The weather is glorious, every weekend is packed with activity, but somehow I still managed to read 8 books in June. Possibly because the long, light evenings are perfect for sitting in the garden with a book and my dog. I like summer.

This month we went to our first gig in three and a half years (Arrested Development! They were great!). We went to Cornwall with a bunch of friends. I started doing longer bike rides again. And I finally went to the fancy thermae spa in Bath, after only 16 years of living a 12-minute train ride away. It was fancy. And so relaxing.

June is Pride month so I tried to make at least some of my reading Pride-related. I discovered I had a surprisingly small number of LGBTQIA books in my TBR so I bought quite a lot of new books this month too – some from my own wishlist and some bookseller recommendations at indie bookshops. We have a wealth of them now locally. One of my projects for this year is to visit all the new bookshops in Bristol.

My favourite book for June was Neon Roses by Rachel Dawson, closely followed by The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. There are some truly excellent reads in the list below.

Books read

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
A book about a tragedy that spins out the details of what happened until almost the last page, but it’s done using such beautiful, playful language that it wasn’t a tough read. I’m certain this will stay with me for a long time.

Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood
An odd tale about odd characters. The narrator is a young man who moves to Berlin, and while en route meets the titular Mr Norris. From the start it’s clear that Norris has something to hide and that the narrator perhaps shouldn’t be so open with him, but they strike up a friendship. The setting of early 1930s Berlin means there is a lot that is unsettling in this novel.

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
This book was vehemently recommended to me years ago and it was good but ultimately unsatisfying for me. A Jesuit space mission to a planet in another star system goes disastrously wrong. The narrative flips between the build-up to and details of that mission, and interrogations of the sole survivor who has returned to Earth. Enjoyable, with some good SF details, but doesn’t fully follow through on the set-up.

On Fiction by Virginia Woolf
A slim volume collecting essays Woolf wrote related to fiction, from analysis of the greats in every era of (Western) novel writing; to the future of the novel; to why women were just beginning to write fiction in significant numbers during her lifetime. Insightful as always. And I can’t decide if she made me more or less inclined to read some of the writers she names.

Saga Vol. 10 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples
The intergalactic story of young Hazel continues to be excellent on every front. There’s not much I can say without spoilers to the previous nine volumes, but if you enjoyed those – don’t stop reading yet!

Red Sauce, Brown Sauce: a British Breakfast Odyssey by Felicity Cloake
Felicity Cloake’s food and travel memoir about travelling the UK by train and bike (mostly) sampling almost everything related to British breakfasts. As the travelling took place in 2021, it was slightly hampered (understandably) by COVID restrictions. And traditional breakfasts in the UK are heavy on the meat. So this wasn’t quite the joyous “I want to reproduce this exactly” experience I had with her previous food travel memoir One More Croissant for the Road. But it’s still a great read and did spur me to think about cycling holidays again.

Neon Roses by Rachel Dawson
A queer coming-of-age novel set in a small South Wales coal mining town during the miners’ strike of 1984, this manages to be joyous without shying away from the harsh realities of being working class, poor and/or queer in the 1980s. The main character has to contend with supporting her family financially and turning up to the picket lines as often as she can; a younger sister who’s dating a policeman and has started spouting Maggie Thatcher at her; and the realisation that she is more attracted to a visiting butch lesbian than her long-term boyfriend. A truly great read.

Crimson by Niviak Korneliussen
Translated by Anna Halager
A Greenlandic novel about five people’s lives intersecting chaotically in the small city of Nuuk. Their sex and love lives are in flux. They’re young enough to feel everything deeply but also be willing to change everything they know. I found the style initially difficult to follow, as it’s almost stream-of-consciousness. But I was interested enough to keep reading and, as usually happens, the style became less of a barrier and more an essential part of the story.