I'm sure I've mentioned (probably often) how much I love this time of year. I love the brisk, cool mornings and the sunny warm afternoons. I love to hear the crunch of leaves underfoot. I even don't mind the occasional rainy afternoons like we had this weekend. It makes for perfect reading weather,
doesn't it? It's curl up on the sofa with a hot mug of cocoa or apple cinnamon herbal tea (my own favorite) with a good book--an absorbing novel, good mystery or atmospheric ghost story! I seem to have all three plus a number of other kinds of books on the go at the moment. I always lament the fact that I am not finishing as many books I would like, but I really need to focus more on the books I am enjoying. Slow but steady progress has much about it to admire. Quality not quantity, right? Besides, I seem to think nothing these days of just jumping into a new book when I feel the whim hit me. And there is a lot to be said for that as well. You know how there is a 'slow food' movement. I think I am going to start my own little 'slow reading' movement. Not worry so much about anything except the story at hand.
My latest new start, and I just saw it sitting there in a pile of mysteries and decided it was calling to me is Jo Nesbo's The Bat. I read The Redbreast several years ago and have ever after meant to get back to Harry Hole, who I must admit liked very much upon first meeting him. I sort of like those angsty detectives. Harry is most decidedly angsty. Nesbo is a Norwegian writer, just one of many mystery writers to become so very popular from Scandinavia. Maybe it's better that I have waited to pick up another book as now most have been published in English in the US and I can go back and read them in order. The Bat is the first Inspector Harry Hole novel set in Sydney Australia and concerns the murder of a popular Norwegian actress who was murdered abroad.
Along with my weekly ghost stories for RIP VIII, and Wilkie Collins's The Haunted Hotel, I have added Stephen King to my RIP repertoire. I've been absorbed in the carny-world of Joyland ca. 1973. It's been a good dozen years since I've read one of King's novels, and I have forgotten what a good storyteller he
is. This is not a horror story, or even a mystery really, though there is a murder and maybe even a ghost at the heart of the story. He captures the period so well. Although I was very young in the 1970s, I have this strange nostalgia for the decade. I guess those were simply happy, growing up years for me, so I actually enjoy revisiting them. It feels good, too, to be reading a classic, which I consider the Wilkie Collins--even though it is only novella-length. Another wonderful storyteller and it's set in Venice, too!
Susanna Kearsley is another dependable read for me. Every Secret Thing is the first book by her that I think won't involve time travel, though this is going to have parallel storylines. It's a mystery, though not a typical detective story. Kate Murray has witnessed the death of a man with whom only moments before she had been speaking. He knew her grandmother and sought her out while she was in London. He had been intending to tell her about a long-forgotten murder, but before he had a chance he was struck down and killed in a hit-and-run accident. The mystery goes back to the war years and somehow involves her grandmother. It's been enjoyable reading and I am looking forward to going back to the war years to fill in more of the story.
My other new book is Herman Wouk's Marjorie Morningstar. I'm not far enough into it yet to share much about the story other than it is set in New York City in 1933. I didn't have much reading time this past weekend and what little I had was given over to my ghost story and a little time spent with A Suitable Boy (more about that one later). I can tell you that Marjorie Morgenstern is nineteen at the beginning of the book with her life and career ahead of her. She dreams of a life outside the rigid constraints of her Jewish upbringing and feels the call of the theater. This is a "classic love story that spans two continents and two decades" in the heroine's life. It's another big, sprawling book, but so far it doesn't feel like one (if you know what I mean!).
I do have a few upcoming reads that are sitting at the top of my reading pile. I'll get to revisit the work
of Vasily Grossman (remember I read An Armenian Sketchbook earlier this year) for the Literature and War Readalong this month. I knew I wanted to read more of his work so now I get the opportunity with Everything Flows. Cornflower's next book club book is Isabel Colegate's The Shooting Party, which is (yet another) book I've long wanted to read. And there is, of course, my postal reading group book as well.
So many good books to choose from. They make me feel all tingly in anticipation. Only two more days before I am off on vacation, and you probably won't be surprised to know I am still contemplating reading material. Now I think my take-along books will be a combination of in progress books and maybe one new one. I'm only gone for five days, but you know how difficult the choice is nonetheless!