Monday 31 May 2021

Books read in May

It seems that May was quite a good reading month for me, number-wise anyway, nine books read. Quality-wise it was also 'good' but not amazing. That's fine, every month cannot be chock full of wonderful books, life just doesn't work like that and I'm happy with my choices for May.

31. Bats in the Belfry by E.C.R. Lorac 

32. Fat Dogs and French Estates by Beth Haslam 

33. Case Histories - Kate Atkinson. I planned to review this but never did get to it. It was a pretty good private eye yarn, the first in the author's Jackson Brodie series. Complicated, lots of twists and turns. I haven't decided yet whether I'll read more.

34. Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall 

35. A Death in Calabria by Michele Giuttari. A Mafia in New York and Calabria, story. Not exactly terrible but not a series I'll be continuing with.

36. Four Cheeks to the Wind by Mary Bryant 

37. Summer in Provence by Lucy Coleman 

38. The Aberdyll Onion by Victor Canning. Charming short stories, mainly mysteries with a twist.

39. My Lemon Grove Summer by Jo Thomas

Zelda is in her late thirties and has reached a stage where she doesn't know what to do anymore. Her small retail business collapsed, she can't seem to find someone to share her life with and she has no home of her own. Her best mate, Lennie, is not much better off and the two decide to honour a pact they made at uni that if they weren't married or with someone by the age of forty, they would marry each other. Not that either of them expected to be doing it in Sicily! The mayor of a town in Sicily, dying for lack of residents, has advertised for people to come and live there. Zelda and Lennie find themselves with a motley group of Brits in an old farmhouse wondering where their renovated homes are, why the residents seem to hate them so much and if they will ever get to live the Sicilian dream. This was a fun read, undemanding, but interesting with its history of how lemons are grown all over the island and made into Lemoncello, although those are not apparently made with ordinary lemons. I enjoyed the romantic aspect, hated the villain of the piece as I was supposed to, and of course it made me want to go to Sicily even more. Oh well, one day perhaps. 

So, I realise I made a mistake by reading that last book in May because I put it on my list for the 20 Books of Summer challenge which doesn't begin until tomorrow so I'll have to change that one. Never mind.

I've done my usual travelling this month, been around the world twice with Prisoners of Geography and Four Cheeks to the Wind, spent time in France (twice), Italy (also twice), and a fair bit of time here in the UK solving mysteries. Not a bad month overall. I wonder what joys June will bring?


10 comments:

DesLily said...

That's more than 2 books a week! geez Sis ! lol. I am reading an easy peasy book and still when I sit in my chair I just want to sleep and never pick up the book.. I believe the word is Lethargic ! Or brain dead, one or the other.. sigh.

CLM said...

Case Histories is a bit gruesome but I hope you will continue. I think the series is very amusing.

Lark said...

Bookish traveling is the best. I intend to do a lot of it this summer. And I really like the sound of My Lemon Grove Summer. I'll have to request that my library purchase a copy. :)

TracyK said...

I am sure I told you this before, but I loved all the books in the Jackson Brodie series by Atkinson. They are each a bit different, which I like, and sort of strange. I have not read Big Sky yet, the most recent one, but most likely will read it this summer.

I think some readers doing 20 Books of Summer read ahead, I think it should still count. I haven't started any yet though. I am reading a very short book right now, A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr, and hope to finish it today.

I should do more traveling in my reading, but haven't done a lot so far this year. There should be some in my 20 Books of Summer.

Margaret @ BooksPlease said...

Congratulations on reading 9 books! May wasn't a good month for the number of books I read - a grand total of 3 books. But I have been reading Little Dorrit which has 747 pages (I think) and I'm finding it slow going and I haven't finished it yet.

Gardening has been taking up a lot of my time and David is changing the kitchen so I've been helping him with the new sink and cupboards too. And I've also been busy with family history - new info from my DNA results!

I've read Case Histories - before I began blogging, so don't really remember much about it. I've read some of her other books and enjoyed them - they're all complicated, over-complicated!

Sam said...

Nicely done, Cath, that was quite a month of reading. I quite like Atkinson's Jackson Brodie books but I agree that they were a little slow to grow on me. I finally got into the Brodie character enough to begin to both like and understand him, and the books became a lot of fun. There's even a TV series that I saw somewhere...probably on Prime...that does a good job of representing the character, and it's true to the books. If you haven't seen that, you may want to take a look at some point.

So here's to June...

Cath said...

Pat: I didn't actually realise I was reading 2 books a week, it doesn't feel like that. LOL

Constance: I probably will continue with the Jackson Brodie series at some stage. Possibly in the autumn or winter as my summer schedule of books probably won't allow for it.

Lark: Yep, I too intend to do 'heaps' of armchair travelling this summer. Loads of books lined up.

Tracy: Yes, I will continue with the Jackson Brodie books but they'll have to wait a bit as I have so many others lined up.

I've heard of A Month in the Country and planned to read it at some stage. Look forward to your thoughts on that.

I have terrible wanderlust in my reading and as I get older the worse it gets!

Cath said...

Margaret: Thanks. Not sure how I managed nine but there you go. I would say that Little Dorrit is the equivilent of 3 books in itself. I bet it's slow going!

And yes, there are other things to be getting on with, for us, primarily, it's the garden... which is getting out of control at the moment.

Yes, Kate Atkinson certainly does write complicated books, I'm still not sure what Life After Life was all about. But she's a good writer.

Sam: You know, I'd completely forgotten that TV series based on the Jackson Brodie books. It starred Jason Isaacs I think? He's always very good so I'll see if that's on Netflix or Prime at some stage.

CLM said...

I copied you and did a May reads post. I was surprised that I hadn't read more books in May!

Cath said...

Constance: It seemed to me you read heaps of books in May. LOL!