Mrs Blackwell’s June Reading Log
I’m not winning any awards for volume this month! Just 3.5 books!
Northbound. Four seasons of solitude on Te Araroa by Naomi Arnold
Naomi is a Kiwi journalist who set out to hike the Te Araroa trail solo.
This long-distance trail runs the lenght of New Zealand, from Cape Reinga to Bluff. Naomi took the less common northbound route, starting at Bluff and walking about 3,000 kilometers toward the top of the North Island.
This book isn’t a feel-good hiking guide. There are times when both Naomi (and her readers) just want the hike to be over! Like Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, it’s a lonely and tough and she doesn’t make the trip seem romantic or easy. But if you're thinking about walking Te Araroa, her story gives an honest picture what you’re about to get yourself into!
Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller by Oliver Darkshire
This is a great example of a book finding its reader at the right time. I bought a hardcover copy two or three years ago and tried reading it more than once, but I couldn’t get into Oliver’s storytelling style.
In May 2025, a book club friend gave me a paperback copy with a very different cover. I didn’t recognise it and forgot I already had it. After a couple of chapters, I saw it was the same book, and this time, I just seemed to be able to find a rhythm with Oliver’s performative style.
The book covers his year’s as an apprentice at Sotheran's Rare Books and Prints. If you’ve ever been curious about the world of rare book selling, or just want a little literary escape to London, this is for you.
Delirious by Damien Wilkins
It’s fairly well known among book people that winning a major literary prize can have a dark side. Awards bring readers who would not normally gravitate toward a particular book, and with that, the perception of quality drops as a bigger pool of readers idea of a “good book” fails to align with the prize judges’ tastes.
Delirious won the 2025 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction (New Zealand’s most prestigious literary award) and as I started reading, I felt that disconnect for the first time in a while. Despite ticking many of my usual boxes - modern literary fiction, a largely domestic setting, and a decently sized ensemble cast - I found myself thinking, this just isn’t for me.
Honestly, I probably would’ve abandoned it if it hadn’t been my pick for a book club I’m in. That sense of responsibility kept me going, and in the end, I’m glad it did.
The story follows Mary and Pete as they prepare to leave their family home and move into a retirement village. Beneath this quiet premise is a reflection on aging, memory, and loss. There’s a notable body count: siblings, children, and parents, some of whom didn’t go gently.
This isn’t a book I’d recommend to everyone, but I do think it’s a good choice for a thoughtful book group as it’s sure to stir up a range of opinions!
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
I’m only half way through this one, but I wanted to include it anyway and help prop up the June reading list!
The story follows Clarissa Dalloway, resident of London, over the course of a single day in 1923 as she prepares for a party.
The book is 100 years old this year and the introduction at the beginning of this Penguin Clothbound Classic gives a lot of great context that would otherwise be lost to me in 2025.
I’m reading it as part of the New York Times Book Club. If you like literary fiction, you might enjoy this bookclub too. They choose one book a month (not usually a classic) and then a group of the paper’s journalists gets together to discuss it in a podcast episode. I believe you do need a subscription, but it's only a few dollars a month.
That’s it for June - see you again at the end of July. And until the end of July you can use code: JUNEREADINGLOG for 10% off in-stock titles mentioned in this post.