august 2026 reads
August was, without a doubt, the best reading month I've had this year. I read so many books and I enjoyed all of them. There's little more a reader can ask for than to be blessed with the ability to read a ridiculous number of books and for none of them to be dissatisfying.
I think WIT Month motivated me, to be honest. I tend to read a lot of women in fiction anyway, so it's not exactly a difficult task to accomplish, but it's always fun to have a very broad theme to help curate your books, and WIT Month is one of my favourites--almost all the books I read in English this month were translations! Whatever the reason, I'm not complaining! On to the books!
Novels, Collections, & Nonfiction
爆弾 by 呉勝浩 (Katsuhiro Go)
This book was way more than I expected. I had a hard time understanding the prose style at first, but once I got used to it, I couldn't put the book down. It's a mystery, sure, but it's also a social commentary on how marginalized people are treated and the fallacies in our unique moral compasses.
Golden Terrace Volume 1 by Cang Wu Bin Bai (tr. E. Danglars)
Palace intrigue in a historical Chinese setting. Romance between the court's "dog" and a disgraced general. Way too many plot points. I liked it enough that I read it a second time in August so I could finally read Volume 2.
Saha by Cho Nam-joo (tr. Jamie Chang)
Another book I want to describe as Orwellian even though I've never read anything by the man himself. Very creepy and dystopian. This one isn't going to spell out the answers for you and a lot is about what goes unsaid, so if that kind of nebulous experience bothers you, it probably isn't your kind of book.
Golden Terrace Volume 2 by Cang Wu Bin Bai (tr. E. Danglars)
More court intrigue and more romance and understanding the perspectives of the general and his love. I found the beginning quite slow, but it picked up later on and all of the different plots were wrapped up in a satisfying way. It's a web novel, not the Mona Lisa. I was happy with the experience.
#真相をお話します by 結城真一郎 (Shinichiro Yuki)
Read this whole collection because one of the stories is being featured in a new Japanese to English translation contest (that I may or may not have the time to enter). I've never read anything by this author before, but the whole thing was brilliant. So much clever societal analysis mixed in with sneaky mystery elements. Very fun.
Terminal Boredom by Izumi Suzuki (tr. Many People)
Speculative fiction translated from Japanese. Each story has a different translator, so a bit difficult to include everyone in my format, but they're all credited properly in the book. Forgive my weakness. This was a thoughtful collection. Very weird. I liked it quite a bit. Excited that there's more to read in English (that I happen to already own).
Private Revolutions by Yuan Yang
I listened to this one. It's a nonfiction book about four different Chinese women who grew up in four different ages and situations in China. I learned a lot about parts of China that I think are easily hidden by the "Western" propaganda machine. Definitely recommend, but eyeball reading may be easier than listening because of how the book is structured and divides up the four different narratives.
Manga & Other Comics
Didn't read any manga that I can talk about! Sorry!
And that's it! WIT Month awarded me quite well and I'm more motivated than ever to read a lot of introspective and exciting books. I have a lot of deadlines this month and work is fairly busy besides, but I have high hopes!
As always, happy reading.
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