Books I need to read in August:
Dawn Powell's Dance Night for the Slaves discussion at the end of the month. I'm looking forward to this--I've wanted to read Powell for ages and this is the perfect excuse (not that I ever need one).
"Dance Night portrays working-class Lamptown, Ohio, at the turn of the century. It's a hardscrabble place, filled with bitter factory girls whose dreams are unattainable. Every Thursday is dance night at the Casino Dance Hall, where residents escape their workaday lives, if only for fleeting moments."
Dawn Powell is an author who wrote from the 1920s through the 60s. She fell out of favor and her books went out of print until the late 1990s when she was championed by the likes of Gore Vidal and Tim Page. I'm very curious about her work.
It's also time for me to get out my next Postal Reading Group book. It's a slender book of just over 200 pages so I should easily get through it before our next mailing date September 1.
I also need to work on reading a few review copies that I've let accumulate. I've pretty much stopped taking review copies, since I am not keeping up very well, but I will take something that really appeals. I've gotten several from Library Thing's Early Reviewer Program. There is now a way to access a list of the books you've won and not yet reviewed, so I can see exactly how far behind I am (so glad they came up with that feature, or maybe not). In a few cases I've started the book but it has not clicked with me, so I set it aside. I'm not sure what to do when this happens. Slog through to the end? Or maybe it was a matter of timing and if I pick it up now I will love it? In any case I'll need to add one or two of these to my reading rotation this month. I'm not sure whether to read The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy first or The Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick.
You may never notice, but I've updated my reading list on the right sidebar (I'm always interested in what other reader's have in their sidebars). I've shuffled things around a bit so the list should reflect what I'm actually reading. Bleak House has been relegated to the shelf of books that is attached to my night table. I feel bad as the shelf has a reputation a little like the island of unwanted toys. Once a half read book sits there for a while it's chances of being retrieved and finished tend to lessen with each day it lingers there. I am seriously hoping to rescue it. Sometime. I'd better not attach any specific time period to it (like saying I AM going to finish it by the end of summer). I don't know what happened. I guess other books happened.
What I have been reading is Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile. I'm thhinking I have the solution worked out. I've not read enough Christie to know how obvious the murderer is, or whether I just have an especially devious mind, so I could be totally wrong. I'm zipping along, so I'll let you know.
I've also been enjoying Rosamunde Pilcher's Coming Home. It's set before and during WWII. The novel follows Judith Dunbar from her days at school to her war work. It's 1936 at the moment. Her parents are in Singapore where her father works in shipping and she is at school in England. Cornwall to be specific. Pilcher is a gifted storyteller and gives wonderful descriptions of everything, which is especially nice since I love anything about the seaside. The book also makes me seriously hungry as I'm reading. They always seem to be having tea and hot buttered scones with jam. Just what exactly are fairy cakes anyway? Or kunzle cake? They sound yummy anyway.
I've also started reading William Maxwell's The Folded Leaf about two boys growing up in small town Illinois in the early 1920s. I get the feeling that Maxwell is an author who's underrated yet his books have been met with critical acclaim. His prose is simple yet beautiful and his characters are drawn masterfully. I already know from Litlove that I am going to have to read The Chateau, but I'll be searching out his other books as well. And I'll definitely be reading more American Lit!