August TBR
I had some time this afternoon, so I stood in front of my bookshelves with my Book Bingo and r/Fantasy Bingo challenges and picked out books to consider reading in August. I'm focusing on my Book Bingo first and foremost. I only need 3 books to wrap that up and be finished with it. Next, I am working on the r/Fantasy Bingo. The Book Bingo one ends at the end of the year. r/Fantasy Bingo ends March 31, 2027. The HRCYED challenge goes clear to July of next year. So I'm focusing on each one in order of when they end. Luckily, most of the books for the other challenges will work for the HRCYED challenge also. That challenge ends up calling for at least 75 books, so I do need to work on it, but I do have more time with that one.
I'm not going to bother adding the ones I'm still reading from July. So, what's on the menu this month?
Arcadia by Iain Pears - This one is making a reappearance. It's on my 10 oldest books list, and it fulfills a prompt on both the Book Bingo and the r/Fantasy Bingo Challenges. It also fulfills a prompt on the HRCYED reading challenge. For Book Bingo, it fulfills the prompt to read a book with a one-word title. For r/Fantasy it could also fulfill a one-word title prompt, or it could fulfill a prompt called Cat Squasher - meaning a book over 500 pages. I'll be honest, the title of that prompt scared me a little. I wasn't sure what Cat Squasher refered to. This one has 600 pages. For the HRCYED challenge, this fulfills the prompt to read a book with a title that is the same title as another book. There are at least 2 other books titled Arcadia.
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon - This is a historical fiction/mystery set in early America. The only other thing I know about it is that the main character is a midwife who gets caught up in a murder situation. I picked it specifically to fulfill a prompt for Book Bingo that calls for a Book That Has Been Turned into a Movie/Show. This one doesn't work for r/Fantasy because it isn't a Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Horror. There are several places it could go in HYRCED: there is a weather prompt, where you have to read books with different types of weather on the cover; there is a prompt for books set in various U.S. States that are not California or Maine (this is set in Maine); there are too many to count.
Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston - Another one that is back on the list. This one would wrap up the Book Bingo challenge with a neat little bow for the LGBTQ+ protagonist prompt. Again, it isn't Fantasy, so I can't use it for the r/Fantasy Bingo, but it works great for the HRCYED prompt to read books with each of the colors of the rainbow in the title. Unfortunately, I can only use it for one of the colors, not 3. On the other hand, there are two challenges that call for colors. The other one is titles that have colors from Joseph's Multicolored Dreamcoat. Each book you read can be used for 2 prompts. That's great, otherwise I would have to read 150 books. It's been about 20 years since I could do that.
Strange Houses by Uketsu - One of my former dancers read this last week. She finished it in 24 hours. She said it's been a long time since she read a book that fast. That's good news for me; maybe I'll like it, too! For the r/Fantasy Bingo this one fulfills the prompt to read a book in translation. This one was originally in Japanese. Yay! There is one prompt on the challenge that I think is really hard. You have to take a prompt from the first HRCYED year and one from the second year and read 5 books that meet both prompts. My prompts are 1) read a book that takes place in a country that is not US/UK/Canada, and 2) read books with page numbers in different 100-page ranges. This one has 203 pages, according to Goodreads. The first book I read for this prompt had 600-something pages, so I still have several of the popular page numbers to go.
Those 4 books will complete one Bingo and leave another one more than half-completed, so I'm going to step away from those for the next books. Pretty much any book I read can find a place on the HRCYED Bingo, so that's not an issue.
When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi - I decided I'd like to work on the stack of books Mike bought for me in March. John Scalzi is usually hilarious, and this looks to be no different. One day the moon just turns to cheese. Everyone loses their shit. I could have used this for r/Fantasy Bingo, since it's sci-fi, but I don't have a prompt that matches up. For HRCYED it can go in the prompt that you read books with different numbers of words in the title; this one would fit the 6-word title prompt. It probably will also fit the Pokemon prompt where you read books that match up with different types of Pokemon. I'm not really well-versed in Pokemon, so I'm totally winging it, here.
The Dog Who Knew Too Much by Spencer Quinn - I still want to work on some of my series. This is the next book in the Chet and Bernie series. I think it fits the HRCYED prompt of a title with a pun. I know there is a classic noir film called the Man Who Knew Too Much. Is that a pun? If not, the next book in the series is Scents and Sensibility, which I feel is solidly a pun. Either way reading this one would move me along on the series. Plus, these books are so cute.
Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer - And I added this one just because it's fun. This is the second in the series. Mike bought me the third one in that stack of books in March, so I have to read this one before I get to that one. Right now, the only HRCYED prompt I can find to match is the 4-word title one. Maybe when I read it I will find out a character matches a prompt or the setting matches a prompt. We'll just have to see.
That is a very long list. Considering that I am currently reading 4 books that are not on this list, it seems unlikely I will read them all. Especially considering that dance starts back in two weeks, and I have lost all my co-directors. It's back to being all mine. I still have time before all my bell-ringing starts up again. But August might be busy-ish.