Books Read In May 2022

 Eight books read this month....

Sharpe's Assassin by Bernard Cornwell is one I chose because a) I needed a small paperback for my bedtime reading and b) I thought this was an author I had read before and liked. It turns out that I had only read one of his books and thought it was okay but this book is #21 of  'The Sharpe Series'. I wasn't overly impressed. Perhaps if I had read the previous twenty books in the series? I doubt it.

Winter Of The World is the second of Ken Follett's Century Trilogy and continues following the five interrelated families from the first book. This one covers the rise of the Third Reich, through WWII and into the beginning of the Cold War. I have vivid memories of the Cold War.

The Last Mile and The Fix are books two and three in David Baldacci's Amos Decker series. I am loving this series and look forward to reading more Baldacci books after I've read the last three novels in this series.

The Edge Of Eternity is the final book of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett. It covers the 1960's through the 1980's - civil rights, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Vietnam, presidential impeachment - all the headline happenings of those tumultuous years. Even though I lived through those years, I learned more about what was going on than I knew at the time. Each of the books in this trilogy are almost 1,000 pages, so it takes a commitment to read them - but it is well worth it!

The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson follows a Dakhóta family's struggle to preserve their way of life through the continuity of seeds saved and nurtured by the women. And while the story is thoughtfully told, it is the message about seed-saving that is important. In her notes, Wilson quotes from the documentary, Seed, The Untold Story - "94 percent of our global seed varieties have already disappeared. The loss of our seed varieties is devastating for the genetic diversity of the earth, and for our survival as human beings."

I visited the Seed Savers Exchange near Decorah, Iowa several years ago. According to their website, seedsavers.org, the seed bank contains a collection of more than 20,000 rare, open-pollinated varieties. Their seed catalog is available free in the US. If you get a chance, though, I recommend visiting them in person. 

Violeta is Isabel Allende's latest book. Set in an unnamed South American country, it covers 100 years of one woman's life bookended by pandemics - the Spanish Flu and Covid-19. I liked the first two-thirds of the book, but I was tired of it before the end. It just felt like it was being continued to cover an entire century when I thought it had a more believable ending before that.

Run Rose Run is a collaboration between Dolly Parton and James Patterson. I'm a long time fan of Ms. Parton's while, to my recollection, I have never read any of Mr. Patterson's books. I became interested in reading this one after seeing a CBS Sunday Morning segment featuring the two and their working together to write the book. The TV segment was interesting, the book is not. If this is a fair example of Patterson's books, I won't bother reading any others. 

With Memorial Weekend over, summer has (un)officially begun. Time to read some beach books and relax. 😎📚