And Now, Something Somewhat Different: My To Be Read List for May 2025

Early Afternoon, Wednesday, May 7, 2025, Miami, Florida

It’s hot and muggy outside on this South Florida spring day. This far south, the seasons aren’t as clearly defined as they are, say, in New Hampshire. Here, in the Miami area, we locals only seem to experience two seasons – the “dry” one that begins sometime around mid-October and ushers in cooler, dryer weather; and the “wet” season that kicks off in May and is accompanied by higher temperatures, stickier, humid air, and storms. Usually, it’s your garden variety rain or thunderstorms, but it’s also hurricane season from June 1 to November 30. So, it’s spring on the calendar now, but it’s getting to be a lot like summer everywhere you go….

Currently, the temperature is 85°F (29°C) under mostly sunny conditions. However, with humidity at 58% and the wind blowing from the east-southeast at 9 MPH (15 Km/H), the heat index is at 91°F (32°C). Again, it’s officially spring in Florida, and I’m sure there’s the subtler subtropical manifestation of the season out there, but it feels like mid-June, not early May.

My TBR List in a Post-“First Novel” Reality

Now that I’m no longer writing a novel – I am fixing issues with Reunion: Coda, of course, as well as promoting it – and have some time to devote to reading, I have a To Be Read (TBR) list to tout here again. Since a lot of my books are either still in boxes or being sorted – the price I must pay after not one but two interstate moves in 10 months – it’s not a long TBR list and includes Kindle e-books as well as physical hardcovers and paperbacks.

So, without further ado (I ran out of the stuff and need to go get more at Winn Dixie), here we go:

1. The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 (Revolution Trilogy, 2), Rick Atkinson (Hardcover)
2. The First World War, Hew Strachan (Kindle)
3. Reunion: Coda, Alex Diaz-Granados (Kindle, hardcover, paperback)
4. Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944, Antony Beevor (Kindle, hardcover)

And yes, I’m reading my own book. I wanted to read it; it didn’t exist; I had to write it myself!