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March/April Summary and Plans for May

I got my reading mojo back recently and have read a lot in the last few weeks. This is mainly because we still haven’t sold our house, so we’re in a boring limbo which involves lots of cleaning and sitting around whilst people wander around our house. Hopefully someone will buy it soon so that we can move onto the next stage of our lives.

Books of the Month

There were two stand-out books this month:

I highly recommend reading both of them!

Books reviewed in March/April

It’s All In Your Head by Suzanne O’Sullivan 

A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler  

The Outrun by Amy Liptrot 

Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave  

Unravelling Oliver by Liz Nugent 

The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil by Stephen Collins 

Everything is Teeth by Evie Wyld, Illustrated by Joe Sumner 

The Villa Rouge by Maggie Ross 

Meatspace by Nikesh Shukla 

Shtum by Jem Lester 

His Whole Life by Elizabeth Hay 

Stork Mountain by Mirislav Penkov 

Black Milk by Elif Shafak 

The Best Thing That Can Happen to a Croissant by Pablo Tusset 

When the Floods Came by Clare Morrall 

Plans For May

I’m hoping that I’ll continue to read regularly and plan to read/review most of the following books soon:

Walkabout by James Vance Marshall

Long Night of White Chickens by Francisco Goldman

The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan

The War Of The Worlds by HG Wells

Christ’s Entry into Brussels by Dimitri Verhulst

Marching Powder by Rusty Young

The House at the Edge of Night by Catherine Banner

I’ll also pick up a few random books from my shelves. Hopefully I’ll discover a gem or two. Have a wonderful May!

 

6 replies on “March/April Summary and Plans for May”

Yeah. In a dream world we would like to move, but I just hate moving… So, we will hold that off for the moment. lol I am glad your reading mojo is coming back!

I bought a copy of the Chris Cleave this morning on the strength of your review, Jackie, and am looking forward to reading it. I’m barely getting through any novels so far this year (if I get through two in a month I’ve done well!) due to a mountain of work leaving me with very little reading time.

The highlights of the past couple of months for me were Stan Barstow’s “A Kind of Loving” and Graham Swift’s “Mothering Sunday”. I also read a couple of Joyce Carol Oates books – “You Must Remember This” is one of her best, but I found “Black Water” very disappointing. Tessa Hadley’s “The Past” I’d have probably enjoyed more if I’d read it over three days instead of three weeks – it was good, but I didn’t love it.

I’m currently reading Barry Hines’s “A Kestrel for a Knave” (I seem to be developing a thing for 1960s Northern working class fiction!) and am thoroughly enjoying it.

Anyway, good luck with finding a buyer soon, and have a great May.

David, I’ll be interested to see what you make of Chris Cleave’s book. It wouldn’t be the first book I’d recommend for you as I suspect it isn’t literary enough for your tastes, but hopefully you’ll enjoy some aspects of it.

I loved ‘Kestrel For A Knave’. I should try some of his other books at some point – I’m a big fan of Northern fiction (old or new) too!

Hope you find some fantastic books to read in May!

I’ve been looking at the Chris Cleave book as it’s being pushed at work but the book jacket didn’t make it sound that interesting to me. However your review has! I will probably pick it up once I can make a dent in the giant pile that is my reading list.

I loved Walkabout. It’s especially good when describing the natural world of Australia, though the author never saw it first hand, I believe.

I also recommend watching the movie after you’ve read the book. It’s wonderful, too, and different enough from the book to bring a different view on the books themes.

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