A Work in Progress

Lazy Days

I decided to make an already long weekend longer by taking today off from work.  I've been completely lazy so far.  I slept in.  I read in bed.  Mostly I've just puttered around.  I have the slightest twinge of guilt (surely I should be vacuuming or washing something?), but that hasn't prompted me to become industrious all of a sudden.

Since I usually read Kristin Lavransdatter on my morning bus ride, I pulled it out and read it for a while this morning.  If you are hesitant to read it due to the size of it, please don't be.  Keep in mind it is three novels in one (and you can always buy them separately--the first book only has about 320 pages!).  I have been reading a chapter a day, but today I couldn't stop at one and read three before I realized it.  I've finished the first section (there are three) of the first book, and I wanted to keep going.  Since I plan on posting about KL on Sundays, I'll save my other comments until then.

Part of my puttering included looking at books in the stack by my bed.  I have several piles, but the largest stacks have about 70 books total.  So many of them I wish I could start now.  If I planned on not buying a single book in 2008 and not checking out any books from the library, I could read those stacks and probably not even finish them by the end of the year.  And I am pretty sure I would not be bored with them either.  I don't think I could do it, but it is nice to consider it. 

Now the problem is which books (already on the night stand and partially read that is) do I work on this weekend?  I really should try and finish some books that have been languishing.  Katherine Mansfield's Journal is the prime languisher at the moment.  It doesn't seem to be the sort of book you just read straight through, but I am at the halfway mark and would like to move on (her biography is waiting, as well as her short stories--did I ever mention that I finally read "Prelude"?  I have been meaning to read "At the Bay" as it involves the same characters, but I haven't gotten around to it yet).  I am also halfway through my other Persephone book, Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge (which I have been reading in snippets).  It's been very enjoyable.  It has short chapters, which makes it easy to pick up and read a bit and then set down.  Two other possible candidates are Tricia Wastvedt's The River (which I am reading for a book group--really liked it at first, now I am not sure, need to read more, but don't feel as compelled to pick it up...), and Kate Morton's The House at Riverton (which is actually very good, but I am rationing it--it's nearly 600 pages--maybe I just need to dive right in as I would have no problems becoming distracted with this one).

I'm happy to see the end of summer (technically it isn't quite the end, but with school in session now it feels like it).  I finally was able to turn the air conditioner off a couple of days ago.  The sun is out, but there is a nice breeze blowing in my windows even as I type this.  I am looking forward to a nice quiet weekend.  I have my books, several good (I hope anyway) movies set aside (including A Midsummer Night's Dream that I finally hope to watch).  I might even work on one of my needlework projects (that I have ignored all week in favor of reading).  I might not accomplish much (in the way of cleaning that is), but sometimes that's the best sort of weekend to have!  What will you be doing over the long weekend?

One Really Good One and One Really Great One and a Little Cotton Candy

I've finished a few good books lately, but I haven't gotten around to writing anything about them.  Partially I am just lazy, but it is likely you have already read about these elsewhere (so my comments are going to be pretty brief).  The first is a book that I really enjoyed--a first novel by Aoibheann Sweeney (any idea how to pronounce her name?) called Among Other Things I've Taken Up Smoking.  I liked so many things about this novel--down to the title even, which is not what you would expect. There are lots of things about this novel you don't really expect, which I think is part of its success--It's unpredictable.

On first glance it seems like a typical coming-of-age story.  Set (partially) in Maine (actually off the coast of Maine on a tiny island), where Miranda grows up with only her father.  Her mother died in a boating accident when she was very small.  Miranda is unlike most of her friends.  She's an awkward teenager really--not seeming to fit in well, less so than you normally expect.  Her father spends his days writing.  He is working on a new translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses.  The novel is peppered with Ovid's stories.  What is particularly poignant about this book is Miranda's own metamorphosis that she undergoes when her father sends her off to New York City to work at a Classics Institute that he helped found.  She discovers things about herself and her family that were long hidden away.  Sweeney's writing is wonderful by the way.  The plotting and pacing of this novel are right on.  And now I want to read Ovid--that's a new one (I've never given a lot of thought to reading the Classics). 

I absolutely loved Peter Ho Davies' The Welsh Girl.  When I finished the book and set it down I found I couldn't pick up another book for the rest of the evening as my thoughts were still lingering over the story.  1940s  rural Wales is the setting--but it's not your typical WWII story.  There are three separate stories in this novel.  They start out independently of each other, running along in parallels--each interesting in its own right, but eventually they  will intersect.

