Recap – April 2020
April felt like an improvement in many ways than March; as I got into the new normal, enjoyed the sunny days and read a little in the garden.
Scheduled – To be Read
I read about half of the books that I had planned to read so not very successful in trying to avoid building up a mini backlog. But hey ho, these things happen.
Unscheduled – Happened to read
The only reason that I got to The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, was because Alexa enticed me with her robotic voice and forced me to listen. After reading the synopsis for Hyenas, I had to find out more about this take on zombies. Totally worth it.
Home School Reads
This new section incorporates the books that I’m reading with the kids and as a consequence is likely to span a couple of months depending when we started.
So of the two, I highlighted last month, I’ve finished The Last Wild by Piers Torday by rushing ahead and reading by myself, (though still listening on a daily basis via Instagram). The Sign of Four, we’re reading three chapters a week so we will finish in May. Plus towards the end of April, we added up another audiobook, but more about that in the May Preview.
Advance Reader Copy or obtained from the author directly
Book of the Month
High Rise Mysteries by Sharna Jackson was a deserved winner for book of the month. This detective team comprised of sisters, use their prowess, science and deduction to solve a murder on their housing estate. These capable young women let the clues solve this mystery. Along the way, they find out more about their neighbours and a few surprising secrets about family and friends. Got to get to the sequel Mic Drop soon.
Meh of the Month
The winner of this unenviable prize this month is The Black Sky by Timothy D. Minneci. I find it difficult to give up on a book and sometimes that is more of a curse than a blessing. I persevered until the end and was not rewarded. It was painful.
It’s not that it’s a bad book – there were good ideas just not conveyed well. Resulting in a series of notes and highlights that got increasingly critical. I should in hindsight have stopped reading after the lead character defaulted to smirking as his go to response.
Thankfully it didn’t succeed in putting me off reading for too long and I have plenty of exciting reads for May to look forward to.
Square Eyes Time
I spent some time on Twitter but watched a lot more tv than normal. Finally caught up with Season 2 of Westworld. “Kiksuya” which means “Remember” in Lakota, is the eighth episode and it was gut-wrenching to watch. After everything that had gone before, it was amazing to still have the capacity to be sickened by Delos’ treatment of hosts, in this case, the Ghost Nation hosts. Without a doubt, the standout episode for me in this season. Must watch tv.
This touching episode and a number of others, plus movies were totally marred by the service of NowTV. Admittedly it was on a trial deal, yet I expected better. Instead, we faced poor service irrespective of the time of day: movies/episodes frequently freezing every 10 minutes (not an exaggeration). Having to exit to the home screen and restarting if we were lucky or worse yet, an error message saying there was a problem aka the kiss of death. Thereafter service was gone for a period of hours. If we saw a show from beginning to end without a hitch, we counted ourselves very lucky indeed.
However, not to conclude on a low note – thank goodness for the lovely weather as that helped a lot.
What’s Up in May
May has several fine books on the list, take a peak here for the preview.
