Whew, I cut this one close! I only read one book for reading bingo this month – and, I just finished it five minutes ago. Cut me some slack, will ya… I moved this month! It’s a miracle I read anything. 

A book with a blue cover:

Landing Gear, by Kate Pullinger
(Hardcover, 304 pages, published April 15, 2014, by Doubleday Canada)
4 stars

Kate Pullinger was inspired to write this novel by two real events: the 2010 ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano with the name I won’t even try to pronounce in my own head, and people falling from the sky from planes. This is a thing! Apparently, there’s a spot near London where several people have landed; it’s right under the flight path to Heathrow, just where planes lower their landing gear. And guess what happens at that point to anyone who happens to have stowed away in a plane’s wheel well. Most shocking to me – people have survived this! The novel opens with one of these falling-person events, and “takes off” from there. (Lame pun alert!) While the real events make the framework for the storyline, Landing Gear is really a family tale. It’s beautifully done, with multiple perspectives and interwoven storylines. Before Landing Gear was a book, it was a “networked novel,” which you can check out at www.flightpaths.net. (And if you find yourself fascinated by the stowaway angle, you can read the 2001 article in The Guardian that inspired this book, or this CNN article and video about a teenage stowaway who survived the ride to Hawaii earlier this year.)

I’ll try to do better next month!

To-read-pile count: Don’t worry, the pile moved with me! It’s at 17.