Half-Jewish Rotheram, a British intelligence officer, is sent to Wales to crack Rudolf Hess's story of amnesia.  Earlier in the war Hess fled to England, purportedly to negotiate peace.  Esther, the title character, lives with her widowed father on their sheep farm.  She works in the local pub, which is frequented by English sappers when they are not busy building what will turn out to be a POW encampment.  Karsten, a German corporal, will end up in that POW camp.  Each character struggles with issues of identity, displacement, honor and cowardice. 

I thought it was amazing how Davies was able to run these threads through the plot and the different characters so believably yet so uniquely.  They each struggled in their own way, but at the same time these are universal struggles as well.  The Welsh Girl is a very compact novel, but it is also amazingly complex.  It is easily one of the best books I've read all year, and I only wish I could better articulate exactly why.  I am not a big reader of short stories, but I have already set about interlibrary loaning his two previous books of short stories, which I am eagerly looking forward to reading.

Earlier tonight I finished the slim novel by Shannon Hale called Austenland (which is why I am posting so late tonight).  While I was reading it, I kept thinking it was much like eating cotton candy.  Light and fluffy and a little sugary.  To be really honest, though, too much cotton candy just leaves you a little ill, and still hungry when all is said and done.  In the end you find you would rather have had ham and swiss cheese on wheat bread instead--something a little more substantial.  To be fair no book really had much of a chance coming right after The Welsh Girl.  Despite my desires at times for a little more depth, I did find myself going back to the novel to find out what would happen in the end.

Austenland reminded me a lot of PBS's Regency House Party.  Jane, a complete Jane Austen addict and Mr. Darcy fancier, is bequeathed a three week vacation at "Austenland".  There she will be immersed in the Regency era complete with Empire waist dresses, bloomers, and attractive men in breeches.  Her reason for going is to break her obsession with Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth version, of course).  It was a cute story, with an ending that was actually a bit unexpected.  It was definitely on the frothy side, though.  There were moments I would think that instead of reading about a woman who wants to live inside a Jane Austen novel, I could actually be reading a Jane Austen novel!

The First Line Test

I'm really in the mood for a good nonfiction book.  Quite a while ago I started reading Margaret Forster's Daphne Du Maurier biography.  I'm not making very good progress, but don't take that as a reflection on the book, as it's quite good.  The problem is, it's out of print, so I bought a heavy cloth edition (the easiest and cheapest version I could find at the time).  It's not very practical to schlep it around when I have something the size of Kristin Lavransdatter going--not to mention other heavy-ish sorts of books (meaning heavy to carry).  Also I am just in the mood for something--different.  Not a biography. But something interesting.  Something to keep me turning pages.  (And a paperback!). 

Not knowing exactly what I am in the mood for, I have pulled off my shelves some possibilities, and will have to give them the "first line test" (or maybe first lines, as sometimes it takes a few to hook the reader).  Which one sounds the most intriguing?  Has anyone read any of these?

The Lives of the Muses by Francine Prose.
     "In the Spring of 1932, at the age of eighty, Alice Pleasance Liddell Hargreaves sailed into New York Harbor to collect an honorary Ph.D.from Columbia University for having inspired, for having been, Alice in Wonderland.

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly.
     "This book began as an inquiry into the future and ended as an investigation of the past."

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.
     "There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings."

The Outermost House: A Year in the Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod by Henry Beston.
     "Majestic and mutilated, the great glacial scarp of Cape Cod's outer beach rises from the open Atlantic, separating it from Cape Cod Bay."

A Venetian Affair: A True Tale of Forbidden Love in the Eighteenth Century by Andrea de Robilant.
     "Some years ago, my father came home with a carton of old letters that time and humidity had compacted into wads of barely legible paper.  He announced that he had found them in the attic of the old family palazzo on the Grand Canal, where he had lived as a boy in the twenties."

French Lessons: A Memoir by Alice Kaplan.
     "Let's get her to say it."  My sister was ambitious for me.
     "She's only three."  My brother was a skeptic.
     "Come on, I think she can do it.  Come on!"
     "All right, all right, let's see if she can do it."
     "OK, repeat after us: 'Everything I like is.'"
     "EverythingIlike is."
     And on it went, ending with three big words: "illegal," immoral," and "fattening."

