Welcome to my May Reading List! My goal for this year is to read 150 books. To do this, each month I need to read at least ten books as well as dipping into the five books at the end of this post. This means by the end of the year, these five can be added onto my yearly total. I am determined to read 150 books this year. I had this goal last year, but because of my master’s degree I only managed 39 which is pitiful (although I did read lots and lots of journal articles). These are the books I read during May.
A Note About Colour Codes
Throughout this May reading list, you’ll notice that I have coloured the list of books. Firstly, the pink books denote fiction books. I am not keen on fiction books as a rule. In 2023 I read 100 books and over 60 of them were non-fiction. I had to work really hard at getting in the fiction I did read and I tended to find an author I liked and then read a few of their books. This year, I want to throw my net wider, so to speak. The goal is to try out lots of different authors and genres. So, I want at least half of my books to be fiction books. And I shall try to read books from different authors…😊
Next, I have used a beige colour to denote the non-fiction. I literally never struggle to find non-fiction books I want to read! This is because there are so many things I am interested in and so little time!
And lastly, I have used a violet colour for the books I shall be dipping into each month. These are non-fiction. In fact, they are mostly nature themed books created to be read over each month or season, rather than being read all at once.
May Reading List: Non-Fiction Books
Where the Hearth Is: Stories of Home By Kate Humble
Where the Hearth Is was a lovely read as Kate Humble, in her usual friendly and down to earth way, explores the meaning of home. Each chapter takes the reader to another case study of sorts. She flips from a specific animal’s view of home, wasps come to mind, to a human’s perspective. Be it house, caravan or shed in the middle of the woods with no amenities, Humble scrutinises what it is that makes a home a home. *****
The Art of Storytelling: From Parents to Professionals By Hannah B. Harvey
The Art of Storytelling is another course from The Great Courses. I have loved, I think, every single course I’ve done through The Great Courses and this one is no exception. I generally enjoy reading books about writing. It’s no surprise to anyone to find out that a long held dream of mine is to write a book. So reading about writing seems a sensible thing to do. This book comes at writing from a completely different take to other books I’ve read. In fact, it is not so much about the writing part of storytelling, it is more about the storytelling part itself. As in orally telling a story. A fascinating read which I may have to return to at a later date as it had so many things in it I could apply to my homeschool. ****
Energize: Make the Most of Every Moment By Simon Alexander Ong
I bought Energize: Make the Most of Every Moment after watching Ong’s YouTube channel. I really enjoyed the information packed into each of his videos. When it came to the book, I felt like I had already covered the majority of the information just by watching his videos. It’s well written but not as useful as I thought it would be. ***
The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage into Self-Mastery By Brianna Wiest
The Mountain is You was a great read for telling me exactly what I already knew! I think this is why it appealed because I felt like a book which recognised that I was the main problem in my own life would also give me the tools to stop being just that. I’m not sure what my big take away from this book was…perhaps to be CEO of your own life? I think maybe this would be an incredible book for those desiring more self-awareness. It’s well-written, easy to read and full of nuggets of useable information. ***
Buy Back Your Time: Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your Freedom, and Build Your Empire By Dan Martell
Buy Back Your Time was not a useful book for me at all. It was literally a book all about paying someone else to do the stuff you don’t want to do in order to free up the time to do the things you do want to do. A whole book. Maybe if you are earning an actual salary from your small business it might have been helpful. Might. But I suspect not. It was a whole lot of book for such a small amount of useful information. Not for me. One star *
Educated By Tara Westover
Educated is a memoir of the author’s life which spans from her childhood to studying for a phd at Cambridge University. Tara was born into a large Mormon family. Her father, who was head of the family in every sense of the word, was a prepper. He believed the world would soon come to an end, and when it did, he and his family would be prepared. This book chronicles Tara’s life living in the mountains with her family. This family did not believe in health care, cleanliness or education. For years, the government was not even aware of the existence of most of children in the family. Tara, along with her siblings, was abused, neglected and carelessly ruled over by a father who, it appeared, suffered from bipolar.
