Everything I Read in May, 2026

May:

56. We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida - Several interconnected stories tell the tale of people who are having difficulties and go to what they think is a psychiatric office that's been recommended to them. Instead, they find a rude receptionist and a lively man in a doctor's coat (but is he a doctor?) Instead of listening to them and prescribing medication, he prescribes each of the patients a cat. A cat is brought out, the patient is given instructions and a starter pack of necessities, and the cat (or cats, in one case) cause positive life changes. I've wanted to read We'll Prescribe You a Cat since it was released and I have to say . . . I was disappointed. I don't know if it was just the wrong time for me or just not the right story but there were some sad parts: the story of a cat that disappeared and a memory of kittens found in an alley that didn't end well. Clearly, I'm extra sensitive after the loss of my soul cat, Isabel, so it could just be the timing. It made me cry alligator tears and I just didn't get the magical realism. While there may be answers in the companion novel, I don't plan to read it. 

57. Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky - Hot Air tells the story of 4 adults. Johnny and Joannie are kissing in his backyard during the first date Joannie has had in 7 years. She's not enjoying the kiss, although his house is much nicer than her apartment so there's that. Then, a hot air balloon suddenly crashes into Johnny's pool. Jonathan and Julia were taking a hot air balloon ride for their anniversary. They're billionaires and, oddly, Jonathan gave Joannie her first kiss (but then he was a jerk, after). What follows is a little revenge by Julia, an obsession with Joannie's daughter, Lucy, a bit of strange, unnecessary couple-swapping, and two days of Julia finding out what parenthood is like. Joannie has written one award-winning novel that's no longer on the shelves and her life has spiraled into a decline. Will hanging out with a billionaire and his wife make things worse or inspire her? I'm not telling. But, I will say . . . I hate affair books and initially thought I wasn't going to like this book; but it's not really about an affair. It's about reexamining your life after bad behavior and it's also about how easily things can spin out of control, which seems to be Dermansky's specialty. There were moments I hated but I ended up really enjoying the book, particularly the ending. 

58. Cat Massage, Vol. 3 by Haru Hisakawa - I've read the first in this manga series but skipped one because the second volume didn't have great reviews. Cat Massage is about a group of cats who run a massage business. This 3rd volume has around 5 stories and the one I recall reading about before I bought the book is a story in which the cats get competition when some dogs come in and set up a massage business nearby. My favorite, though, is a story in which the cats go on-site to a business to give massages to stressed-out and frazzled employees. After doing most of their job, the cats fall asleep on a glass-top table and one by one, the employees get down on the floor under the table to admire the cute little toe beans they can see through the glass. Hilarious. I will not likely buy any more from this series but I smiled all the way through both Volumes 1 and 3, so I'm keeping them for rereads when I need an easy upper. 

59. Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura - Lonely Castle in the Mirror is a "through the looking glass" story in which seven children (in 7th-9th grades) who have dropped out of school go through a shining mirror in their respective homes and end up in a castle. There, they're given a quest to find a hidden key that will grant one of them a wish. But, they have about 9 months to hang out in the castle and get to know each other or search for the key. The castle closes at 5pm and if they aren't out of the castle by closing time, they'll be eaten by a wolf. A weird but gripping and twisty story about mental health not being addressed well in Japan. There are occasional school scenes so it provides an interesting peek into what school life is like in Japan. I was unsure about this book when I started but every time it started to plod a bit, some twist was thrown in and it ended up one of those books I kept thinking about long after closing it. 

60. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells - Continuing my alien invasion reading from April, I read the singular, classic read that began it all. Published in 1898, The War of the Worlds tells the story of a man who is looking through his friend's telescope when something is shot from the surface of Mars. Within days, cylinders start arriving and aliens from Mars begin a harrowing invasion that includes a heat ray, poison gas, and tentacles that suck the blood from living humans. I'm surprised the blood sucking didn't end up in my nightmares.The unnamed narrator has many close calls but survives to tell the tale. 

In the midst of the reading, I was having a blue day so I watched the 1954 version of the movie, which takes place in California rather than London and surrounding area. It retains the bones of the book, to a certain extent, but Hollywood came up with its own visuals. It was a great diversion. When I first started reading, I wondered if I'd be able to wrap my mind around an invasion set in the 19th Century with Martians when we now know the planet is uninhabited. No problem. H. G. Wells could write. It was intense and I was absolutely invested. By far the best of the alien invasion books I've read, so far. I'm a little nervous that everything else will feel derivative after reading the ultimate classic alien invasion but I'm willing to find out!

61. Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson - Lillian was kicked out of school after her mother accepted payment for Lillian to take the blame for her best friend Madison's antics. Now, she works in a grocery store, lives with her disinterested mother, and is both directionless and filled with regrets. She's still in touch with Madison, who is now married to a senator. When Madison calls to offer Lillian a job, she jumps at the chance without knowing what the job entails. At Madison's house outside Nashville, she finds out the senator's children with his first wife are coming to stay, but there's a little problem. When they get upset, they burst into flames. Lillian is to stay with the children in a remodeled second house away from the senator's mansion. But, how will she get Bessie and Roland to calm down and stop bursting into flames? A surprisingly tender novel about anxiety, the difficulties of raising children, and the trouble with being a wounded child. I've read a short story Wilson wrote about the same topic and wondered why he reused the concept of spontaneous human combustion. Fortunately, there's a nice author's note about his own anxieties and why he felt like spontaneous combustion might make him feel better that I really appreciated for its explanation of why he wrote the novel. Highly recommended.

62. The Book of (More) Delights by Ross Gay - With thanks to Carrie for passing her copy on. I read the first Book of Delights by Ross Gay about a year or two ago and absolutely loved it. He's an interesting person: a poet, a lover of life and beauty, family, gardening, and the delights of fresh fruit. He loves his friends dearly and doesn't fear their flaws. He understands that sometimes it's good to be a little rebellious. All these things and more are expressed in short essays about the small or big delights that he came across during a single year. He'd already written and published the first book before being encouraged to record more of his delights. It's like reading someone's gratitude journal, but a really smart someone. He also touches on racism because Gay is a black man living in a mostly-white area. Not everything is delightful for anyone but there are obviously particular discomforts related to the color of his skin. Necessary occasional non-delightful moments aside, you cannot help but love this book because it's so upbeat. If you don't come out of a Ross Gay book thinking, "Oh, man. I wish I could be his friend," I'm going to call you a little weird. Another highly recommended read. 

63. Harboring Hope: The True Story of How Henny Sinding Helped Denmark's Jews Escape the Nazis by Susan Hood - One of the books I bought when I made a large purchase of middle grade books (at least two by author Susan Hood because I had enjoyed Lifeboat 12 by her), Harboring Hope tells a true story of heroism and resistance during WWII. Harboring Hope goes back and forth in time, opening with a scene describing Henny guiding Jewish Danes to a warehouse, where they hid until each was able to run to a boat, one by one, as patrolling Nazis' backs were turned. Then, it goes back in time to tell about the invasion of Denmark, how Nazis accepted Danish terms at first, and the gradual clamp-down on Danes and eventual decision to empty Denmark of its Jewish population. 

Harboring Hope tells of Henny's work helping Jews escape, her further work in the resistance, and what happened after her resistance group was identified. Told in verse, the book contains quite a few photographs at the end, as well as a description of the different forms of poetic verse used in the book. As I'm typing this, I kind of wonder why I gave it 4/5 stars instead of a full 5, but I think it's probably the jumping back and forth in time that I disliked. It didn't always feel entirely cohesive. Still, an excellent book and great learning resource about both WWII and poetry, for middle graders and adults who read middle grade. 

64. Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham - Well, this was a lucky library sale find! I've heard of Carry On, Mr. Bowditch because it's a Newbery prizewinner (an award for excellence in children's writing) and I've deliberately read many Newbery Medalists since I believe it is a high-quality award. This month, the Massachusetts Center for the Book's prompt for their reading challenge was "A book set in Massachusetts." Perfect! Set in Salem, Massachusetts, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch is about Nathaniel "Nat" Bowditch. Nat's father is a former naval captain whose boat was destroyed. Since then, they've fallen on hard times. As the book opens, the Revolutionary War is ongoing and his father has decided to become a cooper. 

Young Nat is exceptional at math and hopes to go to Harvard, but disasters continue to unfold as you follow him into adulthood. So his family will have one less mouth to feed, he's forced to quit school to become an indentured apprentice. But, Nat is not defeated by his inability to attend his university of choice. With the help of local men who own challenging books and are willing to help, he continues to learn math, Latin, navigation, French, surveying, and so forth. When his contract ends, he goes to sea. There's a lot that happens in this book and one of the things that stands out is the deaths. So many deaths! But, it all seemed so realistic that I looked him up and sure enough, Nathaniel Bowditch was a real person who really did stop school young, educate himself, and write a book on navigation. What an amazing person and a fabulous read! 

