First of all, a very happy International Workers’ Day! I can’t believe we’re so far into the year already, but I thought I would look back at April’s reading as it was a really good month for me – and here are the books I enjoyed!

Several of these were for 1937, some are review books and some I just felt like reading – reviews will follow in due course of those I’ve not covered yet. It was a bumper month and not a single dud there, which is always a great joy!

After the frenzy that was the #1937Club (and thank you all for taking part – such fun!), I am hoping for a slightly quieter month; though I must confess that I’ve already had a look in the stacks to see what I have for 1970 in October. So far, I have gathered these ones:

The Christie, Brautigan and Mandelstam were already on the shelves (the latter thanks to lovely @PigIron on Twitter) and I’m aiming to get to all of them in the next six months. Plus I have plans for another book, a collection of short stories, but that depends on me reading some other things between now and then!

As for other reading during May, I do have a couple of review books outstanding, but I am currently reading this:

Hannah Arendt has been on my to-read radar for ages, and I have a couple of her titles in Penguin Black Classics (including the above “Eichmann in Jerusalem”), as well as a novel. I discovered recently that a rather idiosyncratic lad called @JoeSpivey on BookTube (the bookish area of YouTube) is hosting a slow readalong of the book, a couple of chapters a week. I figure I can manage that and so have read the first two and am hooked (if unsettled).

Apart from this, I am reminded that I have stalled on my reads of both “Middlemarch” and “Dombey and Son”; I think I may try reading sections of them on alternate weekends, along with my weekly chapter of the Arendt and see how that goes.

However, I am also aware that I have inactive Penguin reading projects, in particular the ‘Great Ideas‘ series, and Lisa’s recent review of one of these (a Perec title) made me pull some out – specifically, the most recent releases with a pale blue spine:

These are the titles I have from this set, authors from the left to right are Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Weil, Albert Camus, Italo Calvino, John Berger and Georges Perec. You know, I could just sit down and happily read through the lot! 😀

Apart from that, I’m making no plans, which feels lovely – I shall follow my reading whims! How about you? How was your April reading and do you have plans for May??