Well, life just keeps on getting more complicated and frustrating, but also the sun is shining and we survived the first heatwave of the year.

Highlights of the month include seeing Robin Ince live as part of Bristol’s Skeptics in the Pub/Theatre lecture series run by Bristol Skeptics Society. Ince is a comedian, science communicator and all-around lovely human being and his live show is brilliant. Go see him if you can. And either way, read his books. There are quite a lot of them.

Books read

May Day by Jackie Kay
I remembered I had this on the TBR shelf in time to pick it up on 1 May. It’s a collection of poems inspired by Jackie Kay’s parents and their political activism. Subjects include International Workers’ Day marches, strikes and other protests. But also other memories of her parents. I didn’t love every poem, but there were definitely some in here that I loved.

Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal: My Adventures in Neurodiversity by Robin Ince
A few years ago, Ince was diagnosed with ADHD and it completely changed his life. This book is part memoir, part information about neurodivergence – mostly autism and ADHD. There are lots of quotes from medical experts, as well as some of Ince’s friends and other people living with ADHD or autism. His premise is that many of us are a bit weird and different from what is considered “normal”, and whether or not that is down to neurodivergence, it is always good to be inclusive of everyone’s weird.

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig
Grace Winters is a retired teacher, widowed years ago, so she isn’t exactly who you would expect to up sticks and move to Ibiza. But someone she knew decades ago has died and left her a house, and Grace needs to figure out why before she can sell it and go back to her quiet life in England. This is a love letter to Ibiza; a tale of friendship, found family and second chances; and an SFF mystery adventure about caring for the environment. This is a sweet novel with a good message, but I wasn’t bowled over by it.

Bikes Not Rockets edited by Elly Blue
Another volume in the Bikes in Space series from Microcosm Publishing. These short stories are set in dystopian futures but otherwise the connection is the same ever: feminist SFF tales featuring bikes. The first few stories were absolutely brilliant and blew me away. The last few were a bit disappointing. But I still enjoyed this overall.

The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien
This surreal satire was the May read for my book club. It’s a very strange novel, hard to even begin to describe. Set in the Irish countryside and written in 1940, it begins with a murder and moves on policemen who are obsessed with bikes. For much of the novel I had no idea what was happening but I enjoyed the ride. Extremely confused by all the footnotes about a fictional academic that the main character is obsessed with. It was another excellent choice for a book club.

This Is Not the End of the Book by Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carrière
Translated from French by Polly McLean
I think I was feeling a bit ambitious when I bought this. It’s a curated conversation between the Italian and French literary giants, led by celebrated editor Jean-Philippe de Tonnac. Eco and Carrière are both collectors of rare books, as well as being authors. Their conversation covers such topics as the effect of the Internet on what people read; media formats; destructions of ancient libraries; the books they haven’t read; the books that become “canon” versus those that are forgotten; and what happens to personal libraries when people die. It’s all fascinating and surprisingly funny. But definitely not a quick read.

Violent Ward by Len Deighton
As well as writing some of the great British spy thrillers and the occasional alternative history, Deighton wrote this Raymond Chandler style thriller set in LA. Except it’s set in 1992 and the climax takes place during the LA riots. Mickey Murphy is a criminal lawyer who gets caught up in a tangle of overlapping cases. There are two women from his past, an adult son he needs to fix his relationship with, and a dodgy oligarch buying his firm. This is really fun, though as a literary work I thought SS-GB was better.

Interstellar Megachef by Lavanya Lakshminarayan
A queer SF tale about an intergalactic cooking show. This sounded like it would be completely silly fluff. Though it does have its sillier moments, and comedic ones too, this is largely a story about prejudice, migration, xenophobia and bullying. Saras has arrived on Primus with nothing but a small bag of belongings, her little robot Kili and a dream of winning the galaxy’s most watched, most prestigious cooking show, Interstellar MegaChef. But although the majority of Primus’ population is human, they consider themselves so superior to the population of Earth that Saras faces shocking levels of prejudice at every turn. I found this novel a little slow to start but I thoroughly enjoyed the ride once it got going.

The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell
This is an epic saga about three families, starting in 1904 and continuing into the near future. On the banks of the Zambezi river, near the Victoria Falls, a feverish British man, Italian hotelier and local African busboy become connected by what seems like a small incident. Most of this engrossing novel is straight-up historical fiction, based around the colonisation and then independence of Zambia. As the narrative moves into the 20th century, strands of SF are introduced, adding an extra element through which to explore postcolonialism. It’s multifaceted and beautifully written, but I did struggle a bit with constantly moving on several years to a new person or part of someone’s story.