The month that was… May 2022

I’m a little late with my monthly wrap up for May, having decided to take an impromptu break for the last week or so.

May was a great month, not least because I was able to attend the Hay Festival in person for the first time since 2019! As long-time readers of Jo’s Book Blog will know, I’m a big fan of this festival and have been every year since 2013, apart from the last two COVID years when events were held remotely. It was so lovely to get back to Hay-on-Wye, hear authors discussing their books, and getting those books signed. I was even lucky with the weather – the nights were cold (something I was very much aware of while camping!) but the days were warm and dry. My favourite events included Natalie Haynes trialling some new material for her radio series Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics, Bonnie Garmus discussing her debut novel Lessons in Chemistry, and Greg Jenner talking about his latest book Ask a Historian.

From a reading perspective, it was also a good month. I read ten books, and even managed to blog fairly regularly, something that has been a little hit and miss in recent months.

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I also posted a wrap up of Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon and my 20 Books of Summer sign up post.

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Incoming!

I received one book for review this month and it’s one that I’m really excited about – I love Joël Dicker’s novels, and I’m intrigued by this one:

And acquired three (Home Fire was actually free from National Book Tokens!):

And then went to Hay and bought all the books – some from events I went to as well as others that are signed or from the many bookshops in Hay-on-Wye itself:

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TBR Watch

It could have been worse! 😂

• Books out = 10 read + 1 DNF* = 11
• Books in = 1 ARC + 3 purchases + 12 from Hay = 16
• Equals an increase of 5 in my TBR

*I may come back to some of the DNFs at a later date, but for now they have been removed from my TBR.