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May Summary and Plans for June

May has been a productive reading month for me. It was dominated by the amazing doorstep that is The Street Sweeper, but many of my other reads were also outstanding. I’m making good progress with the 2012 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Shortlist and will continue to read these in June, especially now the regional winners have been announced.

Book of the Month

The Street Sweeper

In any other month of the year The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Simon Mawer and Heft by Liz Moore would have been top of my list. They will both be favourites of 2012 and so deserve highlighting too:

HeftThe Girl Who Fell From The Sky

Books reviewed in May:

The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman 

The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Simon Mawer 

Heft by Liz Moore 

The Soldier’s Return by Melvyn Bragg 

Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson 

The Master and Margarita: The Graphic Novel 

Still Alice by Lisa Genova 

Pao by Kerry Young 

Love Virtually by Daniel Glattauer

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan 

 

Plans for June

I hope to read most of these books:

Merchants of Culture by John B Thompson

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Little Princes by Conor Grennan

Purge by Sofi Oksanen

Half-Sick Of Shadows by David Logan

Dirt by David Vann

The Book of Answers by C.Y. Gopinath

The Watch by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya

Flight by Adam Thorpe

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Wonder by RJ Palacio

Have you enjoyed any of the books I’ve planned for June?

 

It is half term here in the UK so I’m going to take a short blogging break to spend some time with my family. I’ll be back to my computer in about a week – hopefully having read some amazing books.

Have a wonderful June!

 

29 replies on “May Summary and Plans for June”

Jenners, The Flavia book is ‘I’m Half-Sick of Shadows’ It is confusing though. One day I’m going to read the wrong book because of a mix-up like that!

I don’t know Spanish, and I loved Oscar Wao. I mean really loved it – one of my all-time favourites. Edgy, funny, innovative.. just brilliant. As for The Book of Answers – prepare to be bewildered!

I’m really interesting in reading two of your top titles, The Streesweeper and Heft. They’re high on my list.

Weren’t you planning to read Purge before? I seem to remember telling you that I’m not quite sure you’ll enjoy it (as much as I did, at least). Dirt is an awful, very well-told story. It’s mesmerizing – you want to read on but the story is so sad and terrible. I think you’ll appreciate it.

Judith, I don’t think I’ve tried reading Purge before, but perhaps I did and forgot all about it? You may well have a far better memory than I do! Fingers crossed I’ll enjoy it more than you think I will 🙂

Kicking myself repeatedly for not accepting HEFT for review! Ack! I rarely kick but this one is getting lots of positive feedback.

I’ve only tried one of your June books and it didn’t work for me. Not telling which one. hehe

Andi, I’m betting it was Wao!! Lots of people hate that book. I hope I’m not one of them.

Sorry to hear you missed out on Heft. I frequently decline books that turn out to be amazing, but that is why libraries are so wonderful 🙂

You had a pretty good reading month in May! Wonder and The Street Sweeper are in my tbr stack. I can’t wait to read your thoughts on Osacr Wao. People either love it or hate it for the same reasons: the footnotes and the setting. It’s one of my favorites. Enjoy your vacation.

Oscar Wao is excellent. You’ll probably be fine with the Spanish. If you’re confused, pop it into google translate. And I think you will like Inkheart. It’s one of my favorite YA series. Dustfinger is one of my all-time favorite characters, especially in the second book.

I loved Funke’s The Thief Lord. Inkheart is fun, too, but the best part is the quotations from an even better book at the beginning of many of the chapters–The Borribles, by Michael de Larrabeiti.

Perhaps this is not a helpful comment to you, but I really disliked The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Prizes be damned, I thought it was awful.

Inkheart was great, though, especially all the author quotes at the beginning of every chapter, and it prompted me to buy the rest of the series. Still unread, of course.

Amazed that you have every comment saved in your email; I think I delete my email too often for if that happened to me? The comments would be in unobtainable out in cyber space.

Bellezza, I’m not too worried about you hating Wao – lots of people do! Hopefully I won’t be one of them.

I probably should delete my email more often, but it is a bit like everything in my house – I just hate throwing things away. You never know when you might need something again. Unfortunately this just proves that. Lucky I kept it all.

Three of your favourites here are three of mine – The Street Sweeper, Heft, and The Girl who fell… are three of my favourite books of the year so far.
Of your June plans, I have only read Wonder, which I thought was a great book, and fairly quick to read.

I can’t continue with The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz after the first chapter. Too many reference on Spanish words.

All the best for June!

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