Since I've finished two books and am nearly finished with a third, I'm thinking about which books I want to start reading next. Hopefully I'll be writing about what I finished very soon, but I have to say my brain has been a little addled by the heat. I'm hoping for some inspiration over the weekend and a little cooler weather. Fingers crossed it happens on both counts. More about my finished books later, let's think instead now about which books to choose. I need a new classic and and I have a little pile of AREs that are really deserving some attention. I've got things whittled down a little bit, but selecting just one can be so hard. Once I start reading I hate setting books aside, so I try and get a sense of what I'm getting into and whether the book fits my mood.
About a week ago I had already decided I wanted to read Carson McCuller's The Member of the Wedding. It begins "It happened that green and crazy summer when Frankie was twelve years old. This was the summer when for a long time she had not been a member. She belonged to no club and was a member of nothing in the world." One of McCullers themes in her novels is a sense of isolation, which I think I can relate to at the moment. And I also love coming of age stories. But then came along Faulkner's The Unvanquished. I was reading the notes at the end of the book and many of the chapters began as short stories for publications like The Saturday Evening Post. Apparently Faulkner edited and rewrote them to create one story, but I wonder if the overwhelming feel will be of interconnected stories rather than a single novel, which is fine, just interesting. And then I started thinking about Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. I like this--"Before John Cheever, Raymond Carver, and Richard Ford, there was Sherwood Anderson, who with Winesburg, Ohio, charted a new direction in American fiction." I want something a little challenging but not defeating. And a book with really good, strong prose.
It's a little trickier for my AREs. I'm honestly not sure what I'm in the mood for, but I need to get cracking on them. Some have arrived unsolicited, but I'm intrigued enough to want to read them, and a few have been books I've requested. Perhaps a little taste of the story?
Lorcan Roche, The Companion. "The ad is in The Voice. Then, after a little while, a voice is in the ad. Sounds exactly like the bloke who played the evil baddie in North by Northwest, you know him, yes you do, silver hair, real refined, shite, what's this his name is...? Mason, James." This is a "darkly humorous tale of obsession."
The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris by Leila Marouane. "It came over me all of a sudden, he said. I was at my desk, hardly listening to my client, and I couldn't take my eyes off the dome that was shining like a mirage beyond the bay window. You're in Paris but you're not in Paris. A shadow passing through the city. Morning after morning. Going back to the gray skies of your banlieue. Night after night. Paris shines for other people. You're becoming lackluster, there among your family. That's the point you're at, old boy. Strolling by the banquet, not allowed to taste. Existing without existence."
Ashworth, Jenn. A Kind of Intimacy. "After the van had been loaded and sent on its way I took off all my clothes and kicked the sofa I was about to abandon. Not just a little kick either. I really belted it." This sounds darkly comic and maybe a little sad.
While I decide what to read I'll grab my box of tissues as I have somehow managed to catch a cold. How does one catch a cold during the hottest week of summer I ask you? Well, I've done it. Probably getting all sweaty outside and at the gym and then going into really cold air conditioning doesn't help. My books should at least keep my mind off my stuffy nose.