It's rare that I am at a loss for what to read.  So many nonfiction titles sound good, but I'm not sure what I will stick with (I am notoriously bad about starting a NF book and not finishing it--at least in a timely manner).  Fiction books line up in a nice, orderly manner in my mind.  Nonfiction is just all over the place.  If I can have more than one novel on the go at once, why not the occasional extra NF as well?  Now, something that is really good....

Did I Blink and Miss It?

Usually every summer there is at least one book that is marketed to death and talked about endlessly--people either hate it or love it when they read it, but it usually makes big (book) headlines.  The books that come to my mind from the last few years are The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, Labyrinth by Kate Mosse and The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.  Did I miss something this summer?  I suppose J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows would qualify as the big read this summer (and the build up for it was quite big!).  I was thinking of a book specifically marketed for adults, however.  Did I miss it?

I ask this question as I have just picked up the most recent BookPage from my library.  The one full page ad is for M.J. Rose's The Reincarnationist.  I'm not sure if this title really appeals to me, and it doesn't strike me as necessarily the blockbuster of the summer.  As a matter of fact I really haven't had a lot of luck with finding really good things in BookPage this summer.  Of course now I am actually turning my thoughts toward fall reads.  I have noted a few possibilities, however:

• The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman (has anyone read A Natural History of the Senses?--I loved that book, I really need to reread it).  Her new one is set during WWII in Poland.
• Interred with the Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell.  This one is a murder mystery involving a lost play by Shakespeare.
• Away by Amy Bloom.  This novel concerns one woman's journey across the US, though Alaska and into Russia in the 1920s in search of her daughter.

I'm afraid that's the extent of my list.  It's probably just as well that I only found three titles.  I have plenty to keep me busy these days.  Did I mention that I have discovered the place on my library's website where you can suggest books to be purchased?  I requested three and two have been ordered. 

• Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson.  I have heard nothing but good things about this book (by a Norwegian author) from other bloggers.  It's written by a Norwegian author.  The story is about an older man looking back on a "transformative summer" of his youth.
• The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy.  Choy's novel is set in Vancouver's Chinatown in the 40s and 50s.  It sounds as though it is interrelated short stories.

These days my (new) book ideas/recommendations seem to trickle in here and there.  Of course it's amazing what a trickle can amount to--I have something like 35 book and movie (more books than movies) titles on my library wishlist.  Hopefully they won't all come in at once! 

Getting Lost in the Story

Do you ever feel like you get so involved in a story (either through a book or a movie) that you find it hard to surface into real life again?  Normally I can easily close a book and go on with whatever I need to do, or watch a movie, but when it's over it's over.  Occasionally, however, I find I feel sort of unsettled by something I've watched (I think I have more of a problem with movies than books--only because they are so much more visual).  Everything will seem sort of bland when I have to face real life again. 

This weekend I watched Broken English with Parker Posey.  I'm not even sure how I came across it, and I was actually expecting a different movie from Netflix, but apparently my queue was in a different order than I thought.  I had absolutely no expectations.  I watched it three times over the weekend.  Parker Posey plays Nora Wilder, a 35-ish single woman living in NYC.  She works in a fancy hotel in "guest relations" and has rotten luck with men when everyone around her is married or in a relationship.  I know, I know--it sounds pretty cliched, doesn't it?  So far my life does not parallel Nora's in the least.  She  drinks too much and smokes too much.  And really she seemed a little too desperate.  I guess what I found so compelling was her loneliness.

After a series of disastrous dating experiences, she meets an eccentric Frenchman.  At first she is anything but impressed by him and tries hard to shrug him off.  When he first meets her he tells her she's lovely, and she gives him this look.  He asks her if she doesn't believe him, and she tells him she does, but that his expectations are probably not that high.  Her insecurities are almost palpable.  At one point she even has an anxiety attack so severe that she has to go home and take a pill to calm down.  I'm probably not putting this film in the best light--I'm making Nora sound like a basket case, and I suppose in some ways she was.  But she was so human; there were things I could easily relate to in this film.

