Recent reading-April and May

I've read more books recently than my blog would reflect. I don't have any desire to write full reviews for most of them, even tho they deserve it, so instead here's some quick and dirty comments on each.

• The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. I really enjoyed this one. Most reviews talk about how it's a book about books, and while it is I kind of felt that you could almost take him out of the bookstore and plop it in a bakery or something and write a similar book. Yeah, the chapters begin with bookish stuff, and I enjoyed that, but it was much more about the people than the books. I loved the writing style on this one.
• The Hanover Square Affair by Ashley Gardner. I picked this up on the recommendation of a work friend. This one is a historical mystery with a war veteran hero and was a refreshing break from my usual, with characters I enjoyed. If it had a problem it was that the hero figures out the guilty party with little explanation of how. It clearly sets the stage for a continuing series, and I plan to continue reading them.. One day...
• Shadow Spell by Nora Roberts. The second in her newest series about Irish witches. If you've read Nora Roberts OR my blog before you know how this will go. My library hold came up on a day I was home with a sick girl and I read the book in the course of the day. (Love ebooks, just download immediately and go!) Much better than the first book, but still not Roberts at her best.
• Run Like A Mother and Train Like a Mother by Diminity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea. Both lightweight books about (duh) running. Train like a Mother is more aimed at running races but both were very interesting to newbie runner me. More on both of them later. I do think their formatting suffered for being ebooks and would recommend the paper version. This is doubly true for Train Like A Mother. I read one on Kindle and one on Oyster and both platforms had problems.
• How Long is a Piece of String?: More Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life by Robert Eastaway. Very very mathy. Almost too mathy, and I say that as someone who voluntarily attended a Math high school. I skimmed the formulas and technical bits. Despite this, some really cool facts about things like how scams works and what elevators think about. I'd recommend it with caution, if you really like math. (Also all units and spelling are UK based.)

(Mine had a prettier cover)

 

Unrelated note, Blogsy hates pictures. I need a better app for blogging.

 

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