I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday for those who celebrate and a lovely weekend for those who don't. I've been spending time with family, which has included doing a little shopping (of the relxing and browsing sort). We dropped by my favorite used bookstore where I was hoping to find a few Viragos to add to my collection and in anticipation for the upcoming reading week. Unfortunately I only spotted one, but I did find a few other books that I couldn't resist buying.
Anita Loos is on my list of authors to read and I found an illustrated copy of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes But Marry Brunettes--two novels in one. The novels are in diary format of a "gold-digging blonde in the flapper days of 1925, forging a new archetype for the modern world."
I keep collecting Colette novels though am reading them very slowly. I think I might just have a Colette binge one of these days. Break of Day has been on my wishlist for ages. It was written after the breakup of her second marriage. "The novel's theme -- the renunciation of love and the return to an independent existence supported and enriched by the beauty and peace of nature -- grows out of Colette's own period of self-assessment in the middle of her life. A collection of subtle reflections about love and life, it is among her most thoughtful and stylistically bold works."
I really liked Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret, so John Marchmont's Legacy piqued my curiosity. This has a "plot charged with drama and mystery, an eerie atmosphere, and above all, a depiction of an extraordinary woman." Braddon called Wilkie Collins the "master of the 'sensation novel'" and considered him her 'literary father'. Sounds right up my alley.
I'm a little wary of Radclyffe Hall as I believe she wrote experimental fiction, which I usually struggle with whenever I read something along those lines. However, if Virago published her I'm willing to give her work a try. Of The Unlit Lamp the blurb notes "This absorbing and compellingly readable novel is one of the strongest descriptions in English fiction of the love--and hate--that can exist between women, between mother and daughter, lover and beloved."
Another book on my wishlist that I lucked out with is Monika Fagerholm's The American Girl. Fagerholm is Finnish though belongs to the Swedish-speaking community in Finland. I believe Tiina has written about her, and I was so excited to get the book, I was prepared to start reading right away. However, after reading Amazon reviews I'm putting it off a bit. Although I'm often curious about Amazon reviews I am also somewhat skeptical of them as well, as I am unfamiliar with the reviewer's tastes. Someone may pan a book I might ultimately love, so I try and avoid them before starting a book. I think the problems with The American Girl, however, seem to stem from the translation and writing style more than anything else, so I hope to get to this one sooner than later (just not at this particular moment).
I've revamped my reading pile, and my sidebar should reflect which books I am actually reading at the moment. I culled a few that I had just barely started, through no fault of their own. As much as I have enjoyed my recent comfort read binge, I am sort of in the mood to vary my reading for the new year and add a few that are perhaps a little more challenging or notable for their literary style. There are still a few 'escapist' sorts of reads there, but I am trying to move the pile in the direction I hope to take my reading next year.
I've picked up John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps. It's a very short novel, which I am saving for the end of the week to read. I thought it would be nice to kick off the new year with a book from my 2011 reading List. I'm determined to read all the books from my list next year!
I suspect I'm going to be thinking about Anna Karenina for a while, so I thought it would be interesting to read Irina Reyn's What Happened to Anna K., which is a retelling of Tolstoy's novel. It was chosen for 'best of' lists for The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Entertainment Weekly. It's set in contemporary New York City, and with less than 300 pages I think I can read it a tad quicker than the original.
In my reshuffling of books I decided I wasn't as much in the mood for a Victorian saga (well not at this moment, ask me in a day or two and the answer may change) as I thought, so I have picked up Zoe Heller's Notes on a Scandal. I saw the movie several years ago, so I have a vague recollection of the story, but I'm finding the book hard to set down. It's about an illicit affair between a teacher and student, but the story is recounted by a strangely obsessive and possibly malicious friend. It was shortlisted for the Booker in 2003.
Is it bad to say that I don't mind that the Christmas holiday is over? I do enjoy the day but not the stress that accompanies it, and now I have the next week to rest and relax and hopefully loll about on the sofa reading. I feel extremely fortunate and very spoiled as I received several very generous gift cards, so I might just do a little online shopping later this afternoon and see which books on this list might be available now (though I'm sure I can find one or two others if none are published yet). There have been a number of books that I've finished lately that I've not had the opportunity to write about, so I might have to do a few catch up posts, and I'm working my end of the year favorites list, too, which I'll be sharing this week.