A Look At May’s Reads

In the month of May I read 16 books, and for a full list of all my books read this year so far feel free to visit my Goodreads profile.

[image error]

My Least Favorite of the Month:

Love & Misadventure by Lang Leav

Here’s Why: I am a fan of Instagram poetry, and short biting verses. I had heard great things about Lang Leav and was excited to pick up one of her works, but I had to drag myself through it. I can’t put my finger on the precise reason, but I couldn’t connect with most of the pieces here. I ended up putting it down, picking it back up, and in the end just speeding through it just to finish it – which isn’t what I want to do with poetry.

I’ll try another of hers because I don’t want to give up after just one, but Love & Misadventure wasn’t for me.

[image error]

My Favorite of the Month:

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

Here’s Why: In a short story collection there is always at least one that doesn’t jive with me, at least until I read this collection. From wuxia to steampunk to magical realism and science fiction Ken Liu manages to introduce an impressive range of genres in the collection but it doesn’t seem mismatched at all.

I adored all of these, although I definitely had favorites, and would recommend any one of these short stories to another reader.

Between class, book clubs, and for fun reading I had quite the assortment of reads over the month of May. I finished the full collection of John Milton’s works which I started my way through early in 2019. Network Effect by Martha Wells, which was released early in the month, lived up to all of its prequel novellas and gave me a thrill. Murderbot, the narrator, captures the true beauty of sass and sarcasm. Here is an example of the pure sass that is present in The Murderbot Diaries:

“They were all annoying and deeply inadequate humans, but I didn’t want to kill them. Okay, maybe a little.” – Rogue Protocol (Novella #3 of The Murderbot Diaries)

Murderbot sass aside I was pleasantly surprised by the conversational tone in Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman. What We Talk About When We Talk About Books by Leah Price had a few great chapters and a few not so great chapters, but overall an interesting conversation on books in general. I think being stuck inside has me reading even more about books than usual since I haven’t been having my regular in-person conversations about books. In the Dream House, a memoir by Carmen Maria Machado also managed to be both beautiful and heart-rending. The way it played around with form made my literary heart happy even as the situations themselves were terrifying or lonely.

May’s Books

The View From the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction by Neil Gaiman The Complete Poems by John Milton In the Vanisher’s Palace by Aliette de Bodard The Paper Menagerie & Other Stories by Ken Liu Love & Misadventure by Lang Leav What We Talk About When We Talk About Books: The History and Future of Reading by Leah Price Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future if a Multibillion Dollar Franchise by Chris Taylor Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance by William Lidwell, Jill Butler, Krit Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books by Leah PriceWhy We Read What We Read: A Delightfully Opinionated Journey Through Bestselling Books by Lisa Adams & John Heath Network Effect by Martha Wells Star Wars Heresies: Interpreting the Themes, Symbols and Philosophies by Paul F. McDonald Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life by Michael Dirda In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado Guardians of the Whills by Greg Rucka