May was a busy month for this bookworm, and my reading ran the gamut from the Greeks to the present day for personal and professional reasons. All of it enjoyable and edifying, for a change!

My reviews of eight books I read over March and April this year. Mostly fabulous reads, I'm glad to share!

I was delighted to spend the weekend at the LA Times Book Festival (Bookchella) where tens of thousands of readers descended upon the USC campus to attend author panels and shop for books and book-related swag. I attended several panels and thought I'd share a few book recommendations for your spring and summer TBR stacks.

I read at a much slower pace than usual in February, mostly because I started reading The Power by Naomi Alderman, which I really disliked, but then I got too far in to abandon it. And being too far in to abandon it, did I then race through to the end to try to get it over with? No I did not. I just stopped reading in general because I didn't want to keep reading The Power, and again, I felt too far in to give up, and I can't read two books at once any more because YAY MENO

Here's my January wrap-up: THE CITY AND IT'S UNCERTAIN WALLS by Haruki Murakami (not pictured) I didn't love the Murakami -- but I don't need to rehash all that as I already covered all my thoughts on that here. -- RUTH by Kate Riley This was a great read for the start of the year, a thoughtful and funny story about a woman with a real independent streak who spends her whole life living in an Anabaptist community in the States and Canada. It asks, what makes a life full, is

I want to preface this by saying I use "Book Review" in a very loose sense. This is probably more of a vibe check than anything else. Which is alright because honestly this whole book is kind of one extended vibe check and it's not really my vibe. I've never been a huge Murakami fan. I think I started and stopped with The Wind Up Bird Chronicles, a million years ago, which I only read because the guy I was dating whose other favorite book was The Rachel Papers told me I shoul