Books Read in May

 

Some good things happened for me this month. I said goodbye to using the eye drops three times a day, Every Single Day, because I finished using them. My doctor FINALLY figured out what kind of medication I should take that helps with the daily headaches (as well as, surprisingly, my daily episode of falling asleep in midday!), and I have been enjoying some headache-free days. Well, the physical kind, anyway; there were quite a few things that happened this month that really got my blood boiling or made me want to scream. Some of those things made me feel like I was being pulled in different directions! I just hope ALL of that is over with and all of us can finally move forward with our lives and our careers.

 

I had a really nice Mother’s Day this month. The funny thing is that both of my kids got me the same thing, and that put me in the awkward position of having to choose which one to keep. I also had my birthday this month, but because it was on a weekday, I told my family that I wanted to celebrate it on the 30^th. It was a really nice little birthday celebration too. It was on the same day that I sent the SPARREW Newsletter out! So I got to find out if I would have been able to have enough energy for the all-day task of working on the newsletter and then for my birthday party that evening. Fortunately, I was able to take a cat nap in between to two things and so I was able to stay awake for the movie we watched that night. (Working on the newsletter all day really wears me out!)   

 

I read a three-book series this month. I selected Book One and Book Three to review and I was able to read Book Two on Kindle Unlimited. So that was an interesting experience. I have no idea why the author made Books 1 and 3 available for review but not the second one, but I’m glad I was able to read the second one.

 

This month, I started working on my June FCP article early but, unfortunately, as the month stretched out, I was not able to move forward with that article because I could not find enough books to include in it. So I had to change the article’s topic late in the month and, fortunately, I was able to come up with something. I have already written articles about books for Pride Month as well as books for summer reading, so I had to think of something else to write about for June. I realized I hadn’t written about books for Juneteenth just yet so I started work on that one. And what’s even better is that my local library had some of the books I wanted to write about. Unfortunately, since I got started on this article so late in the month, I didn’t have enough time to read one of the books all the way through. I was able to go through some of it to get an idea of what it was covering and I just hope the author won’t hunt me down and knock my head off if she’s unhappy with what I wrote. (Not that she’ll even know that I included her book in my article – probably not! Unless the authors whose books I include in my articles are my friends, most authors whose books I write about have never reached out to me after the articles have been published.) I’ll be reading the book from first page to last for the month of June, though, along with another Juneteenth book I was unable to include only because I met my word count limit for the article.

 

Anyway, I’m just glad that I resolved that issue and got the article turned in today. I hope I’ll be able to finish writing the other article at some point.

 

I also got some other writing done this month, and I came up with an idea for a new book to put together. At some point! I self-published a poetry book that had gone out of print, got another one accepted by Alien Buddha Press, and I’ve been working on another poetry book that I hope to finish writing sometime this summer.

 

With everything going on, I miraculously still found time to read every day. Yay!

 

This month, I read 16 books and I finished reading two. May is Short Story Month, so I’m glad that I was able to read some short story collections. I also read one book I received as part of my digital subscription with Alien Buddha Press, as well as books by author friends. Some of the books I read were for review purposes and some of them were for research.

 

Here is the list of books I read and finished reading in May. The number picks up where I left off from the last list so the count is accurate.

 

57. So You Want To Be A Scientist by Linda Soules

58. Farm Girl by Jerry Blaze

59. Melancholia: A Book of Dark Poetry by Sumiko Saulson

60. So You Want To Be A Race Car Driver by Linda Soules

61. The Book of Roisins by Tracy Schuldt Helixon

62. FINISHED READING: The Voices in Your Head by Jeff Oliver

63. Secret in the Mist (An Abi Wonder Mystery) by Linda Wilson

64. Holiday Horrors: Volume #1: Stories 1-3 in the Holiday Horror Series by Lennie Grace

65. Super Seeders: How Plant Scientists Are Racing to Protect Global Food Security Amid Climate Change and Disease by Miles Hillman

66. Static in the Attic (The Looking Glass Ghost Series, Book #1) by E.T. Milligan

67. Quest for Ghostly Secrets (The Looking Glass Ghost Series, Book #2) by E.T. Milligan

68. Haunting Sights on Friday Nights (The Looking Glas Ghost series, Book #3) by E.T. Milligan

69. Play-Like by Clarence Wolfshohl

70. Lullabies for Suffering: Tales of Addiction Horror, edited by Mark Matthews, Andi Rawson, Jason Parent, Glen Krisch and Julie Hutchings

71. We Should Leave by Amanda Ruzsa

72. Juneteenth Is by Natasha Tripplett, Illustrated by Daniel J. O'Brien

73. Juneteenth for Mazie by Floyd Cooper

74. FINISHED READING: Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco