M. Suzanne Terry

We are officially one-third of the way through the year. In some ways, it doesn’t seem possible. In other ways, isn’t it November 2027 yet?

The TBR list looks a little different this month. You’ll see why in a minute. First, though, the book club selections.

Book Clubs

• Who is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews 
• The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny
• All About Love by bell hooks
• Never Been Kissed by Timothy Janovsky
• The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
• Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch
• Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow (Roxane Gay’s Literati selection…but since I already own it, thanks to free books from my library book club…)
• Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (Megan Rapinoe’s selection)
• Not technically a book club choice, but something I am currently listening to and getting a lot out of (recommended for NDs who struggle with keeping utter chaos at bay at home) – How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis

Good Intentions

So do you remember all those books I have listed in previous posts to read? With the exception of The Joy of Cooking (which is taking a ridiculously long time to read but is so, so worth it), I haven’t started all of them. Like…a lot of them. I put some of them off because a new installment of a beloved series came out. Or I received them in a subscription, but it turns out they’re the second or third in the series and I don’t read series that way, Happy Endings Book Club! Or I did start them, put them down because I wanted to finish a book club selection before we met, and never picked them up again, and now I need to restart them to remember what the heck is going on. Or I put them on hold at the library, and they didn’t become available that month, so I canceled it and there they remain, still unread by me.

This list is so long. I told Maggie yesterday that I was intentionally delaying this post to finish up a few of them before I hit publish. But it’s going to take all month to make a significant difference of any kind, so I’m just going to jump right in.

Anyway, there’s quite a list (and this is just the planned-to-read-but-haven’t-yets since October). Feel free to use this to feel better about your own unfinished and neverending TBR list. That just means we’re immortal, right?

• Sistersong by Lucy Holland
• The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
• Not Your Average Hot Guy by Gwenda Bond
• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
• Feral Creatures by Kira Jane Buxton
• The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman and Sam Kieth
• The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
• Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls
• Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon
• All the Feels by Olivia Dade (because I hadn’t read Spoiler Alert yet)
• Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be by Nichole Perkins
• The Love Con by Seressia Glass
• Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So
• Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans and Jeff Chu
• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
• Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• Don’t Overthink It by Anne Bogel
• The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell
• Role Models by John Waters
• Music on the Brain by Arlene R. Taylor, PhD & Michael R. Hudson
• Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth Macneal
• Count Your Lucky Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur (to be preceded by Written in the Stars and Hang the Moon)
• To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara
• Babette’s Feast by Julian Baggini
• The Alchemist by Paul Coelho
• Warrior of the Light by Paul Coelho
• The Love Story of Missy Carmichael by Beth Morrey
• 3 Doors by J.L. Vanders
• My Life As a Villainess by Laura Lippman
• A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney
• The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor
• Her Mad Hatter by Marie Hall
• Splintered by A.G. Howard
• Meditations in Wonderland by Anna Patrick
• Heartless by Marissa Meyer
• Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake
• When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
• How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
• The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh
• The Maid by Nita Prose
• Welcome Home by Najwa Zebian
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
• Freedom Is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis
• Harry’s Trees by Jon Cohen 
• The Eternal Audience of One by Rémy Ngamije
• Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
• Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma
• Ancestor Trouble by Maud Newton
• Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis de Veaux
• My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing
• The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
• Bestiary by Donika Kelly
• Hood Criatura by féi hernandez
• Extratransmission by Andrea Abi-Karam
• Index of Women by Amy Gerstler
• Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire
• The Hungry Ear, edited by Kevin Young
• Counting Descent by Clint Smith
• Neruda’s Garden: An Anthology of Odes by Pablo Neruda
• The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich
• Spring by Ali Smith
• Forget Prayers, Bring Cake by Merissa Nathan Gerson
• And The Pursuit of Happiness by Maira Kalman
• Payment in Blood by Elizabeth George

Heh. 

The bulk of my reading in May is going to be working on that backlist. I know I won’t be able to finish it this month, but I bet I can make a dent.