It's been a while since I have had anything waiting for me at the library, but today I had a stack! I waited ages to get Memoirs of a Geisha, and now I have it. I hope it is as good as the book, which I loved, but it has been so long since I read it, I am not sure how much I will remember. I also found sitting on the shelves, Under the Tuscan Sun, which I have seen before, but it sounded good for more escapist pleasure!
As for books, I have them stacked in order of which ones I want to read the most. I am happy to get, The Yellow-Lighted Bookstore by Lewis Buzbee. Not only does it look really good (and I have seen good reviews), but it is short! I shouldn't be happy that a book is short, but I read nonficton so slowly, that I might actually be able to manage 216 pages (and the book itself is small, too) before the due date. I am going to do a bit of a switch and set aside the Mary Wollstonecraft biography for a bit and read the Buzbee, and get back to May later. I am notorious for doing this to nonfiction reads, but I am not sure what the solution is. Everything sounds so interesting, but when I go to grab a book nearly always I grab a novel! Jennifer Egan's The Keep sounds wonderfully atmospheric. Medieval castles, caves and tunnels, a ghost story, a love story, and gothic elements. It sounds too good to be true, and that may just be the case according to Jenclair. But I have it for the next three weeks and it is a short book (another short one I am happy about!) at only 240 pages, so I will give it a try. I don't remember where I saw Thomas Mullen's The Last Town on Earth. It is about a town in the NW that quarantines itself during the influezna outbreak in 1918. Then along comes a soldier, ill, tired and hungry asking for sanctuary. I was all gung ho on this until I read a negative blurb today, though they did say it was a page turner. It is hard to decide whether to follow the critics or ignore them and read whatever sounds good (which is generally what I do). Lastly is Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children, which was longlisted for the Booker, but I see didn't make the cut for the shortlist. I have heard really wonderful things about this book, but honestly I am not sure I want to read something about 9/11. I probably won't get to all of them anyway, so this may go back early. Aside from my movies, I hope to work on Little Women and especially The Thirteenth Tale (and maybe start the Buzbee) this weekend. It's good to be in a reading mood!