No reading a book in a sunny garden for me this weekend. It has been raining and raining and raining. My walks have been damp ones, but I must say it is nice to sit inside a coffee shop in front of a window with a cup of hot, fresh brewed coffee looking out at the water streaming down and knowing that for a little while anyway, I can sit with my book and relax in the warmth. Of course, chapter two is a walk in the rain to the bus stop and then later home where I arrived pretty wet. The up side--if it had been colder, this little story would have included snow boots! But I like the image above and so far have not come across a snowy, bookish scene. Maybe there is one out there and I will get a postcard of it someday! (And then I will share it in the hot month of July).
Can you tell I should really be writing about one of the books I've finished and want to write about (really, I do . . .) but just don't have the energy to do so on a Monday? The next best thing to reading books and writing about them is thinking about reading books and writing about those! I do a lot of that these days actually. I am trying hard to stay focused on those last books (eighteen days and eight books--yikes), but on the edge of my mind are the books I get to start reading soon.
I get to choose a new classic to read. Normally I would dive right in, and I still might. Maybe just pick one and dip into the first few pages? I have it narrowed down to four books/authors. The problem is--if I don't choose and begin reading now, I risk a changing mood and then will end up with some other book entirely. I'm bad that way, in case you haven't noticed.
So the choices of the moment are On Tangled Paths by Theodor Fontane about a love affair across social classes, Home of the Gentry by Ivan Turgenev about a young man returning home from a failed marriage who finds love again only to lose it as well, Ecstasy by Louis Couperus about a widowed woman who falls for a notorious womanizer, or something by John Wyndham because I loved his novel Chocky that I read earlier in the fall.
I'm at the point of no return in Laurie King's Justice Hall. I really like Mary Russell. She is up there when it comes to fictional characters I would love to meet. I'll definitely finish it this week--hopefully sooner than later. It is not unheard of for me to have a number of crime novels/mysteries on the go at once, but I must say I have shown admirable restraint of late. It almost makes me feel like completely gorging myself on them over my upcoming break. I'm not yet to a point where I am creating a possible next read pile, but I have been thinking about it. Do I want another cozy? Another Mary Russell? Or something a little grittier? Maybe an exotic historical mystery? A new author or another in one of the (many) series I follow?
I was thinking maybe India of the Raj with Joe Sandilands, or fin-de-siecle Vienna with Max Liebermann (I can already 'taste' the coffee and pastries . . .), one of Elly Griffith's mysteries--either another Ruth Galloway or her newer WWII mystery. I wish the forthcoming Maisie Dobbs book was out now. I could pick up a Bess Crawford mystery (it's been too long since I read one by Charles Tood). Another (going back to the first book which I inadvertently skipped) Francesca Wilson? Or a Lacey Flint novel, or an Annika Bengtzen thriller? Something Scandinavian? Maybe something set in Alaska or even the Arctic? Or something with an academic setting--Cambridge or Oxford maybe? See how dangerous it is to even think about picking up a new mystery? The problem is--they all sound good and I think I could happily pick up any of them and read away a whole afternoon.
Since I am not at the moment actively reading my Roger Deakin book, I shouldn't even think about any nonfiction (well, in reality I have another mental list, which I won't go into at the moment--mostly biographies or memoirs about or by women), but just a mention that author Andrea Wulf is going to be at our local botanical gardens in the spring. I heard her speak last year and she is a great speaker. I loved the book by her I read, and now will have to read Brother Gardeners, which is what she'll be speaking about next April.
Even as I am busily wrapping up loose ends right now, lots of good reading is just on the horizon as you can see!