a halfway celebration of bookish miscellany
a lookback at the first half of the year, my summer TBR, and new releases summer edition
We have reached the halfway mark of the year. Now, some of you might be thinking, has it really only been six months? To which I say yes, yes it has, and I’m holding your virtual hand now. Feel the love.
As it is one of my personal New Year’s, it also feels right to pause for a moment and look back at the last six harrowing months with a fun game everyone is doing. I’ve also added in a bonus entry - curating a giant stack of backlist and frontlist summer books that I will surely never get to😀. Lots of miscellany to celebrate!
Halfway book celebration game
I saw
do a fun BookTube-inspired half-year reading superlatives game, so I did a fun half-year reading superlatives game1. See the inspo here: 2025 Midyear Book Celebration.
Best book you’ve read so far in 2025:
→ The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgård - the brilliance of a book that is everything at once - the baseness of human existence, the miracle of human existence, the nature of reality, metaphysics, and substance abuse, all while being a page-turner. Clear winner thus far!
Book that made you laugh:
→ Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö - Martin Beck is the serious MC, but sidekick Kollberg is a riot. His childish antics are a bit of levity as a foil to the very dark subject matter, and it made reading about the police relationships just as interesting as solving the crime.
Newest favorite character:
→ Rebecka Martinsson from the Arctic Murders series - a troubled attorney with attachment issues, friendship issues, a high work ethic, and an intense need to deep clean the house when riddled with anxiety??? Say no more.
Favorite new-to-you author:
→ Samanta Schweblin - Fever Dream sold me on the genius of this Argentine author. Her writing is smart, dark, and moody, and she is probably a great hang. Schweblin is quoted as saying, “Literature lets us face our worst fears,” and I couldn’t agree more.
Favorite book by a debut author:
→ Fragile Animals by Genevieve Jagger - I hear comments that a lot of debut authors aren’t taking enough risks (“they all sound the same/from the same MFA program blah blah), but I think people just aren’t taking enough risks themselves in what they choose from the shelf. This one takes risks, and it pays off.
Biggest disappointment:
→ Girls Against God by Jenny Hval - this was not a novel it was a drug-induced diary entry and I’m mad I paid money for it. Your risks should still be legible.
Biggest surprise:
→ Solenoid by Mircea Cartarescu - you already know, but the surprise here is that I even finished it bless up🫶
Most anticipated release for the second half of 2025:
→ Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood - No One is Talking About This, Lockwood’s debut novel, is one of my best books of the century and a “book that made me,” so you can imagine my intense feelings about there finally being another one this September (also, cat covers2).
Most beautiful book you bought this year:
→ This trio of Oxford Classics
Favorite post you’ve written this year:
→ These three
On to the anticipated reads section
Backlist books on my summer TBR
→Middlemarch is taking up a lot of my brain power, but I am still holding out hope that I may get to a few of these. What I’m looking for in a summer read is addiction, excellent writing, nothing too mind-boggling, nothing too dark (but hey it’s me), and maybe a laugh or two. Bonus points for big family drama.
4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster
Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodoriou
Eve’s Hollywood or Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz
White Fur by Jardine Libaire
The Feast by Margaret Kennedy
Monsieur Pain by Roberto Bolaño
Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
And some new books I’m looking forward to, summer edition
→ Going for a black comedy vibe this summer, perhaps? I already have an ARC of the Ed Park, the lovely
is sending me her copy of Flashlight (!!!!), and the rest I may hold out for the library if the wait times aren’t nutso.
Flashlight by Susan Choi (June 3)
Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin (June 10)
Fox by Joyce Carol Oates (June 17)
An Oral History of Atlantis by Ed Park (July 29)
Acts of God by Kanan Gill (August 12)
On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia (August 12)3
What was your favorite and least favorite book read so far this year?
What are you looking forward to reading this summer?
Where is your favorite place to read in the summer - are we talking indoors, outdoors, body of water, getting sun, completely covered, beverages involved?
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See you around the bookshelf!
this one breaks the “not too dark” rule so I will read inside with the AC on and a candle lit or something to counter act the atrocities
So impressed by how a lot of the books you’ve loved this year are so BIG! She’s having a big book year!!! I can’t wait to read The Morning Star later this year. AND hot off the press - I literally just read & finished On Earth As It Is Beneath so you can have that review to look forward too 😉
ooooooh lots of goodies for my tbr list - I loved Fever Dream. I listened to it on audio and it was soooo deliciously disturbing.