A selection of quotes and pictures to represent May’s reading:

commonplace book
noun
a book into which notable extracts from other works are copied for personal use.

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A certain freedom of action was required in any relationship, even if caring deeply for a person you love also brought a type of freedom in itself.

24 Hours in Shogun’s Japan by Mark Hudson (2026)

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Aren’t memories like cats, either impossible to put out, or resistant to all attempts to call them to you?

Murder at the Spirit Lounge by Jess Kidd (2026)

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As one Polish architect put it to me, “Daylight is free. If something is free, people kind of neglect the importance of it.”

The Inner Clock by Lynne Peeples (2024)

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‘I’d rather die,’ Bridget said. On occasion she could be as melodramatic as Rose. ‘I will only marry a man if he has a good library.’

The Fourth Queen by Nicola Cornick (2026)

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Don’t tell me that’s of no importance. You’d be mistaken. You’d be like those rich people who like to claim that money doesn’t matter. That’s because they have it, damn it! But what about when you don’t? Have you ever known what it’s like not to have any?

Letter to My Judge by Georges Simenon (1947)

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Yet now, seeing her vulnerable, human side, Yvette realised how easy it was to judge people by the armour they wore. She considered how often one didn’t know what people had gone through and what suffering they carried within them.

The Lost Orphans of Lyon by Helen Parusel (2026)

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Mila nodded her agreement. She thought how, in a way, summer days did last forever. It was only the people who changed; the younger generation constantly replacing the old.

The Sea Sisters by Louise Douglas (2026)

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Because war is still war, perhaps less artful, less effective, less heroic than the bards sing it, but still deadly, still widow-making and orphan-fathering, still tragic. On the canvas of the Trojan War, it is the depth of the colour that counts, not the exactitude of the lines.

Son of Nobody by Yann Martel (2026)

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I pass over the spectacle of Poirot on a camel. He started by groans and lamentations and ended by shrieks, gesticulations and invocations to the Virgin Mary and every Saint in the calendar. In the end, he descended ignominiously and finished the journey on a diminutive donkey. I must admit that a trotting camel is no joke for the amateur. I was stiff for several days.

Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie (1924)

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He forgot that love, which is a madness, and a scourge, and a fever, and a delusion, and a snare, is also a mystery, and very imperfectly understood by everyone except the individual sufferer who writhes under its tortures.

Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1862)

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The solitude and his own company suited him and days like this, when everything was white and the trees were skeletal, didn’t bother him. It just made the Northumbrian countryside more stunning. Yet it also made you realise what a tiny part of the world you inhabited as a human being.

And that was the part that, if you dwelt on it too much, could freak you out.

The Witch’s Stone by Kirsty Ferry (2026)

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Favourite books read in May:

The Lost Orphans of Lyon and Lady Audley’s Secret

Authors read for the first time in May:

Mark Hudson, Helen Parusel, Lynne Peeples and Kirsty Ferry

Places visited in my May reading:

England, Japan, France, Egypt, USA, Canada

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Reading notes: May has been a good month of reading and I was particularly pleased to finish two nonfiction books, as reading more nonfiction was one of my resolutions for the year. Lady Audley’s Secret was a re-read for me (another of my resolutions was to do some re-reading!) and I’ll be reviewing it tomorrow for FictionFan’s review-along. Otherwise, my other outstanding reviews will appear eventually!

This year’s 20 Books of Summer challenge begins tomorrow. I posted my plans last week and although there are some books I’m definitely hoping to get to this summer, I’m also going to allow myself plenty of flexibility, particularly as I’ll be away for a week in June and a week in July. There are some other reading events taking place this summer as well, beginning with Mallika’s cat-themed Reading the Meow event, which runs from 15-21 June, and I have at least one book lined up for that.

Have you read any good books this month? What are you hoping to read in June?