I've won a book. Simon at Stuck in a Book has offered a (hard to find) copy of Frank Baker's Miss Hargreaves. It is one of Simon's "top 50 books you must read but may not have heard about". I've heard (well, after reading about it on Simon's blog) many good things about the book and am looking forward to reading it. We are doing a swap and I have a book picked out to send in return. Miss H. has made the book blogger rounds, so I will be in good company. If I can bear to part with her later, she may once again be set off into the world...
You know when you finish a really good book that you have been completely absorbed in for ages--it can be hard to settle down with another book at first. I'm jumping about a bit, but I did start George Eliot's Daniel Deronda. This was the last novel Eliot wrote. Apparently it caused quite a scandal when it was published in 1867 (so many of the good books seem to have caused scandals, have you noticed?). Only a few chapters in and I am already warming up to the book. I think it will be quite easy to lose myself in this one as well. I am hoping to read a minimum of two chapters a day, so I can easily finish it before the end of the year, even though it is a bit on the lengthy side. There is a bit of a group forming, if you want to read along. I am quite curious what everyone thinks so far about Gwendolyn?!
I am still in a the mood to read something Scandinavian, but I don't want a novel so soon after finishing Kristin Lavransdatter, so Nancy Marie Brown's The Far Traveler is just the ticket. It is a nonfiction book detailing the search for Gudrid, a 10th century Viking woman mentioned in Icelandic sagas who sailed on multiple voyages--perhaps even as far as to Rome. I am several chapters into the book and I love the writing style. It is chatty and informative without being dry or overly technical. Brown pieces together the life Gudrid may have lived through the literature of the time, historical records and archaeological investigations. It's a very interesting slice of history.
And on the light and very entertaining side, I've also started Georgette Heyer's Cotillion. The kind people at Sourcebooks offered a reader's copy to me. Since I enjoyed An Infamous Army so much, I couldn't pass up the chance to read another Heyer novel. This appears to be a bit lighter than An Infamous Army. The heroine, young Kitty Charing, stands to inherit a rather large fortune provided she marries one of her benefactor's nephews. This promises to be a fun read and already I can sense Heyer's witty style coming through.