Just a very few bookish notes today as I am hoping to get in some reading time tonight. I am in the midst of a number of really good reads, but I rarely get to spend time with them in the evening. By the time I can sit down with a book I am too tired to manage more than just a page or two before I start drifting off (not in response to the book I assure you). Long gone are those days when I could read the night away. Now I get up too early in the morning to enjoy late evenings.
You have likely already seen the announcement for the Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist. I'm actually kind of excited about this year's list (much more appealing to me than last year's). Although I've not read any of the books so far, three of them were in my TBR pile. I decided it was just the excuse to nudge them up to the top and have started Francesca Segal's The Innocents. Last fall I was fortunate enough to hear the author speak and have a book signed by her, so now is the perfect time to finally get around to reading it. She's a really lovely young woman by the way and so far I'm really enjoying the novel. It's modelled
after/inspired by Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence by the way.
I've also got Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, which I had heard so much about when it was first released and had to have it (and it remains as yet unread...), as well as The People of Forever are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu, which I had bought as it tied in with my desire to read more about women and war. And purely by chance I had just checked out The Forrests by Emily Perkins from the library last week. If I can manage to read a couple or three of these before the shortlist is announced next month I'll be pretty pleased with myself. Of course I've added a number of new to me titles from the list to my own wishlist, too. And I can see I really do need to read Hilary Mantel since she keeps popping up on all the award lists, and I should also get around to reading Zadie Smith, too. Does anyone plan on reading any of the books from the list (or maybe you've already read some of the books on it?)?
I was in the mood for a good, traditional (contemporary) detective story, so I have picked up Peter
Lovesey's The Last Detective. I'd not read him before, but the book seems to have just hit the spot and I quite like Peter Diamond, the Detective Inspector, featured in the story. I will get back to Bess Crawford soon, I hope. But you know how moods go sometimes. Mine tends to swing back and forth and a WWI mystery just wasn't exactly what I was hitting the spot right now. I think I might need a good psychological crime novel next. Suggestions? Maybe something foreign, too.
I've actually got more good reads I could tell you about, but I'll save the rest for another day. So, are you reading something that's especially good right now? Do tell!