Overview: May Reading

Reading Overview & Genre Breakdown

Five months in I'm really starting to see the value of tracking my reading like this. For example, I never realised before how, in the normal run of things, I read more contemporary than historical romance, but switch to pretty much 100% historicals  as soon as my stress levels start to go up. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that historical romance - obviously - bears less resemblance to me everyday life, and therefore is more escapist? Or is it because historical romance was my first love and gateway to the genre?

Books read in May: 14
Books read YTD: 76

Fiction Titles: 

• 11 (8 historical romance, 3 contemporary romance)

Non-Fiction Titles: 

• 3 (1 memoir/social history, 2 history)

Noteworthy Novels

• Clean Breaks by Ruby Lang
• By the Hour by Roni Loren
• Unseen Attraction by K J Charles
• Seven Minutes in Heaven by Eloisa James
• A Dangerous Madness by Michelle Diener

Noteworthy Non-Fiction

• Talking to My Country by Stan Grant
• Bombing the Rainbow Warrior by Michael King

Noteworthy Settings

• The Philippines - Prep & Prejudice by Miren B. Flores

Kick-ass Characters

• Unseen Attraction by K J Charles - Neuroatypical hero & neurotypical hero unite to solve a crime threatening their home and businesses
• Clean Breaks by Ruby Lang - heroine Sarah is feeling angry and threatened due to a melanoma diagnosis and the reappearance of the hero in her life, which brings up memories of a long-ago teenage scandal.

From the Internet this Month

Romance

• Romance Isn't the Reason for Singledom by Andie J. Christopher at Heroes and Heartbreakers
• STEM Heroines in Romance: the Master List by A.J. at Lacy Literacy
• On Romance and Pre-Existing Conditions by Cat Sebastian at Open Ink Perspectives
• The #DisRom Project by Dr Ria Cheyne at The Pink Heart Society - exciting project about disability in romance novels & the romance community

Literature, Craft and the Publishing Industry

• More than the N-Word: How a 'tense' Paul Beatty interview raises bigger questions by Steph Harmon at The Guardian - On a session at the Sydney Writers' Festival, which revealed much about how Australia deals with race.
• Classic, Colonization and a Call for Change by Padma Venkatraman at Nerdy Book Club
• Tina Makereti: Stories Can Save Your Life at e-Tangata - On assembling a Maori, Pasifika and multicultural New Zealand canons of literature
• Antisemitism and The Girl Who Wouldn't Die by Katherine Locke on Medium - On a grossly antisemitic YA novel published this month
• Is "Show, Don't Tell" a Universal Truth or Colonial Relic? by Nammrata Poddar at Lithub
• What Really Happens When Women Writers Ask For More Money by Brittany Stalsburg at The Establishment

Other Media

• On Race and Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale by Max S Gordon
• The Doctor Who Episode 'Thin Ice' is a Allegory for Slavery by Liam Hogan on Medium
• 'I am sunk in lust and lechery': The History between ITV Encore's 'Harlots' by Kate at Whores of Yore

Women & Feminism

• 'Fear of the Clit': A Brief History of Medical Books Erasing Women's Genitalia by Suzannah Weiss at Broadly
• How a Frog Became the First Mainstream Pregnancy Test by Ed Yong at The Atlantic