May TBR

Mark Joseph Jochim

May 1

April was the only full month of the school holiday as School Year 2024 finished on 14 March and School Year 2025 will start on 9 May. I read nine books, most of them quite lengthy. I ranked FIVE books at five stars which is quite unusual for me. One of those was non-fiction and three made me cry at the end. Such an emotional response is always a hallmark of a great book. It was difficult for me to choose a favorite this month but I believe it was the last novel I finished.

I finished three books that were not included on my published April TBR. One of those was my first five-star novel of month while the third was the most disappointing. There were two books on the list that I did not finish -- I started one Sunday evening and the other has been pushed back until June. Maybe.

The thumbnail for the May TBR is based on my Bullet Journal cover page for this month. As I mentioned, the new school year starts this month and I sketched an image of my school with its flagpole as well as a Thai teacher, two kindergarten students, and a chubby grey-haired foreign teacher with glasses (that's me!). As the annual monsoons also start in May, I had tried some sketches with the children wearing rain ponchos. The white and pink uniforms worked better.

Books Finished in April:

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (published February 10, 2015) ***
The United States of English: The American Language from Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century by Rosemarie Ostler (published August 29, 2023) *****
The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life(Before 8AM) by Hal Elrod (published December 7, 2012) ****
Dead Fall by Brad Thor (published July 11, 2023) *****
The Last Train to London by Meg Waite Clayton (published September 10, 2019) *****
We Are Not Alone: The Extraordinary History of UFOs and Aliens Invading Our Hopes, Fears, and Fantasies by Marc Hartzman (published October 17, 2023) ***
The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner (published March 19, 2019) *****
Positivity: Confidence, Resilience, Motivation by Paul McKenna (published January 6, 2022) **
These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant (published November 16, 2021) *****

My May TBR features only one hold-over from April. Two nights ago, I started reading Paul Theroux account of several road trips along the Mexican border and in the interior. It is moving along much faster that I thought it would (the eBook is more than 1,000 pages long) and I will likely finish it by the end of this week. I pushed a science fiction novel by Christopher Paolini back to at least June. I have to be in just the right mood for sci-fi.

Four of the ten books currently on my reading list for May are novels. One of the six non-fiction works was "rediscovered" when compiling Monday's "5 On My TBR" and another was inspired by a novel I read in April. There is a teaching manual of sorts (always striving for professional development), a text intended for the Bookish Books reading challenge, and yet another motivational type of book, this time about writing.

I had a difficult time choosing which book I would read for this month's Crossing Continents Challenge as the prompt is "A Book Set in Central America." If only I had termed it "Mesoamerica", I could have used any of my vast number of books set in Mexico. With school starting, I did not want to choose anything "literary" as these slow me down and my time will again be limited with the focus redirected onto my students (pre-K) for the next few months. While I would have loved to have put Cristina Henríquez's new novel, The Great Divide, on this TBR, I think that the thriller is the better choice for May.

Books Planned to Read in May:

On The Plain Of Snakes: A Mexican Journey by Paul Theroux (published October 8, 2019)
The Sacred Bridge by Anne Hillerman (published April 12, 2022)
The Trackers by Charles Frazier (published April 11, 2023)
Argylle by Elly Conway (published January 9, 2024)
Beneath a Panamanian Moon by David Terrenoire (published January 1, 2005)
The Heart of the World: A Journey to the Last Secret Place by Ian Baker
The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America's Only Family Internment Camp During World War II by Jan Jarboe Russell (published January 20, 2015)
Habits of Highly Effective Teachers: The Ultimate Guide To Practical Behaviour Management That Works! by Marie Amaro (published September 17, 2018)
Great Short Books: A Year of Reading — Briefly by Kenneth C. Davis (published November 22, 2022)
The Power of Writing It Down: A Simple Habit to Unlock Your Brain and Reimagine Your Life by Allison Fallon (published January 12, 2021)

Which, if any, of these books have you read? What are you planning to read in May? Do you have any favorite back-to-school books? Please let me know by commenting below.