May Reading Wrap-Up

Everything I read in May, nerdy stats, favorite books of the month, plus my Weekly What

May was an excellent month in books! I'm always hesitant to reflect on the month before it's fully complete, but I'm going to take my chances that I won't finish another book by tomorrow. I've already read 21 great books and I’m ready to dig into them!

Everything I Read in May

I read 21 books in May. Here’s a little breakdown of my reading month:

• 14 library/Libby borrows

• 4 gifted (Whidbey, Cherry Baby, More Than Enough, Dolly All the Time)

• 3 owned (Beloved, Sula, Pachinko)

• 3 backlist titles (14%)

• 3 non-fiction (14%)

• 9 print (43%), 8 audio (38%), 4 ebooks (19%)

May Favorites

Good People by Patmeena Sabit

Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell

Mothers and Other Strangers by Corey Ann Haydu

Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan

Beloved and Sula by Toni Morrison

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Tell me:

• What did you enjoy reading in May?

• Is your month of reading complete? Or are you hoping to sneak in at least one more book before the month’s end?!
  
  

  
  

Reading

• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. This sweeping family epic spanning much of the 20th century follows four generations of a Korean family who immigrate to Japan during Japan’s occupation of Korea and struggle to survive and build stable lives amid political upheaval, war, poverty, and persistent racism and discrimination against Koreans in Japan. Originally published in 2017 to great acclaim, Pachinko was a National Book Award finalist and ranks #15 on The New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list. I can’t recall why I didn’t read Pachinko when it first came out, but it has long been on my radar. Though this is a book that never fully disappears from the reading community, there was a resurgence of interest around the 2022 Apple TV+ series adaptation and it was around that time I picked up a copy because I was not only sure it was absolutely time to read this book but surely I would enjoy it so much it deserved a permanent spot on my shelves. Of course I did not read it at that time. BUT the intersection of Mashed Potato May¹ with Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, for which Pachinko frequently appears on recommended reading lists, felt like the absolute perfect time to finally read Pachinko and I’m so glad I did! This story sucked me in immediately and I was sad once it was over. I don’t think I’ve regretted waiting so long to read such a good book since I finally read (and loved!) The Great Believers (2018) in 2024. All this to say, if you haven’t read Pachinko there is truly no better time than now to read Pachinko! Also, like, haha, why do I do this to myself?! 🙃

• Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan. Monaghan has been an auto-read author for me since Nora Goes Off Script (2023). It’s becoming something of a tradition for me to kick off summer with an early read of Monaghan’s newest release over Memorial Day weekend and that’s exactly what I did with her brand new release, Dolly All the Time! Dolly, an elementary school teacher and single mom to a teenage boy, returns to her small, coastal Rhode Island hometown for the summer to help run her family’s seafood shop and save their historic home at risk of ruin. The titular Dolly is a make-doer; in between her various side-hustles she has a tendency to set aside her own needs to see to others, rarely asking for much, if anything, in return. When she gets a Pretty Woman type proposal from the son of the town’s founding family she sees a way to pay for the new roof her family’s home needs, but she just might end up getting something for herself in return after all. Mature and loveable characters, a coastal New England summer setting, fun plot with just enough depth to keep things interesting—Monaghan continues to delight!

• Sula by Toni Morrison. Read for the year long virtual book club I’m participating in through Literary Cleveland IHO America’s 250th birthday and the upcoming 100th anniversary of Ohio-native Toni Morrison’s birthday. The book club is reading all 11 of Morrison’s novels in chronological order based on setting. Sula is the third book in the series. The book club is open to all and I highly recommend checking it out!
  
  Set in a fictional Black town in Ohio, Sula is the story of a friendship between two girls who take two very different paths as women—one, in a traditional role as wife and mother, the other, who leaves town to attend college and returns uninterested in being bound by societal expectations. This was my second time reading Sula and excellent timing to revisit the book having recently loved Tayari Jones’ Kin, which has obvious parallels and seems to be rooted in similar soil.
  
  After each book I’ve been reading Namwali Serpell’s corresponding essay from On Morrison, which are always illuminating and a nice way to cap my reading. There is now a recently launched podcast of Serpell on tour in conversation with readers and writers discussing Morrison’s works. This week’s episode was perfectly timed as the conversation was about Sula.

• We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune. An elderly gay couple on a cross-country road trip at the end of the world. Together they contemplate the meaning of life, wrestle with persistent grief and the highs and lows of a long life lived, say all the unsaid things, and love one another, while experiencing a cross section of humanity under very strange circumstances. This short novella (169 pages) is quietly profound and delightfully wacky. Only TJ Klune can make the apocalypse feel so warm and heartfelt.

Listening

• Small Town Girls: A Writer’s Memoir by Jayne Anne Phillips. An engaging memoir in essays from fiction Pulitzer winner Phillips about her upbringing in small town West Virginia in the ‘50s, ‘60s and beyond.

• Backtalker: An American Memoir by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw. UCLA law professor, civil rights advocate, critical race scholar, and mother of “intersectionality,” details her upbringing in ‘60s and ‘70s Ohio, and her rise as a legal scholar in the ‘80s and ‘90s, to share how her personal experiences as a Black woman helped to develop the framework for understanding how different aspects of a person’s identity interact to shape unique experiences of discrimination, privilege, and social inequality.

Watching

• Mad Men, Season 2 (DVD!). Our annual(?) rewatch continues.

• Survivor, Season 50. I’ve had a Survivor shaped hole in my television life since we finished our epic watch of all 49 seasons early this year. It was nice to be back on the island with Jeff and familiar faces with this all-star season.

• The Traitors Canada, Season 1 (Peacock). I recently lamented having watched all the Traitors franchises available to me (and to think, I almost quit watching this show a few episodes into my first season 😱 This is not the only time a near DNF turned into a favorite show!) Well, the Traitors’ Turret heard because 3 seasons of Traitors Canada dropped for me to stream. We are so back!

• Dirty Dancing (Peacock). Because it was available and nobody puts Baby in a corner.

Eating & Drinking

• Grilled Burgers with our first watermelon of the season—it was a good one too!

• Grilled Chicken Fajitas with guacamole

• One-Pot Easy Chicken Lasagna

• Family-favorite Sloppy Joes by request with sweet potato “fries” (peeled sweet potatoes, cut into fry-like shapes, seasoned with a sprinkle of paprika, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and a little chipotle chili powder, dry roasted at 375 degrees for ~20-25 mins.)

Links + Loves

• Library Orgs Urge Big Five to Address Digital Pricing (Publishers Weekly)

• The Rise of Ragebait Lit (Harper’s Bazaar) But is this actually a new or unique trend? 🤔

• And speaking of “ragebait lit”: What’s Missing from Belle Burden’s “Strangers”. (The New Yorker) But IS this missing from Strangers? 👀 I think the (not new) trend might (still) be clickbait. But this is interesting clickbait, okay?!

• Summer’s Best Beach Reads according to The New York Times.

• The Best Books of 2026 So Far according to The New Yorker.

• The Man Who Reads Books for a Living shares his experience as a professional book reader who evaluates literature specifically for screen adaptation. (Lit Hub)

What are you reading, listening to, eating, watching, liking, and/or linking this week? Let’s chat!

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Until next time!

1. I’m really unsure how widespread/recognizable this term/readathon is. But I love an alliterative reading challenge and the concept of a “mashed potato book”—books you know you’ll love, but you put off reading—speaks directly to a regular phenomenon in my reading life.