I've made a list and checked it twice and wouldn't it be nice to finish these before the end of the year. It's that tidiness thing again; you have to forgive me. Half of my brain is already making a list of books I really want to read right now (or start anyway) to take me into 2017, and the other half is still reluctant to send partially read books back to the shelf or carry them over into the new year (in a few cases I must amend that statement to read 'carry them over into the new year again').
So, aside from the Smiley, all the books on this list are partially read novels that have just been waiting for me to return to them. In almost all the cases I have perhaps 150 or so pages left to read, so it seems like the reading list would be entirely doable if I don't let myself become too distracted. So my last gasp reading list for the year (the stack of books in the front):
The Golden Age by Jane Smiley
Blood Curse by Maurizio de Giovanni
Stormy Petrel by Mary Stewart (pretty much assured of finishing this one!)
Goodbye Piccadilly by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
Homesick by Eshkol Nevo
Decision at Delphi by Helen MacInnes
Wild Strawberries by Angela Thirkell
To be honest the last few are holdovers from ages and ages ago but I am so close to finishing that it seems a shame not to just dive in and finish them. Eighteen days left in the year nine books on my list. One book finished every other day? If I don't finish them all, that's okay, too. It would be nice to have a shiny new slate (well, relatively shiny new as my pile for next year already has A Suitable Boy and a few other books--one classic and a couple of nonfiction that were intended as 2017 books that I just couldn't resist either peeking at or setting them at the ready). Those would be the shorter stack in the back--what a nice thought that I could start out 2017 with that pile (or that pile plus one or two others . . . must be realistic here . . .).
My 'reward' for trying (in other words I get the reward one way or another) is to pick a new (or old one from the shelf but a new read) book for vacation-reading pleasure.
So, is there something you are dying to finish this year? Please tell me I am not alone in wanting to clear the reading table off?