August TBR

I may have failed my July TBR, but that hasn’t stopped me making an even more ambitious TBR for August. I’m so excited about these books that it’s almost hard to know which to read first!

Books to Progress

I usually have at least one book that I’m looking to read a bit of but not finish each month, and this month is no exception.

As part of my goal to read 24 Korean short stories this year (something I’m very behind in), I want to read another two stories from 이상한 나라의 스물셋 (The Strange Land of 23) this month, which will make me halfway done with the book!

I’m doing some buddy reads with two of my uni friends as a way to keep in contact now that we all live in different cities (and often different countries too)! Last month we did Legends and Lattes and this month (and probably the next couple of months) we’re going to try The Master and Margarita. I’m thinking I’ll try to read about 30% this month, but less or more are both fine so long as I start it!

Priority Books to Finish

These are the books that I’m considering my “official” TBR for the month. Not that there’s any kind of punishment if I don’t finish them, but I would like to!

These three books aren’t new – they’re either current reads or have been on previous TBRs. I’m about 70 pages (17%) into Die Perlen des Todes (The Pearls of the Dead) and I’ve read one of the eight essays in An Apology for Idlers. The Lantern of Lost Memories has been on my TBR for the past couple months, so I’m determined to make this the month I actually get to it.

I’m really feeling space opera/space-based sci-fi books at the moment and hopefully that mood continues, because I’ve put quite a few of them on this TBR. Ancillary Sword is the second book in the Imperial Radch series, sequel to Ancillary Justice, which I loved last year. It’s a recent purchase and I’m trying to keep on top of reading new purchases.

I’m also trying to read books I own by authors I know I like, and I really loved Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot series, so I’m hoping to love To Be Taught If Fortunate too. Shards of Earth is quite a celebrated book in the genre, so hopefully it will be good, and The Last Gifts of the Universe keeps catching my eye every time I go to the bookshop, even though I already own it, so it’s time to read it I think.

Finally we have some books in other languages and my non-fiction read of the month! 검을 든 꽃 1 (The Flower Who Wields a Sword 1) is a Korean fantasy romance, and I’m hoping to use it to break through my fear of reading Korean books as my “main” book rather than spread out over months. For Chinese, I picked a book that’s actually Korean but translated into Chinese with lots of pictures and not too many words, so I should be able to read it all this month. The title is 魔幻時刻 (Magical Moments). Finally, I want to read a bit more non-fiction, including books not related to my master’s degree, so I’m going to read Women Who Fly, which is actually one of the 12 books I marked as must-reads for this year.

Other Potentials

There are so many books that were exciting me this month, so on the very slight off chance that I read a billion hours this month and am looking for more things to read – or if I need something to stop me getting slumpy and have found my official TBR uninspiring – these are the other books I’m eyeing. If I don’t get round to them this month (which is likely), some of these may well show up on my September TBR instead.