First the bad news. I think I have finally finished my Christmas shopping (that's actually good news). I needed to look for a few gifts at the bookstore, which is always a pleasure. But as this is about giving to others rather than buying for me, I didn't spend a lot of time browsing. I'll save that for after the holidays. I did, however, happen upon an interesting looking mystery. It is set in Cyprus during the 1920s and features a woman archaeologist as a sleuth. Perfect for me--just right for my mood at the moment, so I did add it to my stack. What is is called you may ask? I wish I could tell you, but I can't remember. See, the clerk placed the books in piles as she was ringing me up and managed to not grab it and put it in my bag. She didn't charge me for it, which I suppose is a good thing, but now I've lost it. Quite irritating really. When I was on the bus going home I was looking through the bag ready to pull it out and look it over properly, and alas it wasn't there. The store is not that big, so surely I can find it later.
Disappointed as I was, I came home to some good news. Someone from Henry Holt contacted me offering an ARC of Jacqueline Winspear's forthcoming mystery, An Incomplete Revenge (thank you Jason!). It takes so little to please me sometimes, but this made my day. The newest novel is set in Kent, and I should have it in my hands before the end of my vacation. Can you guess which book is going to jump to the front of the reading queue?
"In her fifth outing, Maisie Dobbs, the extraordinary Psychologist and Investigator, delves into a strange series of crimes in a small rural community With the country in the grip of economic malaise, and worried about her business, Maisie Dobbs is relieved to accept an apparently straightforward assignment from an old friend to investigate certain matters concerning a potential land purchase. Her inquiries take her to a picturesque village in Kent during the hop-picking season, but beneath its pastoral surface she finds evidence that something is amiss. Mysterious fires erupt in the village with alarming regularity, and a series of petty crimes suggests a darker criminal element at work. As Maisie discovers, the villagers are bitterly prejudiced against outsiders who flock to Kent at harvest time-even more troubling, they seem possessed by the legacy of a wartime Zeppelin raid. Maisie grows increasingly suspicious of a peculiar secrecy that shrouds the village, and ultimately she must draw on all her finely honed skills of detection to solve one of her most intriguing cases."
So, things are set to rights again, disappointment dissipated. I have Maisie to look forward to.
As for the old news. I had actually intended for this post to be about my 2007 goals. Do I dare look back and see how I did? I've noticed that other readers have already been posting their "best of" lists, but I had planned to make mine just a little later. How am I supposed to decide in a year where I read not only War and Peace, and Don Quixote, but also Kristin Lavransdatter? So I am putting that off for a bit.
Last year I said I wasn't going to set too many goals. I mentioned my shelf full of cast offs. I don't think I finished a single one of those books, but they mostly were reintegrated into my bookshelves--a solution of sorts. I wanted some long term reads, and I had more than a few of those, though perhaps they weren't exactly as I intended (more the sort of--a book it just took me forever to get through, hence 'long term'). I did mention short story collections, which happily I have read and have gotten into the habit of picking up now and again. I wanted to read more classics, and I think I have done a fairly good job of that, though I read only two from the challenge list that I set out to tackle (out of five titles, and actually I'm still working on one of them--the Wilkie Collins book). The Modern Library list? Read only one title. I didn't do too well on that one (I think the previous year I read something like eight books). Maybe next year. Specific books I wanted to read (here's the list)--I read three of them. More nonfiction (not as many as I would've liked), poetry (I might give up on that one), science fiction (does Madeleine L'Engle count? A YA book by her doesn't seem terribly die-hard sci-fi), and lastly a play (I read two by Shakespeare!). I also set out to read ten books in translation, which I actually managed to do! All in all not bad really. My goals are pretty elastic. Though I didn't always do well on lists I set out to read from I still read plenty of very good books. I'm not sure goal is really the right term when it comes to my reading--plans might be better. And even the best laid plans still sometimes go awry, but that's part of the fun and adventure of reading. And yes, I am sure I'll have some for 2008 as well.