I tried. I tried really hard, but I couldn't finish Wives and Daughters before the clock ran out last night. I've spent hours and hours of reading time on this book over my break (the fate of a slow reader). I have about 130 pages left, which I hope to read today. I might have made more progress had I not gone out to lunch yesterday. I'm sorry Mrs Gaskell, really good Italian food trumps the adventures of Molly and Cynthia for a few hours (plus it was the only exciting thing I did on my break--how sad is that). So rather than being my last read of 2009 I guess it'll be my first of 2010, which somehow seems like cheating since I read most of it last year.
This has sort of messed up my plans. Today was going to be my first book post of the year--first read and finished. I had several really short novels set out that I was going to read and then write about to get 2010 going, but those books will just have to go back to their respective piles and places on bookshelves. I did finish one book from my binge pile (will write about it next week) and am in the middle of another. A couple more are on my night stand ready to go, so all in all that didn't turn out too shabby as I never expected to read more than a couple anyway.
So, here is the "official" pile of books to start of 2010 (um, I have a few unofficial books straggling, but will hopefully finish them soon. Shh.). A few are holdovers from last year but most are fresh starts. I did do a shuffle and put a few partially read books back. I hate doing that but after they sit for a while unopened they get sort of stale. It's not that I don't want to read them, but my mood has changed. It feels nice to have a reasonable-ish pile of books to start the year. Any bets how long it will take me to double the number. Am going to try very hard not to do that.
I guess I'm off to see how things are going in Hollingford (scandal is all I can say at the moment!). Hope everyone has a wonderful 2010. I plan on enjoying my last few days before returning to work!