May’s reading Journal

1. The observable universe by Heather McCalden
2. Simpatia by Rodrigo Blanco Calderon 
3. White Nights by Urszula Hineek
4. And the stones cry out by Clara Dupont-Monod 
5. Why did you come back every summer by Belén López Peiró
6. Clara reads Proust by Stephane Carlier 
7. Ultramarine by Mariette Navarro 
8. The book of Emma Reyes by Emma Reyes
9. What is Mine by Jose Henrique Bortoluci
10. Two for the road by Roddy Doyle 
11. The book of all love by Agustin Fernandez Mallo 
12. January by Sara Gallardo
13. Birthday by César Aira 
14. The following Story by Cees Nootebom
15. The Wounded age by Ferit Edgu

I had wanted to do a book a day in May, but I didn’t; this challenge pushed me to 15 reviews this month and made me see I could fit more reviews in here and there. We started with a memoir about a daughter’s quest to connect her loss of her parents to Aids, and her mother’s love of crime drama and computer viruses make up this memoir in vignettes. Then, a man opens a dog home on the orders of his ex-father-in-law in Venezuela. Then we are in Rual Poland with a series of interconnecting stories. Then we have a sister coping with a disabled sibling. Then, a woman seeks justice for a sexual attack. We move to Paris, and a woman discovers Proust as a writer.Then, we have a female captain who lets her saviour swim in the sea, and the book takes a strange turn. In the letters over twenty years, Emma Reyes recounts her poor childhood. Then we have a son recalling the conversations and life of his truck-driving father in the later part of the 20th century as Brazil changed and had a dictatorship rule. Then a pair of dubliners discuss the days news over a pint  Then a trio of stories in Mallo’s new novel. A young woman next in Argentina struggles to hide a pregnancy and how she became pregnant. Then, a man turns fifty as he sits and writes. A man then awakes in Lisbon and falls asleep in Amsterdam. Is he alive? Finally, a pair of novellas see Turks heading to the Kurdish part of Turkey and having their eyes open. I covered 13 countries this month. One new publisher is MTO, publisher of the White Nights.

Book of the month

This was a hard choice, so many great books this month, but the one scene in this book where the narrator of the first book has a dream of an old man fishing and fishing up dead bodies of women and children in his net is a haunting image.

Non book things this month

After Record Store Day, I only picked a couple of records up. This was one of them: Beth Gibbons’s new album. I have loved her voice since she was in Portishead many years ago, and she has done a few collaborations since then, but this is her first new work in a long time. On the TV front, we watched last night a light thriller about oil getting infected with a virus and the chaos that would follow that. The series The responder we have started watching the series The Veil but haven’t finished yet.

The month ahead

I am currently reading the first Hungarian book from Istros Books, and I will then move on to a mix of review books and books I have brought or borrowed from the library. I will also be reviewing the latest Arab lit quarterly, which is around Gaza and has several writings from inside Gaza.

How was your month ?