Bookish July Days & Upcoming Readalongs

What I read on vacation and book club plans for the fall...

I hope everybody is having a good start to the new week and the new month! Like Laurey from Oklahoma, I try never to ask an August sky what happened to July, but it is crazy how soon fall will be upon us.

In case you’re already looking ahead and planning out the rest of your reading year, I thought I’d mention the upcoming “book club” readalongs I’m planning to do with subscribers! I’ll be discussing the books below in my monthly reading vlogs (posted on YouTube the last Friday of each month), and we’ll also be doing a video chat (tentatively scheduled for the last Saturday of each month) to talk about them face-to-face. If you’re planning to read the book and would like to join the Google Meet chat, just send an email to emma@bookishprincess.com, and I’ll send you the link!

August: I Married Adventure by Osa Johnson (video chat on 8/27 at 1 p.m. ET)

September: All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

October: My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

November: The Blue Sapphire by D.E. Stevenson

We’ll also be discussing the readalong books in my discord group chat room; drop me an email if you’d like to join discord, and I’ll send you an invite link for that as well! We haven’t picked a book out for December yet, and we’ll decide the exact dates and times for the fall video chats later on.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves! There’s still a whole month of summer left, and today’s July reading wrap-up is all about what I read on vacation…

They Drew as They Pleased: the Hidden Art of Disney’s Golden Age

I did bring my kindle along on our Disney World trip, but there were some beautiful Disney animation books on the shelves in the Chronos Club level lounge that I had to sit down and page through - with a cappuccino in hand of course! Volume four of They Drew as They Pleased covered Lee and Mary Blair. Both husband and wife worked for Disney, but at one point Mary decided to move on from animation. Shortly after that her husband came home and said that Disney was sending the animators on a South American tour for research. Mary went back to the studio and asked for her job back - and the chance to go on the trip. Of course Disney brought her back on, and it sounds like she got so much inspiration from the tour!

Rosabelle Shaw by D.E. Stevenson

“We’d all like to be heroes and go about killing dragons - I wanted it myself, so I know - but we cannot choose the manner in which we are to serve. Remember that, Tom - we’ve just got to serve in the manner we’re allowed.”

“But I’m not serving at all,” said Tom ruefully.

“ ‘They also serve who only stand and wait,’ “ the old man told him, smiling in a friendly way.

I love how D.E. Stevenson weaves quotes from the classics, like that line from Milton, into her characters’ conversations. She’s one of my favorite authors! I had never read Rosabelle Shaw before, so it was wonderful to meet the book for the first time. The story follows a young couple living on a farm along the coast of Scotland, and we get to see their courtship and marriage all the way through to their children growing up and entering courtships of their own. It was very sweet and filled with beautiful descriptions, interesting characters, and constant touches of wisdom.

Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare

Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

I revisited Much Ado this month…I think it might be my favorite Shakespeare play! The story is light and bright and merry and witty, but of course with the deeper, thought-provoking undercurrents you always find from the Bard. This pick was a nod to Jane Austen July, and I loved tracing the similarities to Pride and Prejudice. There are so many, from the way Benedick and Mr. Darcy both have their lists of what they look for in an accomplished lady (“her hair shall be of what color it please God”) to the way Claudio and Mr. Bingley jilt poor Hero and Jane…Mr. Bingley is not as cruel as Claudio though! Speaking of Jane Austen, I did end up picking up her Juvenilia for a little regency afternoon of reading this July…I love the “in her own hand” editions that feature scans of the original notebooks that teenage Jane copied her stories into.

A Touch of Sun and Other Stories by Mary Hallock Foote

The alkali growth is monotonous here; but there was a world of beauty and caprice in the forms of the seed-pods dried upon their stalks. Most of these pretty little purses were empty. Their treasure went, like the savings of a maiden aunt, when the idle wind got hold of it. There is an almost humorous ingenuity in the pains Nature has taken to secure the propagation of some of the meanest of her plant-children. The most worthless little vagabond seeds have wings of fans to fly with, or self-acting bomb-receptacles that burst and empty their contents (which nobody wants) upon the liberal air, or claws or pincers to catch on with to anything that goes. And once they have caught on, they are harder to get rid of than a Canadian “quarter.”

Mary Hallock Foote was the perfect choice for some Wilderness-Lodge-inspired reading! Her tales are dramatic and romantic and focus on different scenarios out on the Western frontier, with many characters struggling to retain their “Eastern” educations and culture out in the harsh wilderness. Her writing is just excellent; she includes so many compelling, interesting details that help you to imagine what it would have been like to live in that time and place, but there are also wonderful, creative turns of phrase and incisive descriptions of human nature that hold true in any time and place. I also read The Cup of Trembling and Other Stories collection this month, which was darker and more sobering but still beautiful.

I Ordered a Table for Six by Noel Streatfeild

One sorrow had shadowed his life. He had accepted it, faced it, and, since he could not part with it, had, as it were, rolled it in brown paper, and laid it at the back of his mental cupboard. To take out the parcel and undo that wrapping was still torture. He could accept what was inside, but not take it out and look at it, not even now after all these years. Adela had said: “People like you, who have never known suffering,” and “You don’t understand.” Maybe if Adela heard his story she would see that he and Millicent had qualified to understand in the only place where understanding could be learnt.

The last Noel Streatfeild book that I read was her charming children’s classic Ballet Shoes; this novel was quite different! I Ordered a Table for Six is adult fiction set during the blitz in World War II. As I mentioned in my vlog, it is not exactly a light read, but it was very well written and full of well-drawn slices of life. Even minor characters get a chance to share their unique perspectives and experiences with the war, so it really gives you a feeling of what it might have been like to live through it.

Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright

“Oh you must come often during the summer and see - “ Mrs. Cheever turned, smiling at Portia. “I never realized how much I wanted an audience for this garden!”

Mrs. Cheever’s garden is a bog garden, and who would have thought a book set in a bog could be so captivating? This children’s book was the perfect summer read, with the storyline stretching from June to September. Young cousins Julian and Portia discover Gone-Away Lake, which was once home to a Victorian vacation community called Tarrigo. The houses were abandoned when the lake dried up, but two delightful elderly siblings, Minnehaha and Pindar (the names are so great!), have moved back to their childhood vacation home and share the history of the place with Julian and Portia. From the premise you might expect the book to be creepy and haunted, but in fact it’s wonderful to see the mix of old memories and new life that Tarrigo has taken on, in spite of being half-reclaimed by nature and the bog.

Leave me a comment down below to tell me about your favorite books of the summer. Happy reading, friends!