These are the seven books I read during the month of May.

· The Coming Bad Days, Sarah Bernstein. My second Bernstein novel, after her Study for Obedience. I love her style and the quiet ongoing grind of her words. Can’t wait for more.

· Nazi Literature in the Americas, Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews. An awesome fictional biographical dictionary of right-wing authors.

· The Coiled Serpent, Camilla Grudova. Fun short story collection with lots of graphic descriptions and great lists everywhere.

· Life Is Everywhere, Lucy Ives. Incredible novel, my introduction to Ives. Texts within texts within texts. Extremely impressive. Will read more of her work.

· 259 Leaps, The Last Immortal, Alicia Kozameh, translated by Clare Sullivan. This Argentine novel from a former political prisoner deftly explores exile.

· Berlin, Andris Kupriss, translated by Ian Gwin. Short story collection from Latvia that didn’t really do much for me.

· Hypocrisy: Moral Fraud and Other Vices, James S. Spiegel. Nonfiction work investigating Christian hypocrisy. Can’t say I agree with the conclusion but it helped my research for a short story.

There is a scene near the conclusion of ‘The End of Vandalism’ where a character who owns a campground is explaining to an engineer about the meandering path to the lake. He had complained that it should have been built straight. She claimed she thought it was straight. That is an apt metaphor for how I see this engaging novel unfolding. Short on plot but abounding in stories of the people living in the fictional rural-American Grouse County. Characters who see their lives as heading straight but actually meandering through highs and lows, good times and bad. The stories accumulate to paint a heartbreaking narrative of lifelong efforts to find a bit of happiness.

An aspect of the novel I particularly enjoyed was Drury’s abundant use of music, with liberal sprinkling of musician names, song titles and lyrics. The characters were steeped in music and albums and the CD appeared near the end of the novel, albeit with only one character: most others missed out on that questionable technological breakthrough. Another aspect I enjoyed was the slow decay of the rural county, its towns, and the quality of life of its citizens, summed up well by the narrator with ‘services were leaving Grafton like seed from a dandelion.’

As I read the constant vignettes, I imagined a quilt or a web slowly being built. Intersecting lives, chance meetings and near misses, more and more odd decisions and chances taken. Characters lost on their own meandering paths. A very engaging read and a wakeup call to enjoy and appreciate the journey.