When she finally does start falling for Julien, he of course must return home to France.  He asks her to come with him, but being a reasonably practical person, she turns him down.  I think my favorite scene in the movie shows Nora sitting at her desk at work looking completely bored.  Her boss comes in to ask about the company picnic, which she is supposed to have been organizing.  She hasn't done a thing, however.  Her boss looks at her and asks what is going on--she's always so dependable.  And she says I just can't do it anymore.  And walks out.  Now, I like my job, don't get me wrong.  But a job is a job is a job.  Have you ever gotten to the point where you feel like Nora?  I just can't do it anymore...and walk out.  The movie must have fed on some of my deep seated fantasies or something.

Life can be so boring and predictable.  The same routine day after day after day.  There are moments occasionally when I do feel like Nora--when she had her anxiety attack, or when she just was so fed up she walked away from it all.  I've already given away a chunk of the movie, so I'm not going to say how it ends.  I really enjoyed this one and I had to make myself drop it in the mailbox this morning, or I would be watching it all week long.  So now you know one of my little secret fantasies...wishing I could just chuck it all and run away (to Paris would be nice--surely you must have had this same fantasy at least once before?).  Alas, I am too dependable to do anything like, that, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the character in a movie doing it! 

By the way, this was a low budget film--not your usual Hollywood blockbuster--maybe also a reason I liked it so much.  It was just released this year, and I am not sure if it even played in theaters?  I'm not very up on movies really.  And the Frenchman was played by the very handsome Melvil Poupaud, who was also in Le Divorce--he played the weaselly husband.  At first I was disappointed he was cast, as I disliked his character so much in Le Divorce.  Happily, he has redeemed himself.  Now I suppose it's time to surface again and be part of the real world. 

Kristin L. and a Note on Translations

I had hoped to finish a few more books before starting KL than I've managed, but I'm ready to go anyway.  I might jump in tonight and read a little, but tomorrow I will officially begin dragging it about with me!  I will be reading the new translation by Tiina Nunnally.  Nunnally won the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize for this.  There is another translation out there, however.  I always find it interesting comparing translations.  So here goes:

"When the earthly goods of Ivar the Younger of Sundbu were divided up in the year 1306, his property at Sil was given to his daughter Ragnfrid and her husband Lavrans Bjorgulfson.  Before that time they had lived at Skog, Lavrans manor in Follo near Oslo, but now they moved to Jorundgaard, high on the open slope at Sil.

Lavrans belonged to a lineage that here in Norway was known as the sons of Lagmand.  It originated in Sweden with a certain Laurentius Ostgotelagman, who abducted the Earl of Bjelbo's sister, the maiden Bengta, from Vreta cloister and fled to Norway with her.  Herr Laurentius served King Haakon the Old, and was much favored by him; the king bestowed on him the manor Skog.  But after he had been in this country for eight years, he died of a lingering disease, and his widow, a daughter of the house of the Folkungs whom the people of Norway called a king's daughter returned home to be reconciled with her kinsman.  She later married a rich man in another country.  She and Herr Laurentius had had no children, and so Laurentius's brother Ketil inherited Skog.  He was the grandfather of Lavrans Bjorgulfson." (Tiina Nunnally translation)

My library has the older translation by Charles Archer:

"When the lands and goods of Ivar Gjesling the younger, or Sundbu, were divided after his death in 1306, his lands in Sil of Gudbrandsdal fell to his daughter Ragnfrid and her husband Lavrans Bjorgulfson.  Up to then they had lived on Lavran's manor of Skog at Follo, near Oslo; but now they moved up to Jorundgaard at the top of the open lands of Sil.

Lavrans was of the stick that was known in this country as the Lagmandssons.  It had come here from Sweden with that Laurentius, Lagmand of East Gothland, who took the Belbo Jarl's sister, the Lady Bengta, out of Vreta convent, and carried her off to Norway.  Sir Laurentius lived at the Court of King Haakon the old, and won great favour with the King, who gave him the Skog manor.  But when he had been in this country about eight years he died in his bed, and his widow, who belonged to the Folkunga kindred, and had the name of a King's daughter among the Norwegians, went home and made matters up with her relations.  Afterwards she made a rich marriage in another land.  She and Sir Laurentius had no children, so the heritage of Skog fell to Laurentius' brother, Ketil.  He was father's father to Lavrans Bjorgulfson."  (Charles Archer translation).

In the translator's introduction to my edition Nunnally writes:

"The three volumes of Kristin Lavransdatter were translated into English in the 1920s, but the translaters chose to impose an artificially archaic style on the text, which completely misrepresented Undset's beautifully clear prose.  They filled her novels with stilted dialogue (using words such as 'tis, 'twas, I trow, thee, thou, hath, and doth), and they insisted on a convoluted syntax."

