May Reading

What I've been reading, doing, loving in May

Jun 01, 2026

This is my monthly wrap up where I talk about some of my favourite things from the last month. What I’m reading, enjoying, looking forward to—sort of anything floating my boat.

Here is an overview of how my month went:

Hiked the Seven Sisters!
Have wanted to do it forever, and it was so worth the wait
Celebrated 10 years of the International The Booker Prizes, where Dua Lipa talked along with some really inspiring writers, translators and historians
Went to Dublin for ~43 hours and had a lovely time!
Saw Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe in Romeo & Juliet on the West End, which was exceptional. A must-see!!
Am participating in the marathon that is the first summer after moving to a city people want to visit, it’s fab and busy!

I’m writing all of this from the middle of a London heatwave, so I can’t be held responsible for any incoherence or typos… It’s just where I’m at <3

What I Read

Below is a rundown of every book I read last month. I’ll be adding a star next to my standouts, like a starred review where a star isn’t a 1 to 5 scale, it just means good!

Before the written ramblings, here is a video version of my monthly wrap up if you’re more of a visual person:

The Director by Daniel Kehlmann (tr. by Ross Benjamin)

I didn’t plan to read so much from the International Booker Prize Shortlist, but I was happy to get to most of them before the prize was announced. A caveat to my read is that this is not my kind of book—I typically stay away from historical fiction and WWII narratives because they never really work for me.

This is the story of an acclaimed Austrian filmmaker and his life before, during and after the events of WWII. It is loosely based on the life of the director G. W. Pabst as he made his way to Hollywood only to flop and return home just in time to live under a dictatorship.
I was surprised at how much this book captivated me for the reason stated above. The filmmaking element really drew me in, specifically the discussions of art under oppression and this compulsion to make art even if it serves a cause you don’t align with.

The book is episodic, almost like a short story collection, so some of the bits were so poignant and others fell flat. Overall, this makes it even out somewhere between okay and like. I would say this landed fourth in my ranking of the International Booker Prize Shortlist.

Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-zi (tr. by Lin King) ★

The winner of the 2026 International Booker Prize!! I’m so happy to have squeezed this one in before it was announced (thank you to the London Library System).

This is set in Taiwan in the 1930s, and it’s the story of a celebrated Japanese author who travels to Taiwan to write about food and culture. Her and her interpreter develop a strong bond and deep relationship through this experience.
The conceit of the book itself is that it is a piece of lost literature being translated again—sort of a Russian nesting doll of translation with a book within a book, footnotes from the fictional and actual translator.

I loved this book, I read it in two sittings on the train to and from a long hike. The way it discusses food and language and translation, and how all these things carry culture on their backs and make it possible to share it. It also discusses colonization in a really fascinating way. The entire novel, we are in the shoes of this traveller who believes she is celebrating this place by finding that it’s actually lovely. Everything is comparison, everything is treated as exotic.

At the core of the novel is a love story that never was. It’s a near miss between these two people that can’t be together because of the time, because of their positions in society, or because of something else entirely.

This was sensational, and I’m so happy it won the prize. A queer book by a queer author winning a major prize? Hell yeah.

Fruit Fly by Josh Silver (out August 4th in North America)

This book is currently plastered all over London. Billboards, posters on most of the tube system, bookstore window takeovers… I can’t escape it, so I had to read it. Because of all this promotion of the book, I assumed it was going to be more on the literary side (looking back that makes no sense, yet that was my state of mind going into it) but that is just not the case.

Fruit Fly is a thriller about a washed up writer who can’t find her voice so she takes someone else’s. It’s been 10 years since her big hit debut and she has writer’s block, but when she meets a gay junkie the words start pouring out of her.
The story twists and turns, it’s dark and gritty, I’m actually surprised it’s getting this level of push given how queer it is. It’s not sanitized… it goes there.

Based off the description of this book, I thought it might feel similar to Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. While they are in the same world, I think this book’s execution is more interesting. It’s not really reliant on an understanding of the publishing industry to create tension. I was on the edge of my seat and biting my nails while reading this.

I enjoyed this and I think it’s the perfect book to get lost in over a spiralling heatwave week.

they by Helle Helle (tr. by Martin Aitken)

In the UK, this book is published by a very cool new indie on the scene, Akoya. Their covers caught my eye, their selection is curated and tasteful, I’m really loving what they are doing. This is my first book from them and I’m excited to read more.

This is set in the 1980s in a small Danish town, and follows a mother and daughter as they go about their days. School, work, friends, relationships, family, it all unfolds at a molasses pace. One thing that moves in silence through all of this is the mother’s illness. This permeates their entire lives almost so quietly you could miss it if you didn’t know to look.

It’s intimate and bare bones, definitely of the plotless variety of literary fiction, but I liked it. This won’t be for everyone, it almost wasn’t for me because it’s so slow and mundane. What sold it for me was the silence of illness and how tastefully done it was.

Heartburn by Nora Ephron

I love Nora Ephron movies but somehow never read this book (her only novel!!!). Every time I see it in a charity shop or a used books store, the cover makes me recoil (All versions of this book have an ugly cover. Seriously, look it up.). Despite this, I finally read it.

