May has been the month of relatives visiting from overseas, rapid increases in workload and – thankfully – some lovely sunny days. I got a lot of reading and reviewing done early in the month, but I’m on the slow train through summer from here (that’s so untrue: I’ve got loads of long flights in June, so hopefully I can catch up on recent reviews and fall behind on a fresh batch!)

Reading Round-up 

• Lock In – John Scalzi     
• Rotherweird – Andrew Caldecott    
• A Natural History of Dragons – Marie Brennan     
• Moon Over Soho – Ben Aaronovitch    
• Bitesize Books: Extracurricular Activities – Yoon Ha Lee    

Review Round-up

• The Djinn Falls in Love – Mahvesh Murad & Jared Shurin (eds)     
• Confessions of a Bad SF Fan: The Tombs of Atuan – Ursula Le Guin      
• Bitesize Books: Of Sight, Of Mind, Of Heart – Samantha Murray     
• A Conjuring of Light – V E Schwab     
• Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch     
• Spellslinger – Sebastien de Castell     

Stacking the shelves

I had no choice, Tropic is for a read-along. I’m not fooling anyone, am I? And I couldn’t resist a Yoon Ha Lee novella as a warm-up to Raven Stratagem…

 

Conscious demographics

My annual challenge is to read diversely and to love every book. This year I’ve made things a bit more complicated with subsidiary challenges and more fun with the Game of Books.

• 9 male (28%) / 21 female (66%) / 1 trans, non-binary or genderfluid (3%) + 1 antho
• 6 (18%) – by authors of colour / 17 (52%) prominently featuring POC / 12 HEA or HFN
• 2 (6%) – by LGBTQIA authors  / 14 (42%) featuring LGBTQIA characters / 6 HEAs or HFN

Challenges

Everything has been a bit hard this month, so I’m just reading things I enjoy and forgetting about challenges for now. It’ll work itself out in the end (or not. Aspirational, after all).

• 32 / 25 books or novellas
• 6 / 5 books by authors of colour
• 2 / 5 non-SFF books of which 0 non-fiction
• 2 / 5 classic SFF books (5 incl. rereads)
• 12 / 15 – off the shelf
• Game of Books score: 165 / 125

So I’m reading a lot, but as this year is proving quite tough in a number of ways, I’m focusing on reading for pleasure (and reading on a whim) rather than reading to challenges. Because forced reading often leads to no reading, and I’m happier when I read.

In final thoughts, much as I love my red boots, I might try and come up with a more summery alternative this year!