Who's going to be watching Downton Abbey tonight? I'm keeping things simple here today as I plan on parking myself in front of the TV later. You can see a preview here and in case you need further temptation read what the Wall Street Journal has to say about it (all good). It's a four part series created and written by Julian Fellowes that has received rave reviews. I love a good costume drama and this one sounds like it does much to please. It's set in a country manor house during the glory days of the Edwardian era and concerns both the privileged family upstairs and the servants downstairs.
On the bookish front, I've started reading several new books. The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva looks very promising. I think I have too many good spy novels to choose from so it was a hard decision. A WWII setting was the clincher though. Silva is an American, though the book is set in Britain. I do want to vary my spy novel reading, and I see that Silva's later books are part of a series featuring a CIA officer, so I may have to read more if this turns out to be as good as I am hoping it will be. The book opens with the murder of a woman by a German operative. I had read the first few pages and couldn't pick it up again right away and found myself wondering what was going to happen--always a good sign.
I know some readers prefer to recycle their books and only keep as many on hand as they think they will be reading in the near future. Sometimes this is a matter of not having space or funds, or maybe not being in the habit of rereading a book. I've been a hoarder of books for as long as I can remember and feel the tiniest twinge of guilt when I show photos of my book room or stacks of books, as if I am doing something bad by having so many of them and far too many books unread. The thing is I never know when I am going to want to read something. I will buy a book that sounds really appealing, but then it may sit on my shelves for years before I pick it up finally. But the time will come when I'm browsing my shelves and will find the perfect book for the moment. I found Elizabeth Mcintosh's Sisterhood of Spies yesterday when I was looking for something else. It's not something I'll be reading right now, but it seems a perfect fit for my season of spies. I hadn't planned on reading nonfiction, but I do like the sound of this book. Did you know Julia Child was in the OSS (Office of Strategic Services)?
Matthew Gallaway's The Metropolis Case is going to be an interesting read. He incorporates emails and such into the narrative, which feels a little strange, but I should probably get used to it as lots of other authors do so as well. I love epistolary novels, but somehow emails lack the romance of a letter. What can I say, I guess I'm old-fashioned.
I'll be concentrating on Zoe Heller's Notes on a Scandal this week, in part simply because I can't put it down as well as my daily reading of Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell. I discovered this week that there is a Handbook to go along with the series of books. My library owns it so it might be a useful tool in keeping people straight in the series. Thanks to this I found out there are more than 400 characters and over a million words in this epic. Yikes. I guess I should have devoted more than two pages in my notebook to the Powell novels!