Things I Read In May

May was a pretty good month for reading. Considering the amount of time I spent with books, I probably could have finished more, but I find that non-fiction usually takes longer to read, but it is also usually completely worth it. I also read a good chunk of the final Dark Tower book so hopefully I'll get that OUT OF MY LIFE in June (I love it but it has taken soooooo long) and essentially, my general battle cry is YAY READING YOU ARE GREAT.

Here's what I read though:

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

You'll forgive me if I cried a little more than usual during this first reading of To Kill A Mockingbird after Harper Lee's death. I'm sure I don't really have to review it (mainly because I already did, here) because we all get the gist, but the emotional resonance for me, this time, was turned up to 11. I'm still really sad that this really is it, and there are no hidden vaults containing maybe 20 Harper Lee novels, but one perfect one really is enough for a person in a lifetime, I reckon. RIP, Harper Lee, and thank you so much for Atticus.

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Astonishingly I have already reviewed this, and in the same month I read it! Unbelievable effort there, I think we can all agree.

Nine Stories by JD Salinger

Having read Nine Stories, I've been thinking about JD Salinger a lot, and I've decided that his stories can almost universally be categorised, and/or dismissed, under the hashtag #richpeopleproblems. To dismiss them because of this alone, however, would be a mistake, not least because Salinger's writing is so good, and real, and honest, that it doesn't really matter that his stories are all about problems that rich people are having, because they start feeling like problems that anyone could have. Each of the Nine Stories are more or less tales of loss, of eccentric characters and difficult situations and just, in general, life. My dislike of The Catcher in the Rye still stands, but fades into the background over just how much I love Salinger's short stories, and I wholly recommend and Holden-haters to try Salinger's short stories, just to see. You might just be pleasantly surprised.

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Unbelievably, I have also reviewed this already. I know, I know, I take a bow. If reviews are a bit TL:DR for you though, here are some keywords: feminism, literary criticism, memoir, Iran, history, revolution, AWESOME. The last one is the most important.

Landing by Emma Donoghue

I liked Landing so much that it probably deserves a full review, but the chances of me actually getting around to that seem slim so let's talk about it here a little. Landing is about a chance meeting on an aeroplane, that leads to a long distance relationship, that leads to love. It's also about grief, about stubbornness, about the difficulty about combining two lives when you don't really know about their day-to-day business, and about the incredible gamble that being in love, any kind of love, always involves. Considering the premise, this book could easily have veered into the territory of chick-lit, but considering that the characters in love are both women (lesbians are NEVER covered in chick-lit) and Emma Donoghue is a consistently good writer that never ever ever lets me down, it offers a lot more than just romance, it offers just a little slice of life. It's definitely one of my favourite novels of the year so far, which makes sense because, I'll say it again, it's Emma Donoghue. She's honestly the best.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Reluctant Fundamentalist, but I don't have much to say about it. It's slightly surprising to me that it's taught in American Colleges (I remember there being some furore about it a little while ago basically based on its title and oh my GOD can someone please teach censors how to read so they can stop being mad at books that are smarter than them) because although I whizzed through this in a few days, I don't have much to say about it in a critical sense. The story is told in a first person monologue, as a street trader in Pakistan tells an American businessman about his time in America, both before and immediately after 9/11, but it's much more subtle than that description would suggest. Although Changez (the speaker) experiences discrimination after the 9/11 of the book, it serves as a subtle backdrop to his story about loving a woman who is unreachable, and working through what's best to do with his life after graduation, which is actually a universal tale. The ending is perhaps the most interesting, especially in a critical sense, but I'm obviously not going to talk about it with you... Unless you've read this too and we'll talk about it in code in the comments. Critically interesting or not, this remains a very good read, and definitely worth your time, even if it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. 

BOOM, May! I kind of smashed it in the reading stakes, and there were even a couple more books I could have finished, had I wanted to permanently injure my back carrying around giant books (I didn't). Let's see what June has to offer.