May and June 2020 reads

Well, it's been longer than a month since my last post which was also a book reads post... apologies, friends! The blog is way at the back burner in priorities right now, as you can probably imagine. One day I will magically find some more hours in the day, right???

Just a minor housekeeping note: I am trying to move away from supporting Amazon when it comes to books, especially, most of the time utilizing Thriftbooks or 3rd party sellers on Amazon when I can't find something. I've decided from now on to use Bookshop.org's affiliate links for my book recommendations, mostly because Thriftbooks doesn't have affiliate links and I really love their concept. I still anticipate making $0.00 from my affiliate links because that's not what I'm blogging for but I always want specific links when someone references something, so this is a middle ground!

Anyway let's jump into the books -- you might be able to sense a theme just glancing over these really quick.

Whose Body?

by Dorothy Sayers

★★★/5

Ahhh, the book that started my obsession with Dorothy Sayers. I'd heard of her novels for a few years, but never gotten around to hunting down a copy until recently. (Our library also only carries a few of them in ebook format, scattered around.) Whose Body is the first intro of Lord Peter Wimsey, an amateur sleuth, set in 1920s England. This first one was a little underwhelming, but they definitely improve (as you can see by how voraciously I kept reading the series). If you're an Agatha Christie fan, like I am, definitely recommend these! 3 stars for this one. 

The End of the Affair

by Graham Greene

★★★★★/5

Shamefacedly I admit here that I'd never read a Graham Greene novel before picking this up with the Close Reads podcast this year. Wow. I was missing out! One of the most well-known Catholic novelists of the 20th century, I now understand why he's so famous and so well-read (but I'm confused why my English literature degree somehow missed out on him?). Incredibly thought-provoking, honest, emotional Catholic novel. Five stars is not enough because somehow this has instantly become one of my all-time favorite books. I wanted to reread it the minute it ended. 5 stars!

Clouds of Witness

by Dorothy Sayers

★★★★/5

This one is where, in my completely unprofessional and unsolicited opinion, Sayers came into Wimsey's voice. Like I mentioned, the first book's voice was a little disjointed and very culturalized, and she got rid of some of that in Clouds of Witness to the book and Wimsey's credit. If you're gonna read them, I definitely recommend reading in order although it's not necessary for each individual story to keep them straight. 4 stars.

Binti

by Nnedi Okorafor

★★★/5

I rented this novella on a whim from the library after seeing a recommendation from Twitter for it. As a short sci-fi novella, I thought it was extremely well-done, but I wanted so badly for it to be a full-length novel! The premise is about a girl named Binti, the first of her Himba ace admitted to the most prestigious university in the galaxy. Like I said, my main complaint is that I didn't know it was a novella going in so I expected so much more! But it's very good and I'm going to read the following novellas when I get a chance. 3 stars because it needed to be novel-length. ;)

Unnatural Death

by Dorothy Sayers

★★★★/5

Another Sayers! Another good one! I can't say much about the plot as they're all rather running together in my head at this point but I have to mark it for accurate record-keeping. 4 stars.

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

by Patrick Radden Keefe

★★★★/5

One of the nonfictions I read in between Sayers novels. ;) I waited for like 6 months to get this off the hold list at the library and finally grabbed it when our library opened up for curbside pickup! Basically it's the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, written from the perspective of the major leaders and faces involved in pseudo-narrative form. As someone whose interest in Northern Ireland got piqued by Derry Girls but didn't really know any of the history of it, this was a great read to give an overview. To be honest, I was expecting more of a true-crime-history from the way this book was touted on all the reviews, so my expectations were a little skewed. Still good! Still worth the read, just a little less dramatic than I expected. 4 stars.

So You Want to Talk About Race

by Ijeoma Oluo

★★★★★/5

Magically I got an ebook rental of this right after George Floyd's murder although it had been on my hold list for the ebook at the library for a few months. If you're wondering where to start learning about and talking about racism in daily life, Oluo's book is a great starting point -- there's a reason it's been on the nonfic bestseller list for the last 6 weeks or so. Great practical advice about talking about race and systemic racism in the United States and what we can do to change it. 5 stars.

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

by Dorothy Sayers
★★★★★/5

Another Sayers! Told you you'd sense a theme. I think this one has been my favorite so far (did I already say that? haha). Wimsey is really such a funny character, and the supporting characters in Bunter and Detective Inspector Parker just add such a good layer of levity and reality to these novels.

A Lily Among Thorns: The Mohawk Repatriation of Kateri Tekakwitha

by Darren Bonaparte

★★★★/5

If you didn't know this about me, St. Kateri is one of my favorite saints and patronesses -- hence our eldest being named Kateri after her. I realized after running across a recommendation for this book that I really haven't read much about her beyond general stories, so it was past time. I really appreciated this book, which is written by a Mohawk man, about the general history of the Mohawk nation and political time period Kateri was born into, as well as her life and conversion to Catholicism. I'm on the hunt for any others about her, so if you've got a recommendation for a book about her please share! 4 stars. 

Mort

by Terry Pratchett

★★★★★/5

I'm not sure how I can face the music after admitting this is the first Pratchett novel I've ever read! As someone who claims to love fantasy and nerdy series, I definitely should have gotten here earlier. I did some Google research to see what I should reach for of his first (since he has something like 35+ books written in the same universe!!!), and Mort was where I landed. I absolutely loved it -- hence the 5 stars! Quick overview: Mort is a teenager looking to become apprenticed, and lands a job as Death's apprentice. Quirky and funny and full of really great characters, I can already tell I'm going to like Pratchett's entire oeuvre. 5 stars.

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Whew!!! That was long. I will do my best to not go two months again in writing these, this took me like a week to complete. What have you been reading, friends? I've started my first John le Carré novel, and I'm 20 pages in and enthralled. If we can't do much else in 2020, might as well read, right??

<3

One more quick housekeeping note -- if you want to see all my 2020 reads in one place, I have a page for that on my Bookshop. I'm hoping to find some time to add kids book lists, other categories, and keep them updated somewhat regularly so check back later!