A few days ago I decided to remove the link to the From the Stacks reading challenge and my list of books, because I have failed so miserably in my endeavor and have only completed one book from the list. Does it count that I have three other books from that listed started and sitting right now on my night table? I will finish them, it just isn't going to happen this month. I hope to do better with the Classics reading challenge, but I don't have high expectations for that either (three books from my list by the end of February is what I am aiming for). I just don't do well with lists of books needing to be read in a specific amount of time. I like the idea of challenges, but then I like the idea of reading my other books as well. And that gets me into trouble. Not that that will stop me from joining any in the future, but I guess I need to modify the reading to fit my own schedule.
What I have decided to concentrate on are the books for reading clubs. As discussion is involved and it is only one book (well three in this case as there are three different groups), I like to try and read those in time so I can talk about them or at least follow the discussion. I finished By the Lake by John McGahern this weekend for the Reading Matters book group. It was a lovely read. It's a very quiet story, not much happens really, but you get to know the inhabitants of a small Irish town fairly well. There is not a beginning, middle and end per se--the story was really more episodic. Within the span of a year you become accustomed to the rhythms of life and the seasons in this little community. The writing is simple yet elegant. McGahern is definitely an author I can easily recommend. The Slaves of Golconda are reading The Street of Crocodiles by Polish author Bruno Schulz. Susan compared schulz to Kafka, Calvino and Garcia Marquez, so this should be an interesting read. It shouldn't be a problem to fit in A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle a bit later this month for Our Coffee Rings book group. Two of these will also count towards my five library reads. I suppose I am not failing miserably in all my reading plans.
Last night I watched The Libertine with Johnny Depp. An interesting movie. Debauched is not a word I use generally, but it describes the character played by Depp, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, very fittingly. Quite a naughty, naughty man was he. I had no idea Restoration England was so bawdy (another word I never get to use). Perhaps this was just the nobility and the Court of Charles II, though? Wilmot was a poet and playwright. What I loved about the movie (not Wilmot even though Depp is not hard on the eyes--the character at the beginning warns viewers that we are not going to like him, and he is right, though I did have a bit of sympathy for him at the end...not much, but a bit), was listening to them speak. Even if I didn't understand sometimes exactly what they were talking about--the language was gorgeous--if that makes any sense. Why don't people speak like that anymore? Maybe I do need to start reading Shakespeare's plays. Very eloquent! Actually I should say Eloquent--capital E. Anyway, what all this brings me to--I feel the need to dive back into some historical fiction. I only do well for a while in the present and am only too happy to go back in time. I'm not planning on starting anything new, but it is time to get going on The Three Musketeers by Dumas. Although written in 1844, it is set in the 1620s (about 30 years before England's Restoration). The thing with concentrating on one book at a time (more or less anyway), I am usually ready for something radically different when I finish!