For a short while I was on a roll, finishing books left and right and not even able to keep up writing about them. Now my "roll" consists of starting lots of new books and not finishing many at all. At the moment I really need to lose myself in whatever I happen to be reading and that is working with some books better than others.
So the books I've not been reading, though I should be? I am really in the mood to read classics. There's something about the shorter days, cool and breezy with leaves falling and crunching beneath my feet that makes me want to read a good, traditional story. I've even had several different books on my nightstand fully intending to pass hours of my time with them, but I've moved more than I care to admit back to their places on my shelves (through no fault of their own and all of mine). Poor Anna Karenina has sat languishing for far too long, and I am actually in the mood to crack the book open again and pick up where I left off, only I always seem to pick up some other book entirely. And Wilkie Collins is faring no better. No Name's been bumped off the bus shift in favor of something else. That one is a matter of timing and Mr. Wragge's disappointing behavior towards his wife. I feel he will redeem himself, but we need a little time apart.
My Molly Keane project? Yes, the same book has been sitting on my pile and on my sidebar for the better part of the year. Let's not talk about that one, but there are still a few months left and I might still get it read. I leave it on my sidebar with a mixture of anticipation and inspiration and maybe a little guilt, too.
There are a few other books that I have very good intentions about, but well, you know how it goes. In theory they sound like (and probably are) really perfect reads, but my attention span is just not long enough at the moment. Why are mysteries such good comfort reads at times like these? The thing is, I am reading, and reading lots, I'm just being particular about which books I'm reading. The last time I shared my library loot I was prepared to start one of them, and I've started not one, but two new books. They just happen to be my own and not from the library (now there's an idea).
Carola Dunn is yet another author who is a complete comfort read for me. Last weekend I picked up the next book in the Daisy Dalrymple series, Styx and Stones (I'm on book #7 I think, and there are a slew more to read still) and started reading and decided not to stop. I'm sure I've written about these books before--they are set in 1920s England and Daisy is from a genteel family that no longer has any money. She lost her beau and brother in the War and now must work to earn a living. She's a writer who happens to get caught up in murders and burglaries and sundry other misdeeds by those of the criminal world. On her earliest case she met a detective with whom she is now engaged. She's a completely likable character, which is a big reason I often pick up Dunn's books. In a way they remind me of Agatha Christie, but only in terms of period details. Christie had a knack for creating twisty solutions to her crimes that Dunn doesn't exactly share. Her solutions are a bit more conventional but not in a bad way. I always look forward to Daisy's adventures.
Now, Jenn Ashworth's A Kind of Intimacy is a train wreck of a book. Annie, the narrator, is ever so slightly delusional, I think. She tells you her story, how much you can actually believe is questionable, but I'm totally in thrall of it all and find I literally can't look away. Her life is a disaster and you feel like you shouldn't look and shouldn't be so entertained by it, but you want to know more. This is what has usurped Wilkie Collins's place on my daily bus ride. It is so good. I don't really want to tell you about it (so as to not give anything away), but I want you to go pick it up and try it (if it's the sort of story that appeals). One of the book blurbs compared her to Ruth Rendell and in terms of the psychological portrait of this damaged character I would say it is a very apt comparison. I'll only say that Annie was married and had a daughter but has moved and is now living alone and there are whispers of what happened to them, but I'm not quite sure what is fact and what is fiction (I think I can't trust Annie). This is a dark read, but not exactly dark in the way a crime novel is. It's a little hard to explain, but if I could still stay up half the night reading (those days ended when I got a job with normal day hours), this is the book that would keep me awake and turning pages!