A month of reading less

Bookmarked Monthly - recap dedicated to one nonfiction genre each month

Aug 27, 2025

Summer comes with a promise of great books and more time to read. It also comes with a promise of slowing down, taking a considerable pause, heading off for an abroad holiday, or even taking a 5-hour trip to the south coast to Cornwall with the intention of slowing down and having the waves cool your feet and soothe your soul.

Welcome to this month’s Bookmarked Monthly: a magazine-style recap dedicated to one nonfiction genre each month. August was about doing less, even reading less.

Porthcurno, Cornwall, Southwestern England

This Month in the Theme of Slowing Down

Week 1 — Currently Reading

From: We should all be feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
In the monthly theme of slowing down and even reading a little less in summer, I’ve shared with you something different this month. Even though my recommendation came with a short book, the TED talk was the highlight. I don’t consider myself a feminist strongly because I don’t believe in ‘boxing’ ourselves into particular identities, life’s too unpredictable and ever changing to be assigning such high value to categories. Whilst watching this talk, I nodded my head a few too many times.
→ Read full post here

Week 2 — New in Nonfiction

Spotlight: How We Grow Up: Understanding Adolescence by Matt Richtel
‘How We Grow Up’ comes with the promise—understanding adolescence—that’s what appealed to me.

The transition to adulthood is defined by hormonal shifts that trigger puberty. Do you remember yours? Have you rebelled? Have you angered many? Felt entirely misunderstood most of the time?

Richtel, a health and science reporter at the New York Times, shares a groundbreaking investigation into adolescence, focusing on the brain and what science now understands about the brain’s activity in adolescence.
→ See the full roundup

Week 3 — Reads

Read these books when you're short on time
Summer can get hectic, even when you’re heading off for holiday—all the planning, organising, packing, travelling—can leave you short on time. Or, like me, you don’t feel like starting a 400-page book. You want something short, easy to read and digest, something that offers an idea, a different perspective or just makes you pause whilst you’re letting your feet touch the crispy white sand and let yourself disappear in the waves hitting the nearby rocks. I’ve cobbled together recommendations of books for when you’re short on time.
→ Read the full recommendation

Monthly Reading List:

As a recap, here is the complete list of recommended reading from this summer:

Except for a few, I stuck with the collections of essays.

Book of the Month

This Is Your Mother: A Memoir by Erika J Simpson
Recently, I was reading a collection of The Best American Essays 2022 by Alexander Chee, I flicked through the pages and landed on the essay titled "If You Ever Find Yourself" by Erika J. Simpson. Once I had read her essay, I knew I would search for the books by E. Simpson. The essay was also published in The Audacity–one of my favourite Substacks.

I cannot recommend Simpson’s memoir enough. I read it like eating a favourite snack, slow, a chapter each evening, and I’m growing so fond of it. I’ve read a fair amount of memoirs this year, and this one is my favourite so far for multiple reasons. It’s a heartbreaking story of the hardship, resourcefulness and hope in one, but also the strength from faith. Simpson invites us through the year, vividly describing the way her mother struggled to take care of her until later years when the roles of carer reversed.

Looking Ahead — Next Month’s Topic

Next up: History and Current Affairs
In September, we look at the conflict between Russia and Ukraine from history to the current moment. I appreciate it’s a heavy topic. Yet as I was born in Slovakia, the country that spent most of its existence under the rule of communist Russia, the neighbouring country to Ukraine, the topic fascinates me to the point I am eager to travel way back to the past through the books, of course, to understand it fully.
On my radar: The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy; Invasion: Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival Paperback by Luke Harding; War and Punishment: The Story of Russian Oppression and Ukrainian Resistance by Mikhail Zygar; Iron Curtain by Anne Applebaum, and plenty more. Let’s see where this monthly theme takes us.