Heartburn is about a woman who is seven months pregnant when she discovers that her husband is in love with another woman. What follows is nearly 200 pages of witty commentary and shenanigans, all in an 80s sitcomesque romp.
There really isn’t much more to this, but I don’t think there was meant to be. It’s an extremely streamlined story that happens to be very directly inspired by the dissolution of her own marriage. She managed to take this harrowing situation and turn it into a really compelling piece of art.

This so clearly has the Nora Ephron DNA. She writes about love and heartbreak in such a specific way, and you can tell even her early work is doing that so well. I haven’t seen the movie that was made after this book but with Meryl Streep at the helm, I can’t imagine not enjoying that as well.

Dark Rides by Derek McCormack ★

Somehow I missed the memo about this cult classic queer novel about being gay in a small town in Canada that came out in the 90s. I had to read it immediately when I found out about it.

This is what I’ve been calling a “vignettes novel.” It’s a novel because of the sum of its parts, but each of those parts could stand on its own as a story. Here, the vignettes are snappy bits of a young gay guy trying to survive in rural Ontario in the 1950s. Clandestine hookups, farmhand life, conversion therapy, it’s all packed into these moments.

I was really struck by the impact of this book after finishing it. As it’s happening, it was just breezy and seamless, but easy doesn’t mean plain here. There’s a really intricate and specific story being told and I had never read it quite like this. Rural Ontario, Canadiana, the 1950s, queerness, it’s not something I know anything about. I loved it.

As soon as I finished it, I knew I’d come back to it time and time again.

Hello, Limerence by Momo Yamaguchi ★

Months ago, I met Momo at a Faber event here in London. Based off her vibe alone, I knew I would enjoy her book.

This is about Mika, a 25 year old virgin working in boring office job in Tokyo. She enjoys thinking about boys, fantasizing about violent email replies, talking shit with/about her friends, and having crushes.
She dates, she fucks, she gets ghosted, she dates, she ghosts, she plans her imaginary future wedding, she loses friends… It comes at you at breakneck speed, but it’s done so well.

There’s a modernity in this book that is so often reached for, but very seldomly attained. It was written by a person who understands what a meme is and has existed in the digital world. There’s a voice to this character that is like Hannah Horvath but more likeable, Carrie Bradshaw but more unhinged, Cinderella but horny (I don’t really know anything about Cinderella, but you get the gist).

After finishing it, I immediately texted people about it. I want to recommend it to so many people, yet I know it’s not going to be for all of them. Me, personally? I love mess, I love freaky, I loved this.

Famesick by Lena Dunham

I am but a humble reader unable to resist the pressures of reading a juicy celebrity memoir that has the town abuzz. If there was going to be discourse about this, I needed to know.

When I first watched Girls as it was airing, I was inspired by this person who was doing so much at such a young age. Even now, I still feel so taken by Lena Dunham, the writer. She has a quality that not many people have, the je ne sais quoi, and it’s on full display here.

This is a memoir mostly focused on Girls, the years after, the impact of the show on her as a person in the public eye. It’s also about two big breakups: one friendship and one longterm partner. While all of that was very interesting, my favourite part was her discussion of being ill.

She talks about having a chronic illness and how people treat you as a person who’s not well all the time. She gives these people grace while also showing the ways they fell shorter than is acceptable. She highlights the medical system and its ongoing treatment of women.
So many of her lines about this stopped me in my tracks. Her pen is like none other.

I can’t say that I’ve seen much chatter about this book, all I’ve seen is people disliking her as a person (I don’t have a fully formed opinion about that, but I’m happy to be swayed). What I can say is, this is a very well written, thoughtful exploration of her very unique position: the kind of girl whose wildly successful memoir will only remind people of how annoying they think she is.

So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell

I only read this because Ann Patchett forced me to. Well, not exactly, but the lore is that Ann Patchett was so fond of this book, she strong-armed publishers into doing a reprint of it. That was enough to get me interested.

It’s the story of two boys in 1920s Illinois, in a small town, where something tragic happens. This event goes on to shape the rest of these boys’ lives. It’s told from the perspective of one of them as he’s much older and looking back on his life. The recollection is hazy, his reliability is questionable, the tension exists in the why not the what of the event.

I can’t say I loved this. It moves extremely slowly and feels a bit confusing as you go. It’s hard to have a grasp on which way is up in the story. There’s a lot of lying and imagining on the narrator’s part which also makes it hard to get a good foothold.

The end sort of sells the entire novel, but getting there was a challenge so it’s a tough recommendation to make. I’m happy I read it because I got to the end and it took that to appreciate what it was doing, but I won’t reach for it again.

On My Bedside Table

A dispatch from my bedside table and the books that litter it, hoping to be read soon.

Having Spent Life Seeking by Kae Tempest, a person returns to their hometown after 15 years of estrangement
Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor, a painter from the south starts dating a former priest in Manhattan
Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin (tr. by Bonnie Huie), the coming of age of a group of queer misfits in 1980s Taiwan
Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly, a love triangle with artists at the centre
Heap Earth Upon It by Chloe Michelle Howarth, four orphaned siblings in Ireland in the 1960s working towards a fresh start

Have you read any of these? Are any of these non-negotiables? Are any of them skippable?

What did you read and love in May?!

Let me know in the comments!

That’s been my month! Typos (if any) were made on purpose, obviously.

Until next time 🤠

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