The Return of the Late Wrap-Up | May 2023 Edition 

Uh . . . Allen . . . It's almost the end of July. But it's always lovely to see you!!! 😁

This made me think we were still in june for a good 3 minutes 😭

This feels like booktube gaslighting.

I love hearing your point of view

Phew - now I can finally close off May. Yay ….

Better late than never 🤪Yeeeesss, The Risen Kingdoms deserves more love!! Jean-Claude and Isabelle are fantastic, I can't get enough of them. You also got me even more excited to get to Kithamar, I can't wait!

I have no recollection of what I read in May but cheers to you for having a great month.

And I always feel slow doing the pervious month book haul on the 10th.

Adult fantasy can be challenging via audio! I'm glad you enjoyed The Blade Itself! It could've been a 5-star read? Wow, this makes me so excited to hear your thoughts as you continue! My favorite May read was A Shadow in Summer. Oh, wait, that was June!

I bought Unoffendable by Brant Hansen after your review of it during your last wrap-up and enjoyed it so much I bought his other three books as well. He has a very good sense of humor in his writing but also writes beautifully about some more emotionally difficult topics as well.

12:30 strong isn't the man who is best at wrestling but the one that keeps his anger in check

Can't quite get a ton of books going anymore. Looks like all I finished in May was The Fall of Babel and Assassin's Quest (Farseer/Hobb). I think I had a couple other things in progress, but those 2 were 5 stars for me. Still really liked The Fall of Babel, even though I get the hate it gets.

YES the Strumpet returns! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

My faborite read in May was absolutely Gardens of the Moon. People overhyped the crap out of the difficulty and it wss the most cracked DnD type story Ive ever read, epic for the sake of being epic and doesnt pull any punches but embraces all of the ideas jn western fantasy. Alongside all that I loved exploration of Imperalism, cultural imperialism and makijg the true Enemy an abstract construct that is the Empire, and not necessarily the people who got caught up in it. I wish I had time for gsming last game i finished was God of War 2018 which i LOVED, so hopefully i can get to either replaying the Ezio trilogy or Bloodborne (never finished a Souls game but recently got into Lovecraft mythos and I wanna play it now so badly). Great video allen! Happy you enjoyed First Law. I think you'll love the 2nd book way more. It has a lot of political scheming and that was so fun to read.

In May I finished «The Dervish House» by Ian McDonald, «The Little Emperors» by Alfred Duggan, «The Veiled Throne» by Ken Liu (book #3 in the «Dandelion Dynasty», it is a real chunker at about 1000 pages and I had to reread several pages and paragraphs, they are so good! Book of both the month AND the year (so far!)) and I also read «Sailor of the Sea of Fate» by Michael Moorcock (in the «Elric Saga»), and I see now my edition also included «The Weird of the Wolf».

My favourite reads of May were Age of Ash, Shadows Linger, No Country for Old Men and Empire in Black & Gold. I appreciated Black Company book one much more on re-read and I also enjoyed White Rose. I enjoyed Wasp Factory by Iain Banks but I don't know how to feel about the last 3rd. I love Banks' Sci-Fi so I look forward to reading more of his non Sci-Fi.

Ooooof that 2-star history read sounded god awful. Glad you had so many 5-star reads though, and you have me so pumped to try the Risen Kingdom and the Asian Saga!

My favorite for May was Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, but I also enjoyed my reread of The Hobbit. I read The Last Kingdom, my third Bernard Cornwell, and this time I have the other books in the series to continue the series. I read some YA fantasy and finished reading Skeleton Crew by Stephen King. I also thought Time and Again by Jack Finney was pretty good.

I've added Ghost on the Throne to the TBR pile for August!

Its funny I don't think I've seen anyone say they dislike Glokta yet, most reviews have this moment where the person just says how is a torturer my favourite

Woo-hoo, Tai-Pan as book of the month! I'll likely read Gai-Jin in September or October.

Curious to see what you think of Before They Are Hanged. Everyone kept telling me I would like it more than The Blade Itself and I didn't! Still loved it, though.

I liked the narrator's voice for Age of Ash, but it kinda felt like she was phoning it in.

Think most of May was Blood Meridian. But reading Daughter of the Empire. Instead of orphaned farm boy you have orphaned princess. A lot more intrigue and less adolescent escapism than Magician.Those books aren't necessary but there are a few quirks about the world that are hinted at that might be a little confusing. So you don't like the name Pug, thoughts on Pape? Regarding non fiction, there are a lot of historical events that read like a novel or characters that seem made up but aren't.

Back in time, I actually have to double check my goodreads to see what I read all "so long ago"! I read Assail by Ian C Esslemont, the whole The Last War trilogy by Mike Shackle and both the Blood Song and the Tower Lord by Anthony Ryan. Favorite book definitely Blood Song, but The Last War trilogy as a whole is better than the Raven's Shadow trilogy. I can't recommend both series enough, really good stuff.

I could not remember what I read in May. After checking my Goodreads, it makes sense why I remembered nothing. Because nothing was a standout read, out of 8 books. I guess my best book in May was Bloodline by Will Wight, book 8 in the Cradle series. I also read a decent memoir called Bad Cadet. I like reading memoirs of people who escape from cults, and this was a new one about scientology. So yeah, not a super great reading month.

Yeah the Age of Ash audio was not good. Which is why even when I DNF'D I knew I would try it again physically. I have the audiobook for Ghost on the Throne so good to know its awesome

My husband and son are super into supernatural nature (bigfoot, dogman, werewolves) and they loved The Quarry. I don't get it, I thought it was dumb too.

it's exciting to see Christian nonfiction writers tackling toxic masculinity!

Love the Demons' Souls thumbnail. 👍

Ooh what a fantastic reading month. Shame about the 2 star although there is nothing worse in a non fic when the author keeps using a term theyve thought of for the book over and over again.

Oh yeah! My first time being first on this channel XD