Tara writes about this suffering with very little emotion and no self-pity, portraying the lengths she had to go to in order to understand the world she ran away to. You will be horrified, disgusted and sad in equal parts. Because Tara tells her story dispassionately, the feelings of pity you might have towards her callous upbringing are replaced by love for this scrawny, smelly girl who doesn’t wash her hands after going to the bathroom because her father always said that you ‘don’t pee on your hands!’.
Against all the odds, Tara teaches herself enough to pass the exams to go to university. However, once there, she does not only have to learn how to write an essay for the first time ever, but also how to clean herself so she no longer smelled, how to keep her surroundings liveable in and how to make friends with people with whom she had absolutely nothing in common.
This is a story which will forever stay in my heart. Five stars *****
Serial Killers: Real and Imagined By Emily Zarka
Serial Killers is another book from The Great Courses, this details serial killers over time. It’s actually more of a series of university level lectures than a book but it is jam-packed full of facts all crammed into a story-like format. Zarka is obviously passionate about this subject and her enthusiasm is catching.
Renegade Beauty: Reveal and Revive Your Natural Radiance – Beauty Secrets, Solutions, and Preparation By Nadine Artemis
Okay, so I recognise I’m doing really badly on the whole half-of-my-books-being-fiction goal. I’ve not read one fiction book so far this month! I can’t even say I noticed until now. In my defence, I did think ‘Educated’ was a fiction. It wasn’t until I was half way through and thought how personal and very real the writing was that I googled it and found it was a memoir. It was a very good memoir…but alas I could not include it as a fiction.
Renegade Beauty is a huge step away from the kind of non-fiction books I read. I’m not even sure how it popped up as a suggested for me. You may or may not know, before I became pregnant with Thomas (about 25 years ago!), I completed my diplomas in massage and aromatherapy. So, I have kind of always had an interest in natural health, but I think having five children, three of them born in the same year, put a kibosh in any side interests I might have.
Anyway, Renegade Beauty was a really lovely reintroduction to natural health and beauty. There were lots of new ideas I had never heard of before such as sun gazing and moon bathing. It’s all backed up with science, which I love. I’m looking forward to trying some of her ideas out to see if they impact my own health. Five stars *****
May Reading List: Fiction Books
The Bookbinder of Jericho By Pip Williams
Pip Williams is quickly becoming one of my favourite fiction writers. I love historical novels and she writes based on deep research and taking the road less travelled regarding its focus. I read another book by her, The Dictionary of Lost Words. Both books are set during World War One, and both contain the struggles and subsequent success of the women of this time across social groups.
The Bookbinder of Jericho maps the life of one Peggy Jones and her autistic sister Maud. Twins, they both work as book binders. This is the story of Peggy as she navigates life as both mother and sister to her twin, her desperate need to utilise her brain and join Oxford University to study English and falling in love with a damaged soldier from overseas. Written as a companion to The Dictionary of Lost Words, from which it borrows some well-known characters, there is a sense of familiarity and continuation.
Williams is PHD educated and her thorough research reflects this. If it was not for some strong language and a couple of explicit scenes, this (and The Dictionary of Lost Words) would be excellent read alongs for a World War One unit study.
A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I love me a mystery! And I love me a mystery set in the past. I could read Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle all day long. A Study in Scarlet is Doyles’ first book about private detective Sherlock Holmes and his trusty side kick, Dr Watson. It is written from Watson’s point of view and contains many of the familiar characters which reappear in each of his stories. I find it very interesting that Doyle writes this book using Dr Watson’s narration of events and he himself was a physician. It dovetails nicely 😊 ****
Books I’ll Be Reading Every Month
That’s the totality of my May reading list. However, there are also books that I’m going to be dipping into each month. These are books I have either read multiple times over the course of my life and I just love rereading them, or they are part of an ongoing set which brings out a new volume each year. By the end of the year they will be completed but as they track the months and seasons of the year, I’ll not be reading ahead, as it were. However, I’ll be adding them to each of my posts, just in case anyone else is interested in reading them.
Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden
The Cottage Book by Sir Edward Grey
The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2025 by Lia Leendertz
The Cottage Fairy Companion by Paola Merrill
Daemon Voices: Essays on Storytelling By: Philip Pullman
I hope you have enjoyed my May reading list. If you’d like to take a look at the books I read in 2023 and 2024, please do visit my Books Read Over the Years Page. I shall endeavour to share one of these posts each month.
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