Week in Reading: May 16th

Greetings from the lovely Minnesota, all! I'm writing this curled up on the couch in a log cabin in the woods somewhere outside of Minneapolis after a weekend of wedding celebrations and family and new friends. This trip was preceded by a whirlwind expedition to Book Expo America in Chicago--which was incredible--and my head and heart are full of books and travel and wonderful people.

I'll have several posts in the next few weeks coming up about Book Expo and the books discovered there. In the meantime, to clear up space for all the shiny new galleys on my radar following the show, I'm working on catching up on deadlines and book club books and other assignments:

I finished Marrow Island last week before leaving for Chicago, and while it was not what I expected, it was excellent. I loved its meditations on nature and the environment and the raw power of the world we live in. After that I devoured Mona Lisa, by Alexander Lernet-Holenia, in just about one sitting; this slim novella is an imagined origin story of the Mona Lisa painting and was not my usual reading jam, but fun nonetheless.

For book club tomorrow, I'm just about finished with Gutenberg's Apprentice, by Alix Christie; this historical novel got rave reviews but just is not clicking for me, so it's been a bit of a slog to get through. Once I finish that, I plan to break out The Tenth of December, the acclaimed short story collection from George Saunders, for my Mini-Long-Distance-Book Club read this month. And of course I still have Mr. Splitfoot on audio, which I'm loving so far.

By the time I wrap up all of these, my box of galleys should be arriving home from Chicago... and then the summer reading really begins.

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What's on your reading stack this week?