Sunday, August 9, 2020

Summer 2020 Reading

 Sunday, August 9. It’s Book Lovers’ Day today. I thought it’s as good a day as any to take stock of my summer reading. My summer reading usually doesn’t vary much from my rest-of-the-year reading. But of course this year’s different. At the beginning of the summer, I heard of a “20 books over the summer” challenge. Not knowing what my pace would be and not letting that number guide my reading, I decided to jump in. I intentionally sought out many travelogues over these three months as I knew I would only be doing armchair travel this year.


Here’s the list, in no particular order, of books I have read only over June, July and August. I’m guessing I’ll be up to 30 by the time August is done. I have also marked the books I had to read for reviewing in Booklist and Kirkus. A few others have links to my reviews in my book blog, Booksnfreshair.


  1. The Book of Rosy: A Mother’s Story of Separation at the Border by Rosayra Pablo Cruz and Julie Schwietert Collazo

  2. The Glass Kingdom by Lawrence Osborne

  3. The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation by David Kamp

  4. Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria by Kapka Kassabova

  5. Villa Pacifica by Kapka Kassabova

  6. The Glass Kingdom by Lawrence Osborne

  7. Red Pill by Hari Kunzru (reviewed for Booklist)

  8. Chasing the Monsoon by Alexander Frater

  9. Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

  10. Luster by Raven Leilani

  11. Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom by Katherine Eban

  12. The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida by Clarissa Goenawan

  13. Tiny Moons: A Year of Eating in Shanghai by Nina Mingya Powles

  14. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood

  15. To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace by Kapka Kassabova

  16. The Burning by Megha Majumdar

  17. The Museums of Whales You Will Never See and Other Excursions to Iceland’s Most Unusual Museums by A. Kendra Greene

  18. Nights When Nothing Happened by Simon Han

  19. Bears in the Streets: Three Journeys Across a Changing Russia by Lisa Dickey

  20. Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town by Barbara Demick

  21. Truthtelling by Lynne Sharon Schwartz (reviewed for Booklist)

  22. To Be a Man by Nicole Krauss (reviewed for Booklist)

  23. A Million Aunties by Alicia McKenzie (reviewed for Kirkus)

  24. Likes by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

  25. Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking by Bill Buford

  26. The Great Offshore Grounds by Vanessa Veselka (reviewed for Booklist)

  27. Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam (reviewed for Booklist)



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