Joy. A long holiday weekend to look forward to. And it couldn't have come a moment sooner! I feel like I've been dragging lately and am hoping to rest, relax and do lots of reading and a little needlework, too. I expect it's going to be really quiet here this weekend (continuing the trend of late in general I think as it's been very quiet these last few weeks of May), so I think I am going to take a mini-break from posting. I'll be back on Tuesday with a short story (maybe even two!).
I'll be mostly offline in order to take advantage of the extra day off from work, but I hope to catch up a little with blog reading (and maybe contemplate the switch to a new RSS feed reader, which I have been putting off but can't ignore much longer). I have lots of reading plans (as usual), though I suspect this will be another case of my eyes being bigger than my stomach. Still, plans are good and these are the books I will likely spend most of my reading time with over the course of the next few days.
Those three weeks go really fast when it comes to borrowing library books. Jacqueline Winspear's Leaving Everything Most Loved is already due back at the library tomorrow. It is on the top of my pile and I hope to return it on time or just a day late. As I am well beyond the midway point it shouldn't be a problem. I always enjoy Maisie Dobbs mysteries and this story promises to be a pivotal book in the series. More about it later.
I wonder if I am being overly optimistic by hoping planning on finishing Virginia Woolf's Jacob's Room as well? It's not really hard going, though not a straightforward narrative either. I've just a little over one hundred pages to go, so I think I might manage it. As Stefanie and I are reading it in tandem, she has helped me stay focused on it. I'm trying to take notes as I go, though my post about it later will be challenging to write . . .
Another little readalong, but with a much longer book. In this case Buried in Print and I are tackling Charles Palliser's The Quincunx. It's pretty hefty with over 700 pages so a bit more slower going than the rest of my books, but I hope to spend some extra uninterrupted reading time on it. The story reminds me of a good Wilkie Collins' story, and I love Wilkie Collins.
I'm not too far into Anna Funder's All That I Am, but I like what I've read so far. I want to try and finish by the end of the month for Caroline's readalong. I've still got a bit of time, but this is a story that goes better with frequent quiet reading periods as it moves around in time a little and I am still trying to figure out just what the different relationships between characters are. I was thinking this was a WWII story, and it is sort of. It begins with references to WWI and the build up to WWII--I'm very curious to see where it's going.
This is an impulse (well, sort of) choice. Earlier this year I had planned on joining in the Barbara Pym reading week, and my how quickly the time flies as June 2 is just around the corner. I've tentatively chosen Crampton Hodnet as the book I'll read for the week and have dipped into it just a little and like what I've read, so I hope there will be a little time this weekend to spend with it. I am always in the mood for (it seems) a country house setting and this one has just that.
I think I have found a likely candidate for my beach read. Red Ruby Heart In a Cold Blue Sea by Morgan Callen Rogers is set in the 1960s in (coastal) Maine. I am hoping it will have a strong sense of setting. I'm going to give it a try this weekend in any case--a sort of 'try out' to see if it's the story I want. I think it might turn out to be just what I had in mind. It sometimes feels like I have a roundabout way of choosing books. I choose stories rather than authors (though I do that too). I have an idea in mind of the story I want to read and then try and match the book.
There might be some other books and magazines interspersed with these as I must let whim guide me a little, too. The top two books are the ones I am most hoping to finish reading before heading back to work on Tuesday.
I am hoping, too, that next week I'll be back with a Lost in the Stacks post. Until Tuesday, I hope everyone has a great (bookish) weekend.