Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby.  I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book.  Here are my reads for May, 2017…

A Field Guide to Awkward Silences, by Alexandra Petri – Petri (“pea-try, like a vegetable that’s making an effort”) is a political humor and satire columnist for The Washington Post, a Congressman’s kid, a long-time Washingtonian, and seriously one of the funniest women alive.  She’s justifiably famous inside the Beltway and deserves to be better known outside.  Her book, A Field Guide to Awkward Silences, is her memoir of all the embarrassing things she’s done in less than 30 years on the planet – from winning an international pun championship to losing at Final Jeopardy with the question “Who is that dude?” – and it’s brilliant.

Barchester Towers (Chronicles of Barsetshire #2), by Anthony Trollope – Finally, after several times putting it aside in favor of pressing library deadlines, I was able to sit down with Barchester Towers and actually finish it.  As I knew I would, I loved it.  The continuation of the stories of Dr Grantly, Mr Harding, Eleanor and other old friends from The Warden – sprinkled in with wonderful new characters like the Proudies, the Stanhopes, and the Thornes – especially eccentric Miss Thorne! – was such a joy to read.  Many moments of humor and delight, coupled with a really engaging narrative, made for the perfect reading experience.  Loved, loved, loved, and can’t wait to pick up Doctor Thorne.

The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas – Well, The Hate U Give was pretty much the opposite of Barchester Towers, except that it was also a stunning reading experience.  Starr Carter is a sixteen-year-old girl who witnesses the shooting of her childhood best friend at the hands of a police officer.  Starr’s journey in coming to terms with her role as “the witness,” her devastation when a white friend suggests that the victim had it coming, her horror at the media and justice system’s treatment of her friend, and her gradual awakening into an activist role, makes for a gut-wrenching but absolutely necessary read.  Worth every bit of the hype.

Mother-Daughter Book Camp (Mother-Daughter Book Club #7), by Heather Vogel Frederick – I needed something a lot lighter after The Hate U Give, and a return to the Mother-Daughter Book Club seemed in order.  Frederick had previously said that book 6 would be the last book in the series, and I’m so glad she rethought that.  Mother-Daughter Book Camp is a wonderful and fitting end to a great reading journey.  Emma, Jess, Megan, Cassidy and Becca are off for a summer working as camp counselors before leaving for college, and the book club is reconvened as a perfect antidote to the homesickness some of their little campers feel.  We get to find out where each book clubber is headed for college, and to read one more book – Understood Betsy – in their company.  It was such a fun read, and a perfect send-off for the girls.

Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang – So, this was an interesting read (although I was a bit too tired while reading it to keep up with all of the science of rest and the brain, which might have been a little bit ironic) but I don’t know how relevant it really was to my life.  Pang discusses the role that active and purposeful rest played in the careers of some of the most illustrious figures of the modern age – from Charles Darwin to famous composers to wildly successful entrepreneurs – and concludes that a morning routine of focused work, followed by an afternoon of focused rest (napping and walking around in nature while thinking deep thoughts) is the ideal formula for success and inspiration.  With sabbaticals every now and again, for an extra jolt of rest.  That’s true, I’m sure, but try telling that to your average law firm employer.  Interesting read, but I have no idea how I’m supposed to actually apply it and still meet my billable hour requirement.  No rest for the wicked, I guess!

Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables #1), by L. M. Montgomery – It seemed like as good a time as any to revisit this childhood favorite.  After I watched (and balked at) the first episode of Anne With an E, I needed both a palate cleanser and a reminder of the book I really loved.  Plus, my spring list included a prompt to re-read Anne via my beautiful new Folio Society edition – no time like the present.  I love the Anne books, as you all know – so I don’t need to tell you about why they’re great.  But I can tell you (and I know this is a bit controversial) I thought the Folio Society editions were just lovely.  The “cartoonish” illustrations didn’t bother me one whit; I appreciated the riot of color and the great joy in the story that the artist portrayed.  Glad I took the plunge on the Anne collection from Folio (and I hope they continue on with all seven).

How to Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life, by Ruth Goodman – After reading and enjoying Goodman’s How to Be a Victorian, I immediately placed a library hold on How to Be a Tudor.  One really wants to be prepared for involuntary time-travel into any era, amirite?  How to Be a Tudor follows the same format as Victorian – starting with waking up, Goodman takes the reader through every moment of a typical Tudor day, discoursing along the way on everything from the best bed materials to how to lace a kirtle to what might be on the lunch table to why pop culture’s representations of Tudor dancing are off-base.  As expected, it was a bit of a dense read but good fun all around.

A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles – Towles’ sophomore novel follows Count Alexander Rostov, sentenced by the Bolshevik to house arrest in the grand Metropol hotel, over the tumultuous decades in the middle of the twentieth century in Moscow.  Count Rostov, an “unrepentant aristocrat,” is forced to live in a small attic room and confined to the hotel for decades.  In his new role, he meets an extraordinary cast of characters, takes a job as a waiter, becomes paramour to a famous actress and raises a young girl.  This was another one, like Barchester Towers, that I had to keep laying aside in favor of library deadlines, but when I finally had some breathing space I was able to finish it and just loved it.  The world of the Metropol is gorgeous and evocative, Count Rostov is a wonderful character, and I was truly moved by the lovely writing.

A Traveller in Time, by Alison Uttley – Another lovely edition of a children’s classic, brought out by the Folio Society!  Somehow, even though I love children’s classics and I love time travel books, this sweet story of a young country-house guest who finds herself transported back to Elizabethan times and involved in the Babington Plot (to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and place Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne – although, being a children’s novel, A Traveller in Time glosses over the assassination part of the plot and focuses pretty much exclusively on the liberation part) had passed me by up until now.  I read it slowly and allowed myself to be really deeply drawn into the beautifully-sketched period details – both in young Penelope’s home time period and in the Elizabethan period she repeatedly visits.  It was a delight and a joy – although laced throughout with foreboding, because of course both Penelope and the reader know that the Babington Plot is not going to work out for the plotters.  I can’t wait to share it with my little readers in a few years.

Some May!  It was a long month so it makes sense that I have a long list here.  But it was a great reading month; looking back over the list, I don’t see anything on here that I disliked.  A Gentleman in Moscow and Barchester Towers were probably the highlights, although A Traveller in Time was delightful, too, and Anne of Green Gables is always a good idea.  Next month, I have a pretty relaxed library schedule, so I hope to have even more time to read some of the books I’ve got in such pretty editions waiting on my shelves.  It’s summertime and the reading is easy – right?

What was the best thing you read in May?