It sounds as though the original translators also may have left out passages they thought too sexually explicit for readers at that time.  Nunnally says there were a total of eighteen pages left out, some with key passages.  I am glad to hear this modern edition has not left out anything from the original, and tone of the author's original intent and prose is as it reads in the Norwegian.  Is everyone else reading the Nunnally translation?

A List and a Few Other Ramblings

I know I have spent a lot of time complaining this summer about the heat.  It feels like it has taken weeks and weeks of heat, humidity and storms, but this morning I have the window open and it is gorgeous!  So, no complaints today! The sun is shining and it is cool-ish.  I hope this is a sign of better things to come. 

I have been reading Peter Ho Davies's book, The Welsh Girl.  It is excellent!  I usually don't want to put it down when I start reading it and have been greedily rationing it out.  This is an author who is comfortable with words.  He tells his story with ease.  Some writing (and I mean other books here, not The Welsh Girl) seems sort of self-conscious, but this story just rolls along gracefully and fluidly.  The Odds are that McEwan will win the Booker.  Ho Davies only has a 16/1 chance.  That's a pity really as he's my favorite so far.  I'd say Ho Davies deserves to be shortlisted at least as much as McEwan, but then what do I know as this is only the third book I've read.  I do have a couple more Booker longlist titles that I am trying to get from the library, but I don't plan on reading all of the list by any means.  Booker nominee or no, I had my eye on this one from the moment I read about it anyway!  I just hope it gets some well deserved press and readership!

I've also finally gotten around to reading Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Actually I am about half way through.  For a play that might last at most three hours, it takes me forever to read the play script.  I read Marjorie Garber's essay on it earlier this week.  Although Garber writes as if the reader is familiar with Shakespeare's work--quoting liberally from the play and making comparisons between this and other plays, it is very worthwhile reading her.  I don't always get her references at first, but I am finding that the more I read the connections seem to come later even though initially a lot of it is over my head.  I have been reading each scene and then reading a separate summary and commentary afterward.  There are so many layers to this play, I feel like I need all the help I can get to keep it all straight in my mind.  The more I read Shakespeare and the more I read about him the more I am amazed by it all.  I could spend weeks on this one alone; I feel like I am just whizzing through it really.  I hope to finish reading this weekend and watch the play tomorrow night. 

One more thing.  I thought I would put the complete list of books with academic settings here.  There were so many great suggestions I thought it might come in handy to have links to them all here.  Plus it might be handy in case anyone wanted to print out the list:

• The Folded Leaf, William Maxwell
• A Separate Peace, John Knowles
• Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld
• Gentlemen and Players, Joanne Harris
• Old School, Tobias Wolff
• I am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe
• Song for Summer, Eva Ibbotson
• Decline and Fall, Evelyn Waugh
• Lake of Dead Languages, Carol Goodman
• Chatham School Affair, Thomas H. Cook
• Secret History, Donna Tartt
• Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers
• Thus Was Adonis Murdered, Sarah Caudwell
• The Book and the Brotherhood, Irish Murdoch
• The Small Room, May Sarton
• For Kings and Planets, Ethan Canin
• Moo, Jane Smiley
• Small World, David Lodge
• Changing Places, David Lodge
• The Groves of Academe, Mary McCarthy
• Straight Man, Richard Russo
• Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
• Blue Angel, Francine Prose
• Truth and Consequences, Alison Lurie
• Foreign Affairs, Alison Lurie
• Well-Schooled in Murder, Elizabeth George
• Death in Holy Orders, P.D. James
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Edward Albee
• Quieter Than Sleep, Joanne Dobson (mystery series with sleuth Karen Pelletier)
• Mean Boy, Lynn Coady
• Weekend, William McIlvanney
• Pictures from an Institution, Randall Jerrell
• Faculty Towers: The Academic Novel and Its Discontents, Elaine Showalter
• Time of Hope, C.P. Snow (a series of books--Strangers and Brothers Sequence)
• On Beauty, Zadie Smith
• The History Man, Malcolm Bradbury
• In the Last Analysis, Amanda Cross (mystery series with sleuth Kate Fansler)
• Men's Room, Ann Oakley
• Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis

Whew.  I hope I got all the suggestions.  That's quite a list--thanks, everyone! I have already found a copy of Francine Prose's The Blue Angel to mooch, and have dug out my copy of the first Joanne Dobson mystery to start with! 

