Actually I don't want to just start one book. I want to start lots of new books. Do you ever get that urge even though you are enjoying the books you already are reading? My self control never lasts long when it comes to reading, as you already know. See I have this little rule that I keep in mind...finish two books, start one new one. Occasionally things get a bit reversed, though, and I start two books without having finished any. I did finish two books in the last week, though. Does that mean I can start a new one?
I think I have already mentioned the books I finished quite a few times already. Elizabeth Cambridge's Hostages to Fortune was really good. It took me a long time to read it, but that's not to say I didn't enjoy every last bit of it. You know how you might watch a romance movie about the trials and tribulations of boy gets girl...or girl gets boy? And then the movie ends and that's all we get? Well, Cambridge's book starts off after the happily ever after. It's about life--family life--exciting or not. It was really a comforting sort of book to read.
I also finished Tricia Wastvedt's The River for the Reading Matters' discussion. While I did enjoy the novel, I didn't exactly love it. Wastvedt did some things really well--I liked how multiple narrators told the story. You had to piece it together bit by bit. I thought, however,that maybe there were a few too many people telling the story, and I'm not sure what they all brought to the narrative. It was a matter of a little too much of a good thing. I was a little disappointed by the ending. I was expecting some really shocking twist at the end. She had been building up to it all along, but when we got there, I felt sort of let down. I guess I just saw that something was coming, but the something ended up being a bit pedestrian. Still, she definitely kept me turning pages, so she was doing something right!
So now the question of what I want to start? Well, a new Persephone title would be nice. Just holding those lovely books in your hand is a pleasure. But alas, until I finish Katherine Mansfield's Journal, that's out of the question. I don't think I could be reading this any slower if I tried. I started out so well, but lately it feels like I am reading so much, and when I look my bookmark doesn't seemed to have budged more than two pages. I will persevere, however.
I am happily reading Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. I'm very curious how Emily is going to manage being locked away in a castle. She's not holding up at all well after the death of her father. But she is nearly all alone now in the world. Edge of my seat or not, I have been thinking of what other R.I.P. book choices I listed a possible reads. I've been contemplating starting Patrick Suskind's Perfume--more creepiness. As well as Transformation by Mary Shelley, which has the added benefit of being short (it's actually three short stories, so perhaps I'll read these on the weekend). Like Persephone titles, Hesperus books are quite nice to handle as well (for me, when it comes to books aesthetics count).
Then there is the stack of library titles that is threatening to topple over it is getting so big. In my exuberance for Peter Ho Davies' work, I have ILL'd not one but both of his short story collections. Yesterday I brought home one of them, Equal Love. I'm caught between wanting to start reading half (okay, all) of them all at once, and taking most of them back (rather than have them sitting there as a guilty reminder of how many I really can get through before those due dates creep up).
And lastly there is this pile of books I assembled this past weekend. Newer books that I own that I have wanted to read, and why don't I just start one of them...I have it narrowed down to Katharine Weber's Triangle, which the litblog co-op posted on rather extensively last month, and April in Paris by Michael Wallner, which Nutmeg just reviewed very favorably.
At least one of these books is going to be making it to my night stand soon. Perhaps just choosing one will be enough to satisfy my desire for more.new.books (to start reading that is). I'm very near or even past the half way mark in at least one of my current reads, maybe even two. And you know what that'll mean...I'll get to start another new book.