What I read last month
A couple of years ago, I decided to try the reading challenge on Goodreads: pick a random number of books to try to read during a year. Last year I picked 60, which is five a month, and came out well ahead of that. So, I decided to go for 60 books again in 2025. I was much farther along at this time last year—although I am still three books ahead of schedule. These are three books I've finished in the last month: The Pretender by Jo Harkin is a fascinating historical imagining of the life of Lambert Simnel, one of the "pretenders" to the throne of Henry VII. While I was more familiar with the pretender Perkin Warbeck, I found myself drawn to Lambert—who starts out his life as John Collan, a peasant, brought to Oxford and then to Margaret of Burgundy's court to be educated as Edward, Earl of Warwick. Lambert—or John—is naive enough to believe that he'd been switched with a fake Edward, who is being held in the Tower of London. Harkin tells us John/Lambert/Edward...
