Weekly Bookish Wrap Up: 20th July 2025

Happy Sunday bookish peeps!

My Weekly Bookish Wrap Up is linked with the Sunday Salon and the Sunday Post.

The Sunday Salon is a meme hosted by Readerbuzz and is a place to link up and share what you have been doing during the week. It’s also a great opportunity to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. While the Sunday Post is a meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer and is a chance to share news. It’s a post to recap the past week on your blog and share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead.

Non-bookish things:

I’ve had an overwhelming week, draining both mentally and emotionally. At the end of last year, I had decided to step down from my room leader role at work, taking a break after seven years of being in charge. However six months later, necessity has meant that I have needed to step back up into the role and while it’s exciting, I have a big job ahead of me to get things back to where they should be. I have brainstormed and written lists of things that need doing, and gone down a rabbit hole to be honest, which has left me with next to no blogging time…and no energy. I’m hoping to be able to create a better work life balance than previously when I have been in this role, but I expect that this will take a little bit of negotiating, some boundary setting and a good deal of self-care – three things I’m not great at.

My son is still travelling and is currently in Italy, absolutely loving life. I’m so proud of him being able to travel alone the way he does and his ability to make friends wherever he goes.

Yesterday, my daughter and I had a girl’s day out, doing a bit of op-shopping. It started as an opportunity to buy some things for my classroom and ended up being just us roaming around looking at vintage clothes and stuff. We didn’t buy really anything but we chatted all day, had an amazing breakfast and just enjoyed each other’s company. It was pretty perfect and what we both needed.

Today, I napped all morning in the sun with the dogs…something else I just really needed.

Slow Cooker Sunday

I’m trying a new recipe that me daughter shared with me – Marry Me Chicken. She makes it for her boyfriend and their housemates regularly and it is apparently a hit. I don’t normally cook with cream and I’ve never been a sun dried tomato fan but it smells great as it’s slowly cooking. I can’t wait to try it.

Bookish things:

Let’s start with the audiobooks first, since I seem to manage at least two a week. This week, I listened to Finlay Donovan book #3 – Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun by Elle Cosimano and book #1 of the Good Folk: Modern Folktales series – Totally Folked by Penny Reid. I’m so excited to be finally reading this series. Having previously loved the Winston Brothers series by this author (way back in 2020), giving every book a five star rating and being so ruined when the series ended, I’m ecstatic to be going back to Green Valley for new romances and cameo appearances by some of my favourite Winstons.

Yesterday, I finally finished my ARC – Clementine Crane Prefers Not To by Kristin Bair – and can say it was quite good. Funny in places, a bit nonsensical in others. It might also be considered powerful and uplifting for woman of a certain age/life stage. I gave it four stars and would definitely recommend it to others.

Bookish Challenges:

2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge: 74/75 books (99%)

Audiobook Challenge: 37/50 audiobooks (74%)

Non Fiction Reader Challenge: 5/12 books (42%)

#20BooksofSummer2025: 12/20 (60%)

And that’s my bookish week. How was yours?

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