Library Books | June 2019

This post is dedicated to the books I’ve checked out from the library to read throughout the month of June. I’ve sort of developed the habit of checking out library books almost exclusively at the beginning of a new month, so I’m fully embracing that habit and featuring the most recent titles I’ve checked out.

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

I finished The Fifth Season last month, and I’m launching into the second book of this series – I just can’t wait! Plus, this book is on my #20booksofsummer reading list, so the sooner I read it the better.

In The Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

I’ve started reading this for the #ReadCaribbean Reading Challenge (in celebration of Caribbean Heritage Month), and am quite invested in the story. I love Julia Alvarez’s writing so far – the alternating perspectives she uses gives the story even more depth.

(I’ll actually be returning this to the library today or tomorrow, because I was able to find a copy of it at Quill Books & Beverage!)

Work; Eight Cousins; Rose in Bloom; Stories and Other Writings by Louisa May Alcott

This book is for another reading challenge I’m participating in this month: the Louisa May Alcott Reading Challenge. For the challenge last year, I read (and loved) Eight Cousins, so I’d like to at least get through Rose in Bloom (the sequel).

Augustown by Kei Miller 

I had planned on reading Dew Angels by Melanie Schwapp for the #ReadCaribbean Challenge, but I cannot find a copy of it anywhere near me. Fortunately a local bookstore is going to see if they can get me a used copy, but in the meantime I will be reading this book, which I hear is full of rich descriptions and plenty of characters.

Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation by Robert W. Fieseler

My library has put forth a great selection of nonfiction books for their Stonewall 50: The Birth of a Movement program (also involving discussions, a film series, book talks, and images featured in their Lewis Gallery), and this is one I chose to check out. The Up Stairs Lounge fire (New Orleans) took place four years after the Stonewall riots (almost exactly four years after), and has been nearly erased from history.

The Stonewall Reader: Edited by The New York Public Library by New York Public Library, Edmund White (foreword)

Gwen and Frank from The Librarian Is In podcast chatted about this book ahead of Pride Month and the New York Public Library’s commemoration of the Stonewall uprising, which occurred fifty years ago this month – listen to that episode here. It sounded like this was a good way to be introduced to this historical event (of which I know very little); the book is a compilation of first-hand accounts, pieces of periodic literature, articles, and more writing from that time and the years that followed. I currently have the book on hold as it is already checked out, so I’m not sure how long I will be waiting for it – nonetheless, I will read it this summer.

Tell me about the book or books you have checked out from the library, or if you’re waiting on any holds to go through. And as always, feel free to leave your thoughts about the books I’ve mentioned here.

Happy reading!