July TBR (A Little Bit Late)

Are we halfway into July already? Yes. Is that going to stop me pretending we’re not and posting my TBR anyway? No.

If there’s one thing to know about me, it’s that I love an overly-detailed overly-ambitious plan. I also feel no shame in afterwards significantly altering and/or abandoning said plan, but having the plan gives me a path to follow (if I want to) and making the plan is fun. So I plan. A lot. (Case in point, my recent post about my language studying plan.)

If you’re reading this though, maybe you get it. Either way, let’s not delay this too long or it’ll be August before I post this! Without further ado, here is my July TBR.

Books to Finish

세이렌 [Siren] 4 by 설이수 & 포야 [Seol Isu & Poya]

Siren: I Became Family to the Villain is a webtoon, season 1 of which has since also been published as a 4-volume manhwa series. I read books 1-3 last month, so it’s time to finish off the season with book 4.

The story follows a siren who has been resurrected in her own past self and is determined to escape her tyrannical father and save the man who rescued her in her previous life.

The Incandescent by Emily Tesh

This is[was] my most anticipated release of Spring 2025 (it came out in May) and now that I’m back in the UK, I want to get my hands on a copy and finally read it.

It’s an adult fantasy about the headmistress of a magical boarding school who has to deal with a demon threatening her students.

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree

I’m buddy reading this cozy sapphic fantasy about an orc that gives up the mercenary life to open a coffee shop with two of my IRL friends as a warm up to a much harder book (we’re currently thinking The Master and Margarita)…

Lauter Leben [Live Louder] by Helga Schubert

This is a collection of short stories (mostly very short, only a couple pages) by a celebrated German short story writer.

I’ve been “reading” it for months (also known as, reading a couple of pages/a single story and then putting it down and not picking it up again for ages), so I’m going to try and force myself to either power through the whole thing this month or DNF it.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

A performance troupe travel through a post-apocalyptic world after a nasty virus takes out much of the human population.

The Lantern of Lost Memories by Sanaka Hiiragi

A Japanese magical realism-type book about a photoshop that caters to the newly deceased, who can go there to relive a key moment from their lives.

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

A YA romantasy book about a journalist whose letters to her brother on the frontline fall into the hands of a war reporter, her rival journalist, instead.

Lights, Planets, People! by Molly Naylor & Lizzy Stewart

A graphic novel about Maggie, an astronomer who gives presentations encouraging girls to go into science, whilst also battling with anxiety and attending her first ever therapy session.

Books to Progress

Sometimes there are books that I want to read slowly over a couple of months, whether these be essay/short story collections, or harder books that take longer to read. This month I have three books that I want to either start or continue, but don’t plan on finishing just yet.

이상한 나라의 스물셋 [The Strange Land of 23]

This is a collection of short stories by a variety of Korean authors centered about friendships and relationships in your early twenties. I’m 23 at the moment (which would be perfect, except they mean 22 here because they count age differently).

I’ve read the first story and about half of the second, so I’m hoping to finish story 2 and 3 and start story 4 by the end of the month.

異人茶跡：淡水1865 [Formosa Oolong Tea 1] by 張季雅 [Kiya]

This is the first volume in a manhua [Chinese comic] series based on the story of the Scottish merchant and Qing dynasty-era trader from Xiamen who together propelled Taiwanese oolong tea to worldwide fame.

I’m still quite a slow reader in Chinese, so I’m hoping to read the prologue and part of chapter one this month.

An Apology for Idlers by Robert Louis Stevenson

I’ve read some of Stevenson’s novellas before and I’m not a huge fan, but I’ve been really liking classic essays the last five years or so, and I quite like the sound of this one, so I thought I’d give it a go.

This particular collection has eight essays, and although it’s very short, I think these things are better enjoyed slowly and spread out, so I’m only hoping to read 2 or 3 this month.

And that’s it!

Just to recap, here is my TBR for the month: