Books read: 7
In July I finally got around to reading A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson – which might just be my favourite read so far this year. I don’t know why I waited so long to read it, but it definitely lived up to expectations. I also really enjoyed The Heart Goes Last. I wasn’t at all sure about The Butcher’s Hook though.

• A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson
• The Owl Always Hunts at Night, Samuel Bjork
• The Butchers Hook, Janet Ellis
• Frostblood, Elly Blake
• The Heart Goes Last, Margaret Atwood
• The Good Daughter, Karin Slaughter
• The Diabolic, S. J. Kincaid

Books acquired: 24
This month I made the mistake of looking through the Kindle books selection on Amazon, and there far too many deals on books that I wanted to read. I also received a number of ARCs that I’m looking forward to reading this summer and took some out of the library – which given how many books I’ve acquired this month wasn’t a very sensible idea!

• The Ninth Rain, Jen Williams
• The Word is Murder, Anthony Horowitz
• Red Sister, Mark Lawrence
• Artemis, Andy Weir
• The Readymade Thief, Augustus Rose
• Wilde Lake, Laura Lippman
• The Hating Game, Sally Thorne
• Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer
• The North Water, Ian McGuire
• The Wonder, Emma Donoghue
• The Magicians, Lev Grossman
• The French Promise, Fiona McIntosh
• Frostblood, Elly Blake
• Walking the Lights, Deborah Andrews
• Not Working, Lisa Owens
• All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders
• The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers
• Death is a Welcome Guest, Louise Welsh
• Dark Matter, Blake Crouch
• New World Rising, Jennifer Wilson
• The Diabolic, S. J. Kincaid
• Do Not Say We Have Nothing, Madeleine Thien
• Days Without End, Sebastian Barry
• The Good Daughter, Karin Slaughter

Blog posts published: 7
I posted more reviews than anything else this month. The most popular posts were my review of Anthony Horowitz’s Magpie Murders and my round up of the books I’m most looking forward to reading this summer. I also had some really great feedback on my discussion topic last week – which was about focusing on a particular genre for a book blog.

• June wrap up
• Blood Wedding, Pierre Lemaitre
• Top 5: My most anticipated summer reads
• How to Stop Time, Matt Haig
• Magpie Murders, Anthony Horowitz
• Discussion post: Focusing on a particular genre
• The Power, Naomi Alderman

TBR for August:
This month I only managed to read three of the seven books I was hoping to get to. In August, I want to finish all of the books I’d planned to read in July, plus a couple of others. I’m really looking forward to The Word is Murder, as I really enjoyed Horowitz’s recent mystery, Magpie Murders. I also can’t wait to read Red Sister, as I’ve loved other books by the author.

• Darien, C. F. Iggulden
• Behold the Dreamers, Imbolob Mbue
• The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy
• Three Days and a Life, Pierre Lemaitre
• The Word is Murder, Anthony Horowitz
• Red Sister, Mark Lawrence

Challenge progress:

Goodreads Challenge: My Goodreads reading goal is to read 50 books this year, which I’ve now met! This was a conservative goal which I was always confident I’d achieve, but this challenge was mainly about tracking how many books I’m reading, as I’ve never kept count before. Everything from here on out is a bonus. (50/50)

Beat the Backlist Challenge: The Beat the Backlist challenge is all about knocking off titles that have been on your TBR for a while. Books need to have been published prior to 2017, and I’m only including books that I actually bought before 2017 and that have been sitting around waiting for me to read them – so no new purchases or library reads. This month, two of my reads qualified, so my total is now five books towards a goal of twelve. (5/12)

How was your July? What was your favourite read? What do you have planned for August?