April Monthly Recap

Time for our April 2017 monthly recap. Find out which books were favorites and which were duds. We’ll end our wrap up with a a list of books due out this month and a glimpse of our upcoming content. We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read this month and what you look forward to reading in May.

Jen: I read 15 books in March along with several hundred pages of Infinite Jest. To be fair, I bailed on one of those books but after having read about 130 pages so I’m including it in my count. Eight of the books were written by women, 4 were written by racial or ethnic minority authors, and 7 books were written by non-US authors (two Canadian, one Pakistani, one Finnish, one Ukrainian, one South African, and one English author). Two of the books I read were translated. Three books featured LGBTQ characters.

Favorite book read in April: I read a lot of good books this month. My favorite was probably Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievitch. Honorable Mention goes to Exit West which likely would have made my favorite book in any other month.

Least favorite book read in April: Stealing Snow by Danielle Paige. I got this as an ARC during last year’s BookExpo America and not normally the sort of book I read. This was the book I bailed on and it was truly dreadful. I almost never bail on books even when they are bad. That should give you an idea of its quality.

Future Goals: I’m going to read a few more books to clear of my TBR bookshelf before leaving to Book Expo at the end of the month. I also hope to finish Infinite Jest this month!

Book Worm: I have had another slow month this month only 7 books read. In terms of diversity 3 books were written by women and only 1 book is from my native England. I also read a non fiction book which is rare for me.

Favorite book read in April:  I have 2 favourite books for April, a non-fiction and a fiction book. Wild Swans, the autobiographical/ biographical story of 3 generations of women in one family as they live through some of the most turbulent years in Chinese history. My favourite fiction book was White Tears by Hari Kunzru which is reviewed here.

Least favorite book read in April:  I don’t have a least favourite book for April so in that sense I have done better than Jen 🙂

Future Goals: I am still working on reducing my TBR piles here are my stats for April and the year so far:

DTB books purchased 0. DTB books read from the TBR 0 net count 0.

Kindle books purchased 2 but I have read both of them. Kindle books read from the TBR 0 net count o.

Year to date DTB read from TBR: -1

Kindle books read from TBR:  -3

What can you look forward to on our blog in May? We’ll be starting our Read Around the World reading challenge with all of you. The challenge will last for 1 year with each month focused on a different country nominated by all of you. You can join in for every month or the months that appeal to you. We’ll announce the list of countries tomorrow. We’ll also be featuring our usual blog posts.

May 2017 book releases. Here are a few books coming out in May:
The Leavers by Lisa Ko
Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami
Woman No 7 by Edan Lepucki
The House of Names by Colm Toibin
New Boy Tracy Chevalier
White Fur by Jardine Libaire
Trajectory by Richard Russo
The Dinner Party by Joshua Ferris
No One Can Pronounce my Name by Rakesh Satyal

We want to hear from you. So what are your plans for May? Which books were your favorites and least favorites in April? Will you be attending book expo in May-June?