This May, readers are treated to a diverse array of new books, including Patricia Cornwell's candid memoir, a fresh look at Weimar history, and a novel exploring an age gap relationship. Patricia Cornwell, creator of the forensic pathologist Dr Kay Scarpetta, opens up about her troubled early life in her autobiography True Crime. She recounts her dysfunctional family, her parents' mental health struggles, and her own career missteps at The Charlotte Observer, where she once mixed up NFL teams and printed the unfortunate typo 'Daffy F***'.
In the realm of non-fiction, Dr Kate Lister's Flick: A History of Female Pleasure offers an eye-opening account of how women's pleasure has been controlled throughout history. Lister's book, dedicated 'for all the men who didn't make me cum,' is described as thought-provoking and intrepid. Also notable are Nandini Das's This Little World: A New History of Tudor and Stuart England, which highlights migrants and exiles, and Emma Southon's Servus: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire, which examines the normalization of brutality against enslaved people.
Piers Blofeld's Master of Lies: How Anthony Blunt's Treachery Shaped Our World draws on fresh research to dissect the Cambridge spy's impact. Deborah Lutz's This Dark Night: The Life of Emily Brontë is the first biography of the author in two decades, while David Scott's Caroline Aherne: Rebel in Disguise pays tribute to the late comedian with humor and insight.
In fiction, Douglas Stuart's John of John delivers an unflinching tale of a father-son relationship set on the Hebrides. Séamas O'Reilly's Prestige Drama offers a rollicking mystery about a famous actor's disappearance during a Troubles-era TV drama. The month's top picks also include a Weimar history and an age gap novel, though details on these are not provided in the source.
