books for review, and the cycle would start all over again!)
(Some links in this post are affiliate links. I’ve also been given several of these books for free in exchange for my honest review.)
I loved having a TBR list last month—and, even more surprisingly, I managed to get through all but one on my stack! I loved having some variety in my reading diet, and I think that helped to keep me moving through the books, as well.
So I thought I’d make up an August TBR, just for fun, and we’ll see how that goes over this next month.
First, two books I got for review:
Since I want to try to stay caught up with the ARCs I get, these are going on the top of my list:
Falling Between the Pages by A.M. Heath: I’m actually almost finished reading this book. It releases on the 28th, and if you enjoy romantic comedy, I’d highly recommend it. This has been a fun, very fast read.
Being Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn: I’ve also already started this one. If you haven’t read its prequel, Becoming Elisabeth Elliot, I’d highly recommend you pick that one up and preorder this one (it releases on Sept. 12). Both are well-written, thought-provoking, and encouraging. These biographies read almost like novels, and the amount of time and research that went into these books is phenomenal.
And now, onto some TBR-building prompts!
August’s reading challenge—A book in the same genre as July’s book:
My pick: Kingdom’s Hope by Chuck Black
My July book for the Read Your Bookshelf challenge was Kingdom’s Dawn by Chuck Black, which is allegorical Biblical fantasy (which I think is a delightful, intriguing genre!). I’m wanting to get through all six books in the series, so I’m picking Kingdom’s Hope, which is book two.
A book I’ve been avoiding:
My pick: Forsaken by M H Rice
I’ve been avoiding this series for about five years ago, so I think that counts. 😉 I was given all three books for review, and I remember reading the first chapter of the first book at some stage and putting it down in defeat. I’m determined to get through them now, though (I read the first book in the series last month; it was a 2-star read, so okay, but not great). I don’t necessarily recommend the series, but since I’m committed to reading them, this is going on my stack.
A classic book: Actually, three books!
Okay, proof that I’m a nerd: I have a list of 350 classics that I’d like to read at some stage over my lifetime. I doubt I’ll ever get to all of them, but I want to try! I have a good number of them on my shelves already as physical copies, so I’m randomly picking one from those. Last month in this category, I read What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge and Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson.
This month’s random pick, The Death of Ivan Ilych, is a short story (in a collection of short stories we have), so I decided to randomly pick a second read. That turned out to be The Kreutzer Sonata, which is also in the same short story collection! I’m excited; I haven’t read any Tolstoy works in years (and what are the odds . . . out of 350 titles, that two were picked from the same book?)! I’m looking forward to reading these.
Since both of those are short stories, I decided to generate one more random number, to see if I could get a slightly longer book . . . and I ended up with The White Dove by Christoph Von Schmid. Yay! I’ve also been wanting to read this book for a while, but it’s one of those that I wouldn’t normally just pick up to read.
A book based on a true story:
My pick: Ten Fingers for God by Dorothy Clarke Wilson
I’ve been wanting to read this book for about ten years now, but never got around to it. It’s the biography of Paul Brand. I’ve read two or three books by or about him, but I’m excited to see what this book contains!
The next book in a series:
My pick: Byrd’s Eye View by Chautona Havig
Again, I’ve been wanting to read this book for several years (it was published in 2020), but haven’t gotten around to it. It’s the last book in this series that I haven’t read yet, so I really want to get to it!
I may end up picking one or two more Kindle books as the month goes along; we’ll see! And I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two of these end up being shoved off onto September’s TBR stack; it just depends on how much time I have to read this month.
New releases I’m looking forward to:
Before I sign off, I wanted to highlight three exciting releases I’m anticipating this month (besides the two I mentioned at the top of this post)!
Voice of the Ancient publishes on the 15th, A Beautiful Disguise publishes on the 22nd, and He Should Have Told the Bees publishes on the 29th. I’ve read (and greatly enjoyed!) all three of these books. Highly recommended!
Over to you: What books are you hoping to read in August? When was the last time you put together a TBR stack? If you decide to write a blog post about your reading plans for the month, drop a link in the comments—I’d love to see your list!
