May 2024 Reads

After I retired my old blog at the end of last year, I thought I was done with writing a monthly synopsis of what I've been reading, but I guess I just can't quit! For the last couple of months, I tried squeezing it into my newsletter, but there just wasn't room. So now I'm back to blogging about books! Here's what I read in May:

Fiction
I'm still on my mystery/crime kick, and read a pretty broad range this month:

• Toucan Keep a Secret by Donna Andrews, which is a cozy/whodunit with humor and madcap antics. I like that Andrews' books are lighthearted mysteries and that the heroine is always juggling caring for kids (twins!) plus about four jobs while also solving murders.
• The Five Year Lie by Sarina Bowen, a "domestic thriller" (I haven't quite figured out what this new subgenre means--does domestic refer to the stories being about concerns of the home or the fact that there's no international element to the events?). I really like Sarina on the #AmWriting podcast, but her genre up until now has been romance, which interests me not at all, so I was excited that she branched out, and I enjoyed this book very much.
• The Midcoast by Adam White, which is really more of a book club novel than a mystery, although there is crime involved (it would be called "women's fiction" if the main characters were women and not men), about a lobsterman who gets involved in drug running/organized crime, told from the point of view of a secondary character who lives in the town (a town not far from where I live!). It's a little on the slow side, if you're used to heart-racing thrillers, but the deep dive into place and this one family's rise and massive downfall is compelling to the end.

Multigenre

• Last year I was invited to teach a class through a project called Writing Waterville, which involved four workshops and the publication of a chapbook of writing that arose from those workshops, also called Writing Waterville. At the end of last month, there was a launch event where the books were distributed and contributors read from their pieces. It was really great to see the huge range of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction that participants generated and to have the chance to contribute myself. Big shoutout to Catie Joyce-Bulay and Tyler French for pulling it all together. Being a writer in a rural area can be so isolating, and it's wonderful that these two are putting in the work to build a writing community in central Maine.

Nonfiction

• On the recommendation of a friend, and because it had been sitting in my TBR pile for a long while, I ready Sigh, Gone by Phuc Tran (pictured separately because I passed it on to a friend), a memoir of a Vietnamese refugee growing up and trying to fit in in suburban Pennsylvania in the 1980s, and the music and literature that changed his life. (This was such a great palate cleanser after having read a grossly self-indulgent memoir last month.) I loved that, being the same age as Tran, I related to so many pop culture references that infuse the book, while also getting a glimpse into a world so profoundly different from my own. It made me think a lot about the many Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian kids in my own high school who, with a few exceptions, appeared to be very isolated from the mainstream. What were their stories? Why had I never once stop to consider who they were or where they'd come from or what their lives were like? 
• Several years ago I was given The Oyster Wars by Summer Brennan, and having recently been reintroduced to Brennan's writing online and grown curious about the oyster farms here in Maine, I finally pulled it off the shelf and read it. It's an incredibly well-researched deep dive into the history of and controversy over an oyster farm located in Point Reyes National Seashore in California, and, in a bigger way, about preservation of wilderness in America. It's a fascinating read.
• Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan. I loved this book so much! It's a collection of Tan's drawings of and notes on her encounters with birds in her California yard over a period of several years. Her observations are humorous, empathetic, poignant, and insightful and her drawings are brilliant. It has me kicking myself that I've been nature journaling for 30 years and I'm still basically a kid with a crayon, skill-wise. But it also has me inspired to pay closer attention and document the nature in my own backyard. (And yes, this is the Amy Tan, as in author of The Joy Luck Club, etc.)
• Finally, I like to have a short, educational or inspirational book handy for tiny bites of reading time, and this month is was Show Your Work, by Austin Kleon, which is about sharing your creative process and work freely in order to build an audience. Useful little chunks of ideas and info.