Looking Forward

I miss this kind of post.  I miss getting boxes of books in the mail and bringing home a big sackful of books from the bookstore.  I don't miss trying to find a place on my bookshelves (nonexistent these days) to put them all, however.  And I am happy to see a blank page when I look at the purchases section when I am checking on my credit card account online.  I know I will eventually give in and drop by the bookstore (hopefully I'll be able to set a spending limit and stick with it--and I will definitely not take my credit card with me), but until then I will just create my own little piles of books and pretend they are new.  And some of these are new actually (though I will have to give them back when I am finished), as I stopped by the library last night (it's become a weekly event lately). 

The next best thing to buying new books is the anticipation of reading books that have been sitting on one of those towering TBR piles.  The three on the left I will be starting very soon.  The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe is my R.I.P. read.  I am hoping to read more than one book, but if I only read one for this challenge, this is the one I want.  Doesn't this sound tempting?

"The Mysteries of Udolpho is a quintessential Gothic romance, replete with incidents of physical and psychological terror; remote, crumbling castles; seemingly supernatural events; a brooding, scheming villain; and a persecuted heroine. To this mix Radcliffe adds extensive descriptions of exotic landscapes in the Pyrenees and Apennines. Set in 1584 in southern France and northern Italy, the novel focuses on the plight of Emily St. Aubert, a young French woman who is orphaned after the death of her father." (Wikipedia)

I've decided to start with D.H. Lawrence's The Rainbow for the Outmoded authors challenge.  I'm so very curious about Lawrence.  Many people seem to respect him, or his novels at least, but they don't seem to particularly like him.  I'm wondering what my reaction will be and if I will find him hard going in terms of writing style.  I guess I will find out shortly. 

And of course, I will  be starting Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter on Monday.  I am planning on posting weekly about it (on Sundays), so if you are planning on reading too, please stop by.  And if you won't be reading, I hope I don't become a bore! I'm looking forward to this.  I hope I don't have expectations that are too high!

Now on the flip side of things, my other pile is rather heavily slanted towards fluff.  I don't mean that badly, but I have a feeling all three of my library books are going to be very easy going, light reads.  I didn't plan it out that way, but that's what was on the hold shelf for me this week.  Maybe someone somewhere knows I am going to need  something a bit easy as a balance to the other books I'll be reading?  In any case, I have:

• The Shoe Queen by Anna Davis--This is set in Bohemian Paris.
• Austenland by Shannon Hale--I usually stay away from any sort of contemporary fiction that has some sort of Austen spin to the story, but a coworker read this and said it was fun (not overly literary, but entertaining), so I thought I might give it a try.
• The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice--The cover of this looks sort of chick-lit-ish, but I think the story is actually a bit more serious.  Again a coworker read it and enjoyed it.  It's set in 1950s England.

I think I'll be dipping into one of these library books this weekend and looking forward to September to start my challenge books!  And there is always Kristin L. for Monday!  Who needs new books...

Fiction and Academia: A (Back to School) Thursday Thirteen

Recently I read a very enjoyable novel with an academic setting.  It's been a while since I've read a book like that, and it reminded me how much I like books that touch on academia in some way.  I thought a list might come in handy for the next time I want to read a book with this sort of setting.  Besides it's August, schools are back in session, and Fall is just around the corner.  What better subject than academia in fiction?  Some of these books I have already read, and others are waiting...

