july bookmarks
finding my way out of a summer reading slump
July was spent bopping around the city or soaking up the sunshine in the park, always with a book in hand. My reading usually slows down during summer. I don’t know why. But this year I’ve finally found a way around that familiar reading slump.
I’m choosing books I’m almost certain I’ll love. And when I don’t, or the format isn’t working for me, I don’t finish them. But I don’t stop there. I don’t want to give the slump an opportunity to find a crack and seep in. So, I immediately pick up something else. Almost as if nothing happened.
My July reads were wonderfully varied, each one bringing something completely different. It kept my reading feeling fresh. In short, July was a delightful reading month.
july reading menu
All The Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley (memoir)
Land by Maggie O’Farrell (historical fiction)
My Dear You by Rachel Khong (short stories)
Beautiful Distance by Nao-Cola Yamazaki (literary fiction/romance)
Art Monsters by Lauren Elkin (art/feminism essays)
Repetition by Vigdis Hjorth (literary fiction)
Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker (horror/historical fiction)
Soyangri Book Kitchen by Kim Jee-Hye (cosy fiction)
Light and Thread by Han Kang (essays)
The Devoted by Catherine Cho (mystery)
All The Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley
This memoir explores Patrick Bringley’s ten years working as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Bringley left a fast-paced job at The New Yorker after his brother died of cancer. Working at the Met helped him find a sense of comfort and healing.
Part of the reason this book spoke to me is that, after around ten years working in marketing, I made a similar leap. I started working in an art gallery, in a role not so different from Bringley’s. Nearly two years later, I wouldn’t have guessed that such a career change could heal me.
Working in a museum or an art gallery isn’t glamorous or perfect. We tend to romanticise certain industries and professions, but once you’re doing the job, the romance disappears. You have to find it yourself, create it, almost hunt for it. That’s exactly what Bringley does throughout this memoir. He shares the good, the bad and the ugly of working in this line of work. You’d be surprised to discover that the moment people walk into a public space, whether it’s an art gallery, a shop or a café, their good manners stay at the door. Listening to the audiobook on my commute became a comforting part of my day.
Thankfully, the bad and ugly moments are only one side of the coin. Bringley balances them beautifully with stories about sweet visitor interactions and fellow guards, who quickly begin to feel like a second family.
Art galleries and museums are gorgeous third places. Everyone is there looking, thinking and experiencing, but not expecting anything from one another. No one is performing. That’s where you can connect more deeply, even during small interactions. You don’t need much when surrounded by the beauty and mystery of true masterpieces.
Land by Maggie O’Farrell
Set in 1865, post-Famine Ireland, Land follows Irish mapmaker Tomás and his family. On a mission for the British Empire, their lives begin to unravel after the discovery of a hidden spring that doesn’t appear on any previous maps.
Land is a mighty and highly ambitious book exploring trauma and survival, family, folklore, colonialism and the Irish diaspora. Reading it, you get the sense that Maggie O’Farrell became completely immersed in her subject. And I could have kept drinking in her words without ever feeling I’d had enough. Her writing is atmospheric and immersive. I could vividly see every scene she transported me to. She is truly a master of the craft. I’m saddened that I don’t possess her talent to express just how much I loved this book. I smiled, I laughed, I cried. Not just once.
Each character, parents and children alike, feels completely real. We become attached to every one of them. There is a real weight to the story. It explores how silence sometimes speaks louder than words, and how trauma is passed down through generations. It feels very intimate, maybe because the story of Land was also inspired by O’Farrell’s own family, especially her great-great-grandfather.
When Maggie O’Farrell turned to historical fiction, it feels as though something extraordinary unlocked in her writing. Book after book, she continues to amaze me, and I already can’t wait to see where in the past she takes us next.
Tomás knew that if he were to survey this copse, to record it upon the map, within weeks, perhaps even days, the viscount would send up a party of men to fell all these trees for timber, to divert the water for use in the manor house, and that would be that. This woodland, which had been here since the beginning of time, would be gone, claimed, erased.
It could exist on the map, or it could exist on the land.
My Dear You by Rachel Khong
This short story collection was everything I needed after Land. It was a little lighter, humorous while also reflective. Reading My Dear You felt like reading a spin-off of the tv show The Good Place. They both use speculative fiction and humour in such a smart, inventive way to reflect on human behaviours and anxieties, but also on complex questions around racism, identity and what it means to be an Asian American woman.
Some stories revolve around religion and God. The title story even begins after the protagonist’s death, as she enters the afterlife. Some were completely absurd, others veer into dystopian territory that feels just a little too realistic given the world we live in.
Real Americans by Khong has been on my radar for some time, and discovering her writing through this collection piqued my interest even more.
