What I read in May

3 great books read this month. I'd recommend them all. 

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

Even though I'd recommend this book, it is not for everyone. If you enjoy Jeanette's novels (and I do), this book will be of interest to you. It's about her childhood, her relationship with her adoptive parents and then finding her birth mother as a grown up. Part of me wishes I hadn't read this as I think it will influence how I read her work from now on. The other part of me likes knowing a little bit more about one of my favourite authors. Jeanette is a lesbian. Her adoptive parents, especially the mother, were evangelists. It was a rough childhood and she left home as a teenager. But I like how Jeanette looks back on it and can see the many sides of her adoptive mom. 

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

I've seen this author's name pop up on other lists, so I thought I would give her a try. I read it in a day and I guess I liked it. It's around 400 pages but one of the big little lies, I had figured out by page 100. Not sure if I was supposed to. I enjoyed this book more for learning the technique of writing. I pretty much knew the ending but I wanted to see how the author got there. Was it believable? There was only one little twist I didn't see coming but it made sense. An enjoyable book. I'd read another of hers.

Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science - and the World by Rachel Swaby

This was a great book and I might be buying one for every young lady I know. So many women ignored in history. I loved learning about them. This should be an assigned book in Middle School and each student pick a woman to research. Or find someone new. I knew a few of the women - Sally Ride, Ada Lovelace, Florence Nightingale - but a lot I had never heard of. So many of them went unpaid or were denied access to education just because they were women. We should be ashamed. Read it.