Books bought/received:
~ Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search bind-up by Gene Luen Yang, Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzco, and Gurihiru
~ Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling #14) by Nalini Singh (review)
~ Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das
~ The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh
~ A Table in the Orchard by Michelle Crawford
Books read:
~ Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search bind-up by Gene Luen Yang, Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzco, and Gurihiru
~ Vicious by V.E. Schwab
~ 12 Books You Can't Miss at Bookcon 2015
~ Tin Star (Tin Star #1) by Cecil Castellucci
~ A Trifle Dead (Cafe La Femme #1) by Livia Day
~ Exquisite Corpse by Penelope Bagieu
~ The Catalyst by Helena Coggan
~ The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra by Thich Nhat Hanh
~ Animal Farm by George Orwell
~ Deep Blue (Waterfire Saga #1) by Jennifer Donnelly
Wow. Are we really almost halfway through the year? Seems ridiculous.
Anyway, this month went pretty well - I read a lot at the start of the month, and then less towards the end as uni got a bit stressful and I started to get pretty sick. Am also dealing with some personal issues, too, so that has been weighing on me. Instead of reading novels for the past few days (I mean, I am still doing that, but not to the extent that I was earlier in the month), I have been reading Kinfolk magazine and playing Professor Layton and the Lost Future on my 3DS. Satisfying.
The start of the month held free comic book day, and I was too sick at the time to go (not been a great month health-wise!), but my lovely partner Xin lovingly headed in to my favourite comic book store and picked up some free comic books for me, plus grabbed a copy of the Avatar: The Search bind-up, which was absolutely amazing and I still adore the thing. I have plans to get through the next two very soon, as I currently have them on loan from the library and they look wonderful.
Next up was Vicious, which I will cover more when I do a wrap-up post of all the things I read off of my shelf this month (this will also include Tin Star and Deep Blue, with perhaps a token mention to A Trifle Dead, as that had been sitting on my kindle for some time now...), but let me just say that I liked it and I am glad I finally got around to it (like the other books).
12 Books You Can't Miss at Bookcon 2015 was a free download on iBooks that a friend told me about, and it had a load of samples of books that were going to be featured at BEA (in America), otherwise known as Bookcon, to state the obvious. It had a few samples that I didn't read all the way through because I wasn't that interested, and one that I didn't read at all because it would have been a bit spoilery for me, but otherwise I really enjoyed the selection - even if it has increased my TBR once more.
Exquisite Corpse and The Catalyst were review books, please click the links above to find out more about what I thought. Both of these were pretty good, but didn't quite hit the mark for me unfortunately.
The Heart of Understanding... you may say from my 'books acquired' list that I have grabbed a few books on Buddhism lately, and the only thing that I can say about this is that I am in the mood. I don't count myself as a devoted Buddhist, but I probably follow Buddhism more than anything else because a lot of it makes sense to me, and I find that the teachers I have approached - either in real life or through books - have been gentle and encouraging without being demanding, which I appreciate. The Heart of Understanding is a very short book, but extremely interesting and talks about what we are made of, and a few other relatively philosophical topics. I find Thich Nhat Hanh to be such a gentle writer, slowly leading his readers to understanding without the use of force, and I love that. I will continue to read his work as often as I am able.
Finally, lets talk about Animal Farm. I am trying very hard to read some more classics this year and so I headed to my local library to grab out a big pile of them. Animal Farm gravitated to the top quite quickly, as I have had trouble reading his work before - I find that 1984 is difficult for me. I can't seem to read more than a few chapters without having my depression triggered and having to go and read something happy for a while to remind myself of the good in the world. I have no doubt that it is an important book, but that doesn't change the fact that I can't seem to read it. I had a few readings this semester by Orwell and, while one was similar to 1984 and made me feel depressed, the other (called 'Why I Write') was a wonderful read and made me wonder if I could read more of his work. And Animal Farm proved that hunch right. Granted, it is very short, but it was also interesting, and such a timeless book. I am thinking I might try Down and Out in Paris and London next.
And that was May! Geez, it feels like it was simultaneously long and way too short. Oh well. Onto June!
What are you reading at the moment?
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