I'm afraid I'm not having much luck with any of the library books I've started reading for my library's winter reading program. I'm not sure I'll be able to manage five books at this point (before the end of February). I started with Linn Ullman's A Blessed Child, but it just didn't click. Then I moved on to Emma Donoghue's The Sealed Letter. Actually it is still very promising and sits on my night stand, but at the moment I want something that isn't set in the Victorian period. So I picked up Linda Olsson's Astrid & Veronika, which also didn't grab me. Now I suspect all these books are excellent reads, and if I stuck with them for more than ten pages I would likely happily fall into the story. But I'm putting these unsuccessful attempts to post-Affinity blues. I was just so wrapped up in that story by the end of the book, that everything else I begin now pales in comparison it seems.
I am going back to the drawing board tomorrow, which means a visit to the library to see what's new. I should have a couple of books waiting for me as well. However, I don't want to just read something for the sake of filling up the list I need to return to the library next month. Usually I am very attracted to recently published books, so I'm not sure what's going on. I just seem to want to read the books on my own shelves at the moment. I've been thinking lately that as I only have a limited number of books I can squeeze in in a year, I don't want to waste time on something I'm not necessarily enjoying. The books can be highbrow or lowbrow or anything in between as long as they're good (and good can, of course, mean a variety of things)!
Not to be defeated by the pile of library books that I have at home, I have just started Sebastian Faulks's Engleby. So far I am sufficiently intrigued by the narrator to keep reading. He does have an odd 'voice', but I think I can get used to it. I also really like books with unreliable narrators, as strange as that might sound. I may have to look for some really short, or really fluffy reads at the library now. I'll let you know what I come up with.