65. Spy x Family, Vol. 12 by Tatsuya Endo - It's been quite a while since I read a manga from this series but you get reminded immediately of what happened in Vol. 11, when Anya was amongst a group of kidnapped students held hostage on a bus. In Vol. 12, we're back to focusing on Loid, Yor, and Yor's brother Yuri. When a double agent steals vital information and rushes from Westalis to Ostania, both Loid and Yuri are activated — Loid to stop the information from being delivered to the other side and Yuri to facilitate it. Meanwhile, Yor goes out with her office mates for the first time, drinks a bit too much, and begins to believe that she should be pretending there's more friction between her and her fake husband, Loid. This one oddly ends on a cliffhanger. Fortunately, I've got Vol. 13 around here, somewhere. I just have to find it. As usual, I loved this volume, although I didn't find it as laugh-out-loud funny as some. 

66. An Age of Extremes by Joy Hakim - From a children's history series, "The History of US", An Age of Extremes tells about the Gilded Age in American History, when the gap between the haves and have nots was extreme. It's an overview that includes information about the men who became filthy rich and how some eventually were generous with their fortunes, some not. It describes each of the presidencies and the characteristics of the presidents, what they accomplished, and what led to their elections and/or defeats. Hakim describes economics, the Industrial Revolution, the meaning of the gold standard and the people who wanted to back the dollar with silver, instead. 

She tells of inventions and how they changed lives; the dangers of automation; and how the lack of labor laws, protections from corporate greed, and lack of regulations caused a lot of deaths. And, she talks about the people who exposed corruption and abuse and helped lead to progress on regulations for safety. I read this book (the only one in the series that I own, probably bought in the 90s) primarily because historian Heather Cox Richardson has compared our current age to the Gilded Age for its dramatic differences between the billionaires and average people.  I'm glad I read it. I did find the format (with lots of little boxes and side notes) a bit overwhelming but I haven't read about the Gilded Age in a long time and it was a nice refresher. 

Well. What a month. I liked or loved everything I read but We'll Prescribe You a Cat was my one big disappointment (although not enough to abandon). I suspect I wasn't in the right mood for it, but it's hard to say. It might have just not been for me. Absolute favorites were Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, Lonely Castle in the Mirror, The War of the Worlds, Harboring Hope, and Nothing to See Here. 

In non-bookish news, I had a little trouble reading for a while because of a new family member:

Welcome, Sir Percy of Marmalade, usurper of Queen Fiona's kingdom (she is not amused). Percy was born in a little nook created by the confluence of neighboring fences between our yard and 2 others. He had 2 siblings but neighbors adopted the others. Husband discovered them, was present when the neighbors took the other 2 kittens, and watched daily until Mama Cat didn't return for 24 hours. Then, he said this very surprising sentence on a day I was having trouble getting motivated: "Come outside and get your kitten." WHAT? We have seen more cats roaming in the past year or so but have never seen kittens in our 13 years here, so what a shock! We were not planning to get another kitty, possibly ever, but he needed a home so here we are. Husband is totally embracing his inner Cat Daddy, which has been a joy to watch. 

Fiona has hissed at little Percy (who is growing like a weed) but is not the slightest bit aggressive; instead, she runs away. Her safe space has been the master bathroom since we started letting him out of his room and cage, most of the day. She is 16 1/2, after all, so it comes as no great surprise that she doesn't really want a little brother. We are planning to get him a buddy but not till after his snip. Having said all that, it's been a full-time job slowly introducing him to our house and older kitty; trying to train him that if he wants to bite something it should be a toy, not a person; and keeping an eye on him so that he doesn't bother the big sister who would like him to go away. This has all eaten into my reading time but after over 6 months of grieving our beloved Isabel, it's nice to have a spunky little rapscallion in the house to make us laugh. This morning, while I was carrying my books to the table to photograph for this blog post, I stopped briefly and he climbed me like a tree — all the way to my shoulder! Yikes. Those claws are sharp.

Back to books . . . I'm still not done with my alien invasion phase and intend to continue reading the rest of the 4 Tripod books. I've also bought a grown-up novel in the same vein: Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It's a chunkster and I am currently reading The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (also chunky) so Footfall will have to wait but I'm looking forward to it. 

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