What was formerly a very manageable two books checked out from the public library has turned into a, well, huge pile. As I have an additional day off from work, I decided to browse a bit at the library and choose some books for the adult Winter Reading Club. I only need to read five before the end of next month, but I now have about twice that many to choose from. Two are books that will overlap with online book clubs: Madeleine L'Engle's (who I have never read)A Wrinkle in Time and John McGahern's By the Lake. I still have the two novels mentioned yesterday by Robin Morgan and Edna O'Brien.
I wanted to find something set in contemporary London. I think watching the whole Inspector Lynley series (which I am utterly addicted to) over the last few days has brought this on. I am finally starting to watch season four, and I am wondering if Lynley and Havers start a little romance? No, don't tell me if you know. I see that season five already aired in the UK, so now I will have to wait until the fall most likely to see it here. At this point the BBC series has broken off with the mysteries by Elizabeth George and the storyline is going in a different direction. Had the library had her most recent novel, What Came Before He Shot Her (which I thought I was not going to read since it does not feature Lynley and Havers), I would have checked it out. Perhaps I just need to go back to her first book in the series and read them all over again? This is the only mystery series I have read from beginning to end, though I am not sure what will happen after the shocking last book. I have never asked for a readers copy of any book, but I have to say if I am ever offered one for the next book in this series, I will happily accept it! It will be interesting to see where George takes the story from here. I wonder if I will just stick with the BBC series in the end as I am thoroughly enjoying it (this from someone who was not going to watch it as the actors were so different than what I had imagined them in my mind!).
So, back to London stories. I didn't really have a lot of luck. I wanted something contemporary not historical. A few years ago I read a book by Margaret Leroy called The River House, which was pretty good. I did find an earlier novel by her, Postcards from Berlin. I am not sure this is exactly what I am looking for, but perhaps Last Voyage of the Valentina by Santa Montefiore will work? Although the character lives in a houseboat on the Thames she eventually goes to Italy. Maybe. What I want, I suppose, is a book just like one of Elizabeth George's Lynley/Havers mysteries. Any ideas for read-alikes? I get on these weird kicks, what can I say, I just can't help myself.
The other books just sounded good, or I read about them on book blogs or in one case I checked out before but never got around to reading: The Road by Cormac McCarthy, The Uses of Enchantment by Heidi Julavits, Dark Angels by Karleen Koen, and The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke (I haven't read her first book yet, but this book of short stories looked like fun). So, so much for keeping the library stack to a very small minimum. For a while I didn't even have a single book checked out. I'm like a kid in a candy shop, I just can't resist. And these aren't even fattening!