May Reading Roundup

May was an okay reading month, and I think it was because I wasn't home for most of it so I had no guilt feelings about reading. Normally I'll sit down with a book and a cup of coffee, read a chapter and then start thinking about all of the stuff I could be doing around here.  But being away from home with no responsibilities is a good way to get through a hefty stack of books. Here's what I managed to get through in May:

British Crime Fiction
City of Fear, by David Hewson  (not yet reviewed/ British author, set in Italy)

Escape Reading
Fever Dream, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child  (#10 in the Pendergast series)


Fiction (general)
Tell-All, by Chuck Palahniuk
The Slap, by Christos Tsiolkas (Australian)
Beatrice and Virgil, by Yann Martel (not yet reviewed)
Lost City Radio, by Daniel Alarcon (not yet reviewed)

German crime fiction
The Murder Farm, by Andrea Maria Schenkel


Historical fiction
The Informer, by Craig Nova
Regeneration, by Pat Barker (not yet reviewed)

Nonfiction:
Columbine, by Dave Cullen.


Scandinavian Crime Fiction:
Sun Storm, by Asa Larsson (not yet reviewed)
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson (not yet reviewed) 
Don't Look Back, by Karin Fossum

 
 Speculative fiction:
Blackout, by Connie Willis

So that's what, 14 books?

Other book/reading news:
1) My book group read and discussed The Jane Austen Book Club, and the overall census was that we didn't much care for it, but it did bring out a lively discussion which is really all that matters. 

2) Added to the Amazon wishlist:
Our Circus Presents, by Lucian Dan Teodorovici 
Nineteen Seventy Four, by David Peace
Scream Black Murder, by Philip McLaren
The Dead Yard: Tales of Modern Jamaica, by Ian Thomson
Villain, by Shuichi Yoshida
Apartment 16, by Adam L.J. Nevill
Broken Glass, by Alain Mabanckou 
A Deal with the Devil, by Martin Suter

3) 10 books left home via Swaptree and Paperback Swap; an ARC of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet was given away via Librarything's Member Giveaway Program; and Sheila Korman won my copy of The Devil's Star by Jo Nesbo


4) I went a little nuts buying books this month -- a combination of being in close proximity to two Half-Price Books stores in the Seattle area and being released from my earlier self-imposed ban on buying new books. 


so that's it for May.  I am going to have a LOT of reading time in June, because Larry's traveling pretty much the entire month, and it's summer - time to stretch out on the lounger by the pool and lose myself in a few novels.