Beautiful Distance by Nao-Cola Yamazaki (tr. Charlotte Goff)
Crying while I was soaking up the sun in the park wasn’t in my plans but it happened.
Beautiful Distance follows an unnamed character visiting his terminally ill wife in the hospital.
Reading it reminded me of both The Notebook and Perfect Days. The first for the tenderness of its love story, the second for its attention to everyday moments. Like Hirayama in Perfect Days, the protagonist finds meaning in the ordinary, braiding his wife’s hair, watching the cherry blossoms, simply carrying on. Beautiful Distance is intimate, touching, and deeply tender. It felt real, authentic, almost memoir-like. Throughout the pages, a distance quietly settles between the couple, but the man keeps on reaching out.
This book explores love, illness, caregiving, grief, societal expectations and workplace culture. And most of all, it reminds us that the ordinary moments are often the ones that matter most.
I remember being so happy, feeling the distance between us shrink soon after we met, as we quickly dropped any sense of formality and just talked freely with each other. But feeling the distance open back up now makes me happy in a different way.
Fleeting or deep, near or far, all kinds of relationships shine brightly. It’s okay if we’re far apart, as long as we’re connected.
This movement, taking us further and further away from each other, leaves a trail of light behind.
If you’ve read some other books by Nao-Cola Yamazaki, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art Book by Lauren Elkin
Art Monsters is a cultural critique examining what society expects from women versus what it expects from artists. What does it mean to be a woman artist in a society that has prioritised a very narrow viewpoint, a very male-coded idea of the status of artist?
Lauren Elkin explores the concept of “art monsters” - woman artists - who go against the patriarchy, use art to express what it means to live in a female body, to be a mother or to choose not to, to push boundaries from what society expects from them.
One thing I particularly enjoyed was recognising artists whose exhibitions I’d either recently visited or who are especially prominent at the moment. Tracey Emin, Frida Kahlo and Ana Mendieta all appear throughout the book, and all happen to be exhibiting at Tate Modern, in London. It made Elkin’s reflections feel even more relevant.
Listening to the audiobook on my commute, I found myself moving between frustration, admiration and inspiration. These artists spent their lives pushing against expectations and creating despite them. Art Monsters is dense, packed with research and ideas, and it’s simply brilliant.
Repetition by Vigdis Hjorth (tr. Charlotte Barslund)
An unnamed novelist witnesses an unsettling interaction between a teenage girl and her family, triggering memories of her own adolescence. The memories lead her to retreat to a cabin to confront her past. She recalls what it’s like to be a teenage girl growing up under close watch of a very anxious mother, a mother who scrutinises her every move.
Hjorth perfectly captures the suffocating feeling of growing up under constant scrutiny. Repetition felt like reading the diary of a teenage girl. Going to her first party, having her first alcoholic drink, navigating friendship, hiding makeup in her bag, having her first kiss. It had a nostalgic quality.
From the very beginning, you know something terrible has happened. Hjorth withholds the details, revealing them slowly enough to keep you constantly uneasy and wanting to know more.
Mother-daughter relationships are one of my favourite dynamics to read about. While families are never easy, this one was very unique. I couldn’t feel any love between the mother and the daughter, or anyone in the family for that matter. Repetition covers only one year of the narrator’s life, but it felt so uncomfortable and oppressive, I don’t know if I would have been able to bear more.
Before picking it up, I knew very little about either the novel or Vigdis Hjorth herself beyond a handful of glowing reviews. Since this was her shortest book, it felt like the perfect place to start. I hadn’t expected to become so completely engrossed that I finished it in two sittings. I would have read it in one if only I didn’t have to leave my flat for work.
Hope is like a new garment - stiff, tight and glittering - but until you try it on, you won’t know if it fits or suits you, while memory is like an old garment: no matter how pretty it is, it no longer suits you, you’ve outgrown it. Repetition, however, is like a durable garment that hugs you tenderly, but never constricts or swamps you. I was glad that I hoped for nothing, but why then this feeling of dread?
Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker
This dual-timeline novel follows present-time college student Lee Turner, who flees from New York to Japan after killing his roommate, James, and not knowing where he hid the body (one of my first notes on the book says “it went from weird to wtf”), and a female samurai, Sen, living in 1877 Japan in the aftermath of the samurai rebellion.
What connects them is the house they live in. The closet they share seems to let them cross timelines. I found the way the two stories intertwine with this hidden portal very clever. When they meet, they are both looking for answers and certain they can help each other find them. Where did Lee’s mom disappear when he was a kid? How will Sen’s family survive from imperial soldiers determined to wipe out what remained of the samurai?
