About half of May’s reading came from my own shelves. And all (except one) were poster children for shelfsitters (great stuff)!

Although it may be true that I have simply renewed a large number of library books. Shhh. Oh, go ahead, guess how many books I’ve borrowed. I’ll get to some of them (at least) in June.

Finally, I’ve gotten back to my Alice Munro Reading Project:
Beginning with “Royal Beatings” in Who Do You Think You Are?
(titled The Beggar Maid in other countries, amazing with any title)

Still, I Am a Serial Reader:
Alex Adams’ White Horse (2012)
Dorothy Sayers’ Strong Poison (1930)
Catherine Asaro’s Ascendant Sun (2000)
The Walking Dead, Chew, Aya, Fables
(For once, I’ve continued more series than I’ve begun.)

Though I can be seen regularly Reading in Orange:
Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles (2012)
Cynthia Ozick’s Foreign Bodies (2011)
Jane Harris’ Gillespie and I (2011)

And my other Favourite Reads for May?
Megan Mayhew Bergman’s Birds of a Lesser Paradise (2012)
Ai Mi’s Under the Hawthorn Tree (Trans. Anna Holmwood, 2012)

Biggest struggle and triumph in May?
Finishing D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers (1913)
(Aiyiyi, I thought it would never end, though once I loved DHL.)

Challenges and events:
I finally caught up on visiting challenge sites and other participants’ sites (although I have only checked a few of the Australian Women Writers’ Challenge links: sheesh, is there EVER a LOT of reading going on over there: it’s incredible!)

Most of my challenges are on track, but I have yet to read my first book for Kinna’s Africa Reading Challenge. That’s what happens when I pick vague goals like “some” books. If I’d told myself “twenty”, I’d’ve read 10 by now!

So that’s May: a good reading month. And I have high hopes for June.

Four more stories in the Munro collection. In Orange-ness, I’ll finish Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder. And, more series: the most recent in Jeff Lemire’s “Sweet Tooth” series, which is my new favourite, and the fourth of the “Fables” series, which was my last new favourite), and the next volume in Maureen Jennings’ Murdoch series (which began with Except the Dying).

It’s also Iris’ Dutch Lit Month and I have a couple of children’s books in mind, perhaps along with The Tea Lords, although I haven’t had a peek at that one yet, so it might not fit.

And Laura’s hosting the readalong for Elizabeth Taylor The Sleeping Beauty. In May, I finished reading Nicola Beauman’s biography, The Other Elizabeth Taylor, which only re-ignited my interest in this author’s works, so I’m looking forward to this novel.

And what else? Will June be the month that I finish Sigrid Unset’s Kristin Lavransdatter? Will I finally begin Holly Black’s fairy trilogy? Will I manage to manage my library addiction? Will I finally tackle that stack of magazines?

What about you? What questions are you asking about your reading June? What do you hope to do more/less of?

What did you like about your reading May? Are you reading fiercely or lackadaisically?