It’s time to recap what I’ve read this month. Two books were actually carry-overs from March but I count them in April as that’s when I finished reading them. Here’s a look at what I read:

The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu (my review)
The Dancing Girls of Lahore by Louise Brown
Consequences of Sin by Clare Langley-Hawthorne (my review)
Storm Front by Jim Butcher (my review)
The Anodyne Necklace by Martha Grimes
Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin (my review)
Astrid & Veronika by Linda Olsson (my review)

I didn’t quite meet my personal challenge to read a book of poetry in honor of National Poetry Month but I did find myself dipping into Loose Women by Sandra Cisneros, Music Like Dirt by Frank Bidart and Good Poems a lot.

I’m off to finish my book for book group!

I’ve spent most of my weekend trying to get ahead in Suite Française. I really like this book but it’s not at all what I expected. I think I expected a lot of battle scenes and I’m so glad that hasn’t been the case, but I’ll tell you more when I finish it. I can’t wait until book group on Tuesday to hear what the other members thought about the book.

In other book news I did select my three choices for Maggie’s Southern Reading Challenge. This one runs from June 1 through August 30. I was a bit surprised when I started going through my stacks and I realized I didn’t have that many authors/books to choose from for this challenge. Anyway, want to hear what my choices are? Here they are:

• Sights Unseen by Kaye Gibbons. From the editors: The good people of Bend of the River, North Carolina, politely refer to the beautiful Maggie Barnes as “the woman with all the problems.” But young Hattie sees her mother as a captivating manic-depressive worth caring for. This is the tender and irresistibly funny story of a child’s despairing love for her ill mother and the undying loyalty of a husband and extended family who go to great lengths to deal with a heartless woman’s volatile mood swings.
• Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson. From Library Journal: Forget steel magnolias-meet titanium blossoms in Jackson’s debut novel, a potent mix of humor, murder, and a dysfunctional Southern family.
• The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell by Loraine Despres. From Publisher’s Weekly: In 1920s smalltown Louisiana, a woman who got her hair bobbed at a barbershop, bathed “indecently” and spent her free time carousing with her best friend’s married Yankee brother would hardly be considered the portrait of a proper lady. But protagonist Belle Cantrell isn’t after virtue, she’s after independence.

I think I’m in for some good times don’t you think?

There is also another challenge I just heard about, New Notions Challenge, which sounds very tempting too. The challenge is to pick five books that you believe will challenge your thinking about any topic. This one starts May 1 and goes on through September.

Now I need to ask my husband for some help so I can put my challenge buttons on my blog. I really need to remember how to do that. Oh and wish me luck everyone, I start reading Don Quixote this week!

Over the past few days I’ve finished and started some books. I hope this weekend I’ll have quite a bit of reading time available as I’m very behind on a book group read. Why do I always procrastinate so much? I think it’s because I want to make sure the story will still be fresh in my mind but half of the time I’m rushing to finish it.

Anyway, I have finished Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin and Astrid & Veronika by Linda Olsson. The book links take you to my reviews. I quite liked both books although I’m leaning more towards Astrid & Veronika, perhaps because after The Myth of You and Me, which I read last month and didn’t like much, I was left wanting to read a good friendship story. This one was more to my taste.

The books I’m currently juggling are very different in tone but both I’m enjoying and am finding it hard to choose between them. Suite Française by Irene Nemirovsky is the book I’m trying to finish up by Tuesday for book group discussion. So far I’ve only been able to read some of it during lunch time.

My evening read has been Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym. I meant to read this last year when I found out about it through Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust book. I quickly BookMooched a copy but of course by the time the book arrived I had moved on to something else. This cozy little book has some very witty women and a lot of keen observations. I get the feeling I’ll be looking for more of Pym’s novels after this one. At least I hope so.