Kylie Lee Baker’s debut Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng was in my top favourite reads last year, so I was really looking forward to reading Japanese Gothic. She has this talent to write very eerie scenes, a creeping sense of dread. It’s never too much, just with the right amount of gore to make my skin crawl. At times, it reminded me of the movie Kill Bill. Lots of blood, but an intense self-control from the characters that somehow makes them even more unnerving. I also loved how Japanese folklore, ghosts and samurai history were woven into the novel.
Lee is under the influence for the first part of the book, so his sections are unreliable at best, I kept wondering what had really happened to his roommate. Had he actually killed him? Why? And where was the body? As he spiralled, I spiralled with him.
The ending, however, didn’t entirely work for me. It felt slightly rushed, leaving me more confused than intrigued. Even so, the journey getting there was gripping enough that I’d happily pick up whatever Kylie Lee Baker writes next.
James had green eyes, which looked like entire planets.
James had green eyes, past tense, because Lee smashed them until they burst.
Soyangri Book Kitchen by Kim Jee-Hye (tr. Shanna Tan)
After leaving her corporate job, Yoojin opened the Book Kitchen in Soyangri, a village two hours away from Seoul. The Book Kitchen is a bookshop, cafe, and an overnight inn.
The book is split into little vignettes about characters who work at or visit the bookshop. It’s filled with delicious food, a soothing atmosphere and thoughtful book recommendations. It felt so cosy that I would have loved to stop by the Book Kitchen and spend a few nights, too.
You know how romance books are often called a palate cleanser to clear your mind after finishing a long, dark, or heavy story? I think my palate cleansers are cosy books with low to no stakes. Soyangri Book Kitchen ticked all those boxes for me. It was the gentle escapism I needed after Japanese Gothic.
Light and Thread by Han Kang (tr. Maya West, e. yaewon, Paige Aniyah Morris)
With the goal of becoming a Han Kang completionist, I have set out to read all her books translated into English before the end of the year. I had already read Human Acts (which remains my favourite) and The White Book in 2022, in 2025 I read We Do Not Part, and this year I read Greek Lessons. So picking up Light and Thread felt like the natural next step.
This little gem of a book explores the gold thread connecting languages and people. Han Kang opens with her Nobel speech (she won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024) where we learn about her writing process. It’s a mix of personal entries about the interconnectedness of humanity and its vulnerability, a few pictures are scattered through the pages (which made me think of The White Book), and it ends with her gardening journal.
Unexpectedly, this last part became my favourite part. It’s wonderfully ordinary. When I say I’ll read anything Han Kang writes, this is probably the best proof. I’d happily spend pages following her attempts to bounce light around her north-facing garden with mirrors or reading about her battle against pests. Somehow, she finds meaning even there.
I now have only one book left, The Vegetarian.
Let’s agree to bloom next year, then, and just spend this season growing well.
The Devoted by Catherine Cho
The story follows Eunha, raised in Hong Kong by her grandmother alongside her brother, Solomon. After her young son is kidnapped, she’s pulled back into the Triad underworld she thought she’d left behind. The story seamlessly moves between Eunha’s childhood and adulthood, revealing how the past continues to shape the present.
The beginning isn’t particularly action-packed. It unfolds at a more contemplative pace than I’d expected for a story set against the backdrop of the Hong Kong Triad. That’s probably because we experience it through Eunha’s perspective. She isn’t part of the organisation herself but lives in its shadow through her father and brother. The novel focuses on the emotional consequences of this world. With this book, Catherine Cho gives a voice to the women who exist on the sidelines, exploring the lives shaped by decisions they didn’t make, didn’t always agree with, and circumstances they couldn’t control. It’s one of those books that gradually draws you in. Before I realised it, I was completely immersed in Eunha’s story.
At its heart, The Devoted is about motherhood, fate, love, betrayal and whether it’s ever possible to escape the family and circumstances you were born into. I found Eunha’s character development particularly compelling. She grows from someone who lets life happen to her into someone determined to reclaim her own story and her own power.
Following my curiosity turned out to be the best cure for my annual summer reading slump. Instead of forcing myself through books that weren’t working, I simply reached for another one. In the end, that led me to museums, haunted Japanese houses, Irish landscapes, a cosy bookshop and some truly unforgettable characters.
Have you read a book this month that reminded you why you love reading? Or is there one title you’re already convinced will become a favourite before the year is over? Mine are Land, Repetition, and maybe Light and Thread.
Until next time,
Amandine
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So many good recs! Adding a lot of books to my TBR thanks to you. As I was reading On the Calculation of Volume (III) I think it reminded me why I love to read so much. How it makes me see the world differently and definetly with more empathy. It also makes me question myself and my relationship to the planet we live in.
Enjoy The Vegetarian!! and future Hjorth!