1. The Folded Leaf by William Maxwell--I found this one last year in a used bookstore.  I have a feeling this is going to be very good!
2. A Separate Peace by John Knowles--I have a vague recollection of reading this in high school, but I can't recall any details.  I think I have a copy of it still...I should dig it out and give it a reread.
3. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld--I've heard very good things about this, and so-so things about it. I looking forward to reading it and making up my own mind about it.
4. Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris--I *loved* this when I read it earlier this year.  It has a wonderful twist (a la Fingersmith style--but totally different).  I think it is definitely on my list of top books I've read this year.
5. Old School by Tobias Wolff--This is set in a New England prep school in the 1960s.  It sounds quite literary.  I love the B&W cover of the boys sitting in rows wearing their suits.
6. I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe--I've wanted to read this since Litlove's recommendation!
7. A Song for Summer by Eva Ibbotson--I had been looking for Ibbotson's books for a long time, which have been out of print.  I see that at least a couple have been reprinted and marketed for a YA audience (maybe they always were YA, but I've always liked the sound of the story YA or not I had to buy them).  This is set partially in Austria.
8. Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh--I loved Scoop, and I have been wanting to read more Waugh.  I love his style.
9. The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman--My favorite book by this author, though I have enjoyed everything I've read by her.
10. The Chatham School Affair by Thomas H. Cook--I really do need to reread this one.  It is a mystery/suspense story--and quite well done!!
11. The Secret History by Donna Tartt--I've had this in hardcover for ages (when exactly was it published....).  I have a feeling I will like it, now when will I ever read it.
12. Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers--I read this last summer, and was happily caught up in the world of Harriet Vane and Oxford.
13. Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell--Another recommendation (though I am sorry I don't remember from who).  I've always been curious about this--you're never told if the narrator is male or female.  How can they pull that one off?  Anyway, I read a review were Caudwell was likened to E.F. Benson and Nancy Mitford.  Now I really do need to read it!

I have a feeling I've only skimmed the very surface of books like these.  If you've read one recently (or not so recently) that you think is good, please feel free to share the title--as always I am happy to add to my wishlist!

Questions for Book Bloggers Meme

I don't think I can resist this meme that has been making the rounds lately.  I grabbed it from Litlove, but I see it popping up all over the place.

What are you reading right now?  Although I have a nice, healthy stack of books started, I tend to focus on just a few at a time and then rotate them out, and new ones in (sometimes new ones get rotated in faster than old ones out, however).  My current books du jour: The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies (one of the Booker nominees, but I had planned on reading this anyway!), The River by Tricia Wastvedt (for the Reading Matters book group that will be discussed September 8), The House at Riverton by Kate Morton (very enjoyable--it's my daily lunchtime read), Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge (also enjoyable--I'm moving rather slowly on this one) and an essay from Marjorie Garber's Shakespeare After All.

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that?  Better late than never--I am finally going to start Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (the Garber essay was in preparation!), Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset--yay (if you want to read along see yesterday's post!), A Time for Dying by Reina James, High Rising by Angela Thirkell and one of my other Persephone titles!  Hmm.  That's sort of a long mental queue, isn't it.  Two are library books, though, so they tend to cut in line.

What magazines do you have in your bathroom right now?  I'm afraid the only reading material in this room is the back of shampoo bottles! 

What’s the worst thing you were ever forced to read?  I honestly can't think of a book that I really hated that I had to read.  There was probably something in school, but I must have disliked it so much that I blocked all memory of it.

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone? I am a little leery of recommending books as tastes vary so much.  I post lots of lists, I admit, but people can pick and choose from them as they like (if they like).  I'm always afraid I will love something and recommend it and the person who reads it will hate it ,and then of course I'll feel bad.  If I do recommend books, it is usually pretty general and it's whatever I just finished and liked (most recently Barbara Pym!).

Admit it, the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don’t they?  Actually I am known there (the public library that is--I hope I am known at the library where I work)--at least at the circulation desk.  Usually I will come in, drop off my returns, and go look at new books.  Depending on who happens to be working, my stack of holds will be waiting for me on the counter even without having handed over my library card!  Now that's service!

Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don’t like it at all?  No doubt I gush often over books all the time, but you guys are just too nice to tell me that it's just not your thing!  In the past I have had that problem with Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres.  I've given it away for gifts, but it was not always well received. 

Do you read books while you eat? While you bathe? While you watch movies or TV? While you listen to music? While you’re on the computer? While you’re having sex? While you’re driving?  I do read while I eat (if I am alone), but otherwise it has to be the only thing I am doing.  I can't concentrate on more than one thing at once generally (not even listening to music while reading).

When you were little, did other children tease you about your reading habits?  No.  My best friend when I was a kid read more than I did!  As much as I loved to read, I also had lots of other things to do as well, so reading never seemed to stick out as anything particularly unusual.

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down?  I wish I could stay up late reading, but I get up too early these days.  Usually I can handle a few pages before I am ready to fall asleep, if it is late, but that's it.  When I was younger, though, I remember vividly staying up half the night reading The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons and books by Diana Gabaldon (the Outlander books that is).  While neither is exactly overly literary, they both know how to tell a thumping good story!