I'm snagging this post idea from Dorothy as I can totally relate to what she's writing about. My problem is that I want to read both deeply and widely--all at once. That's reason #47 why I always have so many books on the go at once. I want to read everything and I want to read them all now. I can never decide whether I could accomplish more just reading two or three books at once or continuing to go about it the way I am doing so. In any case I never give myself the chance to find out as my reading pile simply grows all on its own.
I think I spend too much time when I'm not reading, thinking about what I want to read. There are so many books out there that I feel like I should read or that simply appeal to me I am constantly reorganizing the queue in my mind.
Here are a few of my own categories, in no particular order. Some I am sure you will be very familiar with.
- Molly Keane/Anglo-Irish Literature. I've always been a little interested in Anglo-Irish authors like Elizabeth Bowen and Annabel Davis-Goff, but it wasn't until I read a novel by Molly Keane earlier this year that I wanted to investigate and read more. Both Bowen and Davis-Goff have memoirs that I'd like to read. And of course I plan on working my way through Keane's work in the order she wrote it. I'm on book #2 (out of fourteen or so).
- More Persephone books (would love to read all of them, but there are over 80 now, so that would be quite an undertaking) and more Viragos. I will pretty much buy a Virago content-unseen, because I know they always publish good, sometimes provocative authors. I'd love to own them all and am always on the lookout for used copies at bookstores or library sales. I have little Virago reading project, which I work on here and ther e during the year. Virago publishes Molly Keane's books by the way.
- In a related category I want to read more middlebrow literature (see Persephone Books and Virago Press), and I want to read about middlebrow literature. See this post.
- Daphne du Maurier. I've read some of her novels and Margaret Forster's very interesting biography. I want to continue on and read all her novels.
- We might as well add Jane Austen, Rosamonde Lehmann, Elizabeth Taylor and Mary Wesley to the list of authors who I want to read all their work as well as a biography and come criticism. Have I left anyone out (probably).
- More classics. Lots more classics. I have piles of them around--books I always feel I should have read when I was younger but never did.
- More American Lit, especially 20th century and contemporary writers like Philip Roth, John Updike, Anne Tyler, etc. I read very few American authors these days--not because I don't want to, I just don't get around to them.
- More mysteries. I'd like to read more classic mystery authors, both British and American, and I'd like to read more about how they all fit together--Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, Mignon Eberhart, Mary Rinehart, Dorothy Sayers, Dashiell Hammett among others. And contemporary authors like P.D. James and Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine--well, there are just far too many to mention.
- More books in translation--contemporary novels, mysteries and classics. And I'd like to read many more non-European authors, too.
- Shakespeare. I had a little project going that I've been neglecting. I want to read more plays, a book or two about him and the period he lived in, and even some fictional books as well.
- More nonfiction. I have lots of travel narratives and it has been too long since I've read any of those. I have lots of author biographies. As weird as it sounds I'd like to read more books about the seaside and the coasts (I actually have a fair number dealing with a variety of topics). More nature books (I have at least two on bees alone!). And more social history (am thinking of those books on the interwar period).
- Anything about Edwardian England--fiction, nonfiction, memoirs.
- More Victorian Lit.--especially Wilkie Collins and other Sensationalist writers (like Mary Elizabeth Braddon), but also more serious writers (not that Wilkie Collins isn't serious!) like Mary Gaskell, the Brontes, George Eliot.
- Art books. I studied Art History, yet I never read about art or artists anymore (what used to be my favorite topic at one time). I keep telling myself I need to read more about art.
I could probably go on, but I think you get the idea. Just talking about these various projects makes me want to go pick one of these up and start reading!