Welcome to May! With two bank holidays and the promise of summer on the horizon, we think May was made for reading! It’s also the month that James Bond creator, Ian Fleming was born in 1908. Funny that because we’ve had our spies out tracking down the latest and greatest reads for you, and we’re sure we’ll leave you both shaken and stirred with what we have to offer, for every taste, this May. Read on to find out what’s new...

Author of the Month – Barbara Kingsolver

There is almost too much to say about American Author of the Month, Barbara Kingsolver. Nominated for the Pulitzer and winner of the Orange Prize and countless other gongs, Barbara is an academic scientist turned captivating fiction sculptress. Her unique mission to challenge her own boundaries of experience with each novel has created a canon of stunning work. And you can find a recent selection of her work in our special section including her latest title, Flight Behaviour, a topical, engrossing and thought-provoking read set in rural America. Kingsolver has a real talent for getting you right inside her characters' lives and this poetically written story is possibly her best novel since her Orange shortlisted The Poisonwood Bible.

Gathering Books in May! - Books of the Month

Our bookshelf this month is teeming with great titles, all rated by our Lovereading experts. AND look out for the 'reading glasses' symbol signifying reviews from Lovereading's independent and opinionated Reader Review Panel. One definitely not to miss is the complex and thought-provoking, dark psychological thriller Fallen Land which explores the failure of the American Dream. It is Patrick Flanery's second book following on from his critically acclaimed debut Absolution.

Good Books – FACT! – Non-Fiction Books of the Month

A Foodie Non-Fiction title has grabbed our beady-eyed attention this month. Freeze & Easy: Fabulous Food and New Ideas for Making the Most of Your Freezer by Sara Lewis – Lots of stuff you didn’t know about freezing food and saving money! And our Travel Book of the Month Walking Home. It’s a uniquely charming, droll, moving, British narrative from writer and poet Simon Armitage as he recounts his 256 mile (North to South) walk along the Pennine Way.

Darling Buds! – May’s Debuts

Bad puns aside (who? Us?), don’t miss the brilliant offerings from this month’s ‘budding’ first-time authors. Also, look out for the 'glasses icon' for books with Reader Reviews to help you choose. Office favourites this month are Sketcher by Roland Watson-Grant, an atmospheric, uplifting and deeply moving story, about the beauty of life no matter how broken it is. And Golden Boy - a gritty, cool and brilliantly compelling novel from one of the hippest young authors around, Abigail Tarttelin.

May Luck be With You! – This Month’s Competitions

Win a luxury craft weekend break on Dartmoor - If beautiful things, as well as reading, are your passion, then click here to find out how you can win a weekend away amongst beautiful surroundings, breathing the clean air of rural Dartmoor, whilst indulging your passion for exquisite hand-crafted products. The prize includes a 2 night stay in luxury self-catering accommodation, gourmet lunches and dinner and VIP tickets to the Contemporary Craft Festival in Bovey Tracey! Also this month we’re giving you the chance to win some highly collectable, desirable – not to mention readable - 1^st Editions of John le Carre’s latest title: A Delicate Truth. It’s one of his best yet and is a tense, gripping, highly topical, thrill-ride. And we have EIGHT signed copies of the dystopian thriller The Twelve from Justin Cronin up for grabs. Finally, Crime fans won’t want to miss the chance to win a goody bag of books from Crime Writers’ Association favourite Cath Staincliffe. Or the chance to read two reissued Sal Kilkenny Mysteries published this month.

Too Good for just the Kids

After collecting some of the shiniest and most coveted awards in the literary silverware cupboard, the clever publishers of the young adult mega-bestselling Chaos Walking Trilogy have given the books some spanking new ‘grown-up’ covers as they believe, and we wholeheartedly agree, that adults will enjoy them just as much. If your kids haven’t read these books yet … they won’t get to for a while because you’ll be glued to them! Take a peek at the whole brilliant trilogy here. And speaking of award winners, well it was the Lovereading favourite in the Man Booker shortlist last year, The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng is just out in paperback. With poised and precise prose this novel revisits the traumatic aftermath of the Japanese occupation of Malaya, and the post-war insurgency against British rule. It should definitely be on your reading lists.

Discover some new authors in May

With personal recommendations from book experts it’s like having a book guru on hand 24/7 helping you find new authors you’ll love. This month fans of Trisha Ashley will love the funny, bittersweet romance from Margaret James called The Wedding Diary. And lovers of Wilbur Smith’s African epics should look no further than Tom Knox who has penned a first-rate adventure thriller set in Cornwall and Egypt, full of ancient religious texts and satanic rituals, called The Deceit. P.S. World Book Night may be over but if you enjoyed the book you were given then why not try something else from the same author. Fans of Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader should try his latest collection of short stories, Summer Lies, out now in paperback. Read on to see more hand-picked great reads in the categories you have said you would like to be kept up to date with. Click here to update your choices.