There’s just something about May that makes it not my favourite month. Every year I feel like it’s kind of a challenge to get through . There are a few specific personal things/dates about the month that always sneak up on me, but also I think we have so much going on with summer and birthdays and a new school year and Easter in the first four months of the year and then all of a sudden it’s May and it’s getting cold and I kind of panic that we are sort of almost halfway through the year and WHERE HAS IT GONE. I also tend to find myself with a bit of a short attention span, and feeling like I should be doing all of the things at once, which of course leads to lots of not much actually getting done (something about haste and speed, right?). Inevitably this lack of action is reflected in what I manage to read or write or not. I thought it might be good to start doing a little wrap up of what I have done and read and written about here on my blog at the end of each month, with some links back to the posts. So, here goes…

I managed to keep up with my FRIDAY FAVOURITES in May (even if maybe I did cheat a bit and back-date them once or twice). I’m really enjoying writing these posts – I think they are also making me more mindful of things I’m loving during the week – I’m always on the look out for what to write about, which I feel like it helping me appreciate small fun moments. My favourites in May were:

• 7 May I was remembering the wonderful time I had at Sydney Writers’ Festival
• 14 May I shared three of my favourite bookish podcasts
• 21 May I had just had my first watercolour painting class
• 28 May I was shouting out my lovely local comic book store

I shared a few BOOK STACKS during the month, including a “What’s your kid reading Wednesday” which was quite fun – I always love seeing what other people’s kids are reading, so I think that one will definitely be back! These are the book stacks I shared in May:

• A mini TBR stack inspired by the Sydney Writers’ Festival
• What’s Your Kid Reading Wednesday from my 7 year old’s bedside table
• A ‘currently reading’/TBR stack (I’ve read two of these three books in the past week!)

Something I’d like to manage more of on my blog in June is actual REVIEWS! I reviewed two books here during May:

• Ariadne by Jennifer Saint (thanks to Hachette)
• Rising by Bronwyn Eley (thanks to Talem Press)

I’m all ready to kick off June with a bang – two books I’ve been looking forward to are coming out on 1 June (Nancy Business by RWR McDonald and Magpie’s Bend by Maya Linnell – big thanks to Allen & Unwin for copies of both). I’m thrilled to be joining in with the blog/bookstagram tour for Nancy Business, so I’ll have a review here on Tuesday, and will be following up with a Q&A later in the month.

I’m currently about halfway through Magpie’s Bend and loving that one too – I’m hoping I might be able to pop a review up on Thursday, or the weekend at the latest. In the meantime you might like to check out my reviews of Maya’s first two books – Wildflower Ridge and Bottlebrush Creek. Maya was also kind enough to chat with me about her writing after Bottlebrush Creek came out here, and has also popped by to chat Christmas with me a few times – here and here.

Top of my TBR list for June is Anita Heiss’ new novel Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, which I picked up at the Sydney Writers’ Festival. I’ll have a little preview of it up tomorrow.

Let me know if you had a favourite book or experience in May – I’d love to hear about it!

xo Bron