BOOKENDS: What I Read in May 2024

May was a much more enjoyable reading month overall, no duds, just solid reads. It was in organizing my Goodreads that I figured out that I’d read another book this month (Ana Maria and the Fox) because somehow Goodreads kept my update/review about the book but didn’t mark the date on which I finished it. Now that Emily Henry’s books are being released in hardcover first rather than paperback originals, I’m fortunate enough to access the arcs and read those while I wait for the paperback releases to match the rest of my books. Summer Sons is excellent Appalachian dark academia horror, and I definitely want to read more of Mandelo’s work. Juniper & Thorn and Godkiller lived up to my expectations, which was a nice surprise after reading some other popular stuff in the previous months that was just… not great.


WHAT I READ

💖 purchased/owned | 🌠 library/borrowed | 🔮 review copy | 💞 reread | 👻 dnf

🌠 Ana María and the Fox, by Liana De la Rosa
💖 Summer Sons, by Lee Mandelo
💖 Superman vs. Meshi, vol. 1, by Satoshi Miyagawa, illus. Kai Kitago
💖 Juniper & Thorn, by Ava Reid
🔮 Funny Story, by Emily Henry
💖💞 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror, by Robert Louis Stevenson
💖 Godkiller, by Hannah Kaner

TOP TEN TUESDAY: 10 Books on My Fall 2022 TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly discussion hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl (and formerly hosted by The Broke and the Bookish), and this week’s topic is “Typographical Covers” but I wanted to revisit the previous week’s topic of ‘Books on Your Fall TBR!’ I’ve not really focused on TBRs in the last year or so, but sometimes setting aside a few books I want to focus on has actually led me to focus on them, so I’m swinging back to trying these out again. Maybe seasonally instead of monthly work better for me as I tend to be a mood reader and a library due date-driven reader!!

  • Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons, by Ben Riggs – A history of one of the most popular TTRPG! I don’t know much about the history of it, and this is a perfect-looking length of a general introduction!
  • Babel: An Arcane History, by R.F. Kuang – Fantasy dark academia is perfect for this time of year, and I can’t wait to dive into this. I’ve heard so many great things about it already!
  • The Year of the Witching, by Alexis Henderson – I’ve just started reading this after having it on numerous TBRs since it came out, and it’s just what I’ve been needing! I can definitely see this being for someone who enjoyed the movie The VVitch.
  • Long Live the Pumpkin Queen, by Shea Ernshaw – I’m curious about a YA novel about Sally after she marries Jack, and I couldn’t resist getting a copy of the BN exclusive edition because the cover is so much more appealing to me!!
  • For the Wolf, by Hannah Whitten – This is another one that has been on several TBRs since I picked it up, and something about the cover and the fall season makes me want to read fairy tale reimaginings.
  • The Dead Romantics, by Ashley Poston – Everything about this screams spooky season, and I’m interested in seeing how a romance works between a ghostwriter and a ghost.
  • Dead Astronauts, by Jeff VanderMeer – This is another one that’s been on so many TBRs over the last two years, and I keep staring at it, partially wanting to savor VanderMeer’s stuff forever and partially because sometimes his work intimidates me and I know it’s a whole to-do for me when I do read his work.
  • The Night Ocean, by Paul La Farge – A book about Lovecraft and his circle that seems perfect for fall (and has also been on so many TBRs). This is the season of knocking out my backlist!!!
  • The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror , by Robert Louis Stevenson – I read Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde probably about twenty years ago (ack) when I was fourteen/fifteen, and I never revisited it!
  • Silent in the Grave, by Deanna Raybourn – I’ve enjoyed her Veronica Speedwell series, and I found the first two of the Lady Julia Grey series at a used bookstore a few years back, so I’m curious and excited to read her earlier series!

What is on your fall TBR this year? What types of books do you like to read seasonally?

FIRST LINES FRIDAY: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror, by Robert Louis Stevenson

Hello, Friday! First Lines Friday is a feature on my blog in which I post the first lines from a book I am interested in reading, either a new release or a backlist title! For the next several Fridays, I will be featuring titles I am going to hopefully read as part of my 12 Decades/12 Months/12 Books challenge (#12decades12books). I read The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde when I was sixteen and found an old beat-up copy in a local used bookstore, and I remember being so entranced with it that I still haven’t stopped thinking about it. When I found it in a little free library, I grabbed it and have been waiting for the right moment to read it again. Now that it’s been half my life ago, I want to revisit it and see how I think about it now.

Mr Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. ‘I incline to Cain’s heresy,’ he used to say quaintly; ‘I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.’ In this character, it was frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of down-going men. And to such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never marked a shade of change in his demeanour.

What books have you read a decade ago that you still think about today? Why do you think they’ve stuck with you?