A Look Back on May
May has been a relatively quiet month for me - I did my regular jobs, such as Malazan chapters (which are now scheduled twice a week), editing Whitechapel for Martyn Taylor and slush reading the remaining Angry Robot submissions. Other than that I've been up and down the country a few times for work and seeing friends, and enjoyed some quieter times.
Unfortunately, those quieter times seemed to coincide with a period of laissez faire attitude to reading. I couldn't seem to settle to anything! Thankfully that has now passed and I managed to get through a few books this month. In a scary fashion, Goodreads tells me I'm now five behind my target to read 100 in 2011. The pressure, the pressure!
I watched eagerly as people tweeted from BEA - and determined that, come hell or high water, I shall be there next year.
Oh, and I've been trying to get on board with using my Kindle, but it's not been an instant love affair. We're still on the third date, and the Kindle is trying to get to third base but I'm not having any of it *sigh* I'm hoping to connect soon, but I think I will only come to love it when travelling for a lengthy period. While sat in my house there are way too many paper books that I want to pick up instead!
Reading
As I say, not too many books read this month. Here are the links (where appropriate) to the books I've read:
32) The Glass Lake by Maeve Binchy
33) Hollywood Sinners by Victoria Fox
34) Sigvald by Darius Hinks
35) These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf
36) The Inheritance by Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm (review to come once published in Vector)
- 4 books by women, and 1 by a man
- 2 fantasy, 1 bonkbuster, 1 family saga and 1 contemporary (I guess! I get lost in which genre is which *grins*)
- 1 came from my shelves, and the remaining 4 were sent for review
Best Book of May
Hmm, none of them were outstanding... I think my favourite was probably These Things Hidden, a dark yet poignant tale about motherhood and the nature of forgiveness.
Pages Covered
Slightly better than April, since I read 2,496 pages in May. The ongoing page count is now 17,961. The Glass Lake was the longest - a sprawling doorstop of a novel - while These Things Hidden was the shortest.
Places Visited
I bounced between Ireland and London, then went to the Chaos Wastes via the Six Duchies. I quite like the idea of living in a little village in Ireland, eating soda bread in the morning and being taught in a Catholic school by nuns - but I'm not too sure about everyone knowing my business!
Plans for June
By far the most exciting thing happening this month is Mieneke's visit and a day spent book shopping in That London! I really can't wait to meet the blogger behind A Fantastical Librarian in the flesh after all the chatting we've done til now online. I also have a week off work coming towards the end of this month and I'm seriously looking forward to a rest and reading through a pile of books. I might even make time for a flying visit to Alton Towers!
Over To You
How did your May go? What did you read? What did you get up to? Spill!
I've been reading "Venice: Pure City" by Peter Ackroyd (non-fiction), which is research for my second book, and trying to jump-start the rewrites on the novel itself. No rest for the wicked!
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