June Reads
Here is what I've been reading in June and a few highlights from 2024
We are midway through June which is amazing as it feels like March. When I go outside I am frozen to my core, its definitely winter now. And so with the midway mark of this year upon us I thought it would be nice to review what I have read in June and a few highlights from the past few months.
This Month
This month I started reading four new books. I don’t plan on finishing all of them by the end of June. June has been a very busy month for me with the end of semester of uni, full of assignments and exams. But I’ve still managed to find a little time to read every day.
Slow Productivity - Cal Newport
Another thought provoking and action taking read from Cal Newport. I’ve read about 4 chapters of this and am already loving it. This is Newport’s response to hustle culture, subtitled: “The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout”. Newport boils this down to three basic principles:
Do Fewer Things
Work at a Natural Pace
Obsess Over Quality
It's that simple.
I’ve been reading this book fairly slowly for what I’m used to, just fitting in 20-30 minutes most days during my lunch break. I like to think that’s how the author would have wanted me to read the book, taking in each point slowly and fully understanding them before moving to the next. I love that in this book Newport uses many examples of “successful” people through history to demonstrate his principles. Its great to hear about how Jane Austen wrote her novels at a quiet time in her life or how Marie Curie would retreat to the French countryside between working on experiments involving radioactivity. I have loved this book so far and can’t wait to keep reading it.
Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Attwood
This book has been on my bookshelf for over a year. I’ve been wanting to read it ever since the TV series premiered. But I just haven’t been in the right headspace to read it. Finally as I step into a quiet few weeks I decided it was finally time to start reading it.
This book has shocked me and I’m not even 100 pages in yet. I didn’t know much about the plot going into it. I had watched the first 1 or 2 episodes of the tv series but thats all I knew. I stopped watching the tv series because it was so dark and disturbing, but this is the exact reason why I am loving the book right now. It's so rooted in reality but that reality is so dark and twisted. Its feels like something like this could actually happen and thats a little scary. I’m starting to see why it has won so many prizes and why it's considered a modern classic. I am so intrigued with where this story goes and can’t wait to spend hours over the next week getting lost in the world of Gilead.
The Artist's Way - Julia Cameron
A book I have heard about online quite often but have never given it a second thought. However I came across it a few weeks ago and thought: that's exactly what I need - A spiritual path to higher creativity. Right now I am in week three of the programme and still finding it a bit hard to get into it. I have really embraced morning pages and do those every single day. Morning pages are a stream of conscious writing in longhand as soon as you get up in the morning. This is done to clear your mind and open yourself up to making new ideas and being creative. I do these everyday and while I haven’t seen much of an effect yet, I hope to see a change over the next few weeks.
The other parts of the Artist's way such as the weekly tasks and artists dates have been really hard to fit in. But I love the concept of them, especially the artists' dates. I think now that uni is done I can finally get back into this programme and commit myself fully to embracing my inner creativity.
The Enchanted Woods - Enid Blyton
About a year ago I stumbled upon a copy of the Magic Faraway Tree Collection and I had to buy it. This is a series I grew up on, listening to the audiobooks over and over on my old CD player. The first week of the Artist's Way was themed around healing your childhood. And so as part of my artist date that week I decided to read a few chapters of the Enchanted Woods (the first book in the series). And I loved it. It was so nostalgic and comforting reading that book. I am hoping to finish it off all in one long reading session soon.
Short Synopsis
I have read quite a few great books this year but unfortunately haven't written anything about them. And so I thought I would provide a few short comments on some of the books I’ve loved reading this year.
Circe - Madeline Miller - Amazing twist on a well known Greek myth. I loved how this book spanned thousands of years of development around the main character. I am excited to read more books by this author.
Anne of Green Gables Books 1-3 - Lucy Maud Montgomery - I have loved these books ever since I was a child - they are still as good as reading them as an adult and it's crazy that books written almost 110 years ago are still so relevant.
Outlive - Bill Gifford and Peter Attia - A book published last year about longevity. I love the practical science based nature of this book, so much to think about after reading it. I’m going to have to keep rereading it in order to apply all the great advice.
Audiobooks
This year I have really embraced listening to audiobooks. No matter what I’m doing, going for a walk, commuting to uni or just sitting on the couch I’ll be listening to an audiobook. I have enjoyed listening to them so I thought I’d write about some of the highlights.
I’m Glad My Mom Died - Jeanette McCurdy - This was a phenomenal memoir. It's shocking to see what goes on behind the scenes of your favourite kids shows. It was great listening to it and hearing the story told in McCurdy’s voice.
Animal Farm - George Orwell - Having read 1984 last year I was excited to delve into another of his masterpieces. The story was shocking and amazing, very well written. And it was made even better as it was read by Stephen Fry. I am thinking about listening to 1984 soon just to get the experience of Stephen Fry reading it.
Heroes - Stephen Fry - Another amazing title read (and written) by Stephen Fry. I loved listening to mythos last year, and it inspired me to get into modern Greek mythology retellings. Heroes was just as good, if not better than Mythos. I loved hearing about all the stories of all the epic quests of Greek heroes. The other day I saw that the final book in the series is coming out in September, so I'm very excited for that.
Well that's it for my June and first half of 2024 reads. I hope you enjoyed reading this and maybe stumbled upon a novel you want to read now. Happy reading friends!
~ Polymath Jess ❤️📖