hawt & smoggy august autumn reads!

hello, and welcome to our collection of august’s weekly reading book reviews!

videos & links to each title on bookshop.org appearing every monday mornng of the month! :D


✨📖 weekly reading book review august 2026: episode one!! 📖✨


🥰 i finished ZERO books this week, but have bookmarks hanging out in:


🧡 HOW (NOT) TO RENOVATE A HAUNTED HOUSE by jenny l. howe

(spooky YA fat rep + inclusivity romcom!!)


🩵 SEMICOLON: THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF A MISUNDERSTOOD MARK by cecelia watson (nonfiction; some of it’s great; some of it, my eyes glaze over 😵‍💫)


💛 HARD-BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD by haruki murakami (absurdist surreal this that who knows what japanese fiction in translation)


🖤 SYLLABUS by lynda barry (art/research notebooks from teaching visual communications to college students of diverse/non-art majors)


📚 maybe reading soon/next:


🤎 TROILUS AND CRESSIDA by wm shakespeare

folger library edition: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/troilus-and-cressida-william-shakespeare/1116788673?ean=9781982170127


💚 & 💜 AMARI & THE DESPICABLE WONDERS & AMARI & THE METALWORK MENACE by b. b. alston


🥳

i’ve also got tickets to FOUR staged readings & musicals for the SOUTH CAROLINA PLAY FESTIVAL this week!! (tickets are FREE on their website, so you can go, too!!)

https://www.southcarolinanewplayfestival.org
👉🏽 so expect lots of blogs & posts about THAT excitement!! 🤩🎭🎪🎤


🎟️

otherwise i’ll be working & writing in my studio and sending this month’s CRAYON BOX HAPPY STICKER MAIL!!!!
🥳🫟🎨🖍️💌📬


links to all the fun below!



with confetti frosting for a soul,
💖xo,
*hallie 🤓


stay tuned for our next epsidode on august 10!

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hallie bertling