A new year and a new header. I am looking for some other new suitable bookish/reading women/men (not so many of the latter it seems) pictures to use. Don't you feel like you are peeking over her shoulder to see what she is reading? So, it is fitting that I am using it for my own 'reading notes' posts since is like a virtual peek over the shoulder at my own reading pile!
Did you already see the Millions' Most Anticipated 2017 Book Preview yesterday? I still need to go over the list a little more carefully and add to my growing wishlist of books. I was gratified to see a number of overlap titles on my own (very brief) list of wannareads.
Perhaps when you read this it will be at the same moment as I am enjoying a hot cup of coffee and (maybe) something sweet at a coffee shop as I have the afternoon off. You can't ask for a better Friday than one with a free afternoon to read. It's been Artic-cold here, so I am happy to find a warm place inside with my books. On my own reading agenda for the weekend . . .
After a much-too-long hiatus from reading Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy, I am slowly getting back into the thick of the story. I was happy to discover that I had not lost the thread of action and that I was able to fall comfortably back into the story. Sometimes a little break is deadly to an in progress book. Hopefully a catch-up post on what's happening in the story will be forthcoming next week. I am almost 450 pages into the story, so no turning back now (there are still about 1,000 pages to go--whew--but better to think of it as three more novels, which makes it not so overwhelming after all).
Also forthcoming will be posts on my last finish of 2016, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles's Goodbye, Piccadilly from her War at Home series. It is the first book (there are three out now I believe) set in 1914. The books seem to go according to year, so I am not sure ultimately how many there will be. Five? Through 1918? Or maybe beyond? I have the next two sitting on my reading pile and look forward to reading the next one soon, as I very much enjoyed the first installment and am now caught up in the lives of the characters.
I've also finished my first Virago, F.M. Mayor's The Third Miss Symons, and have a few more things to share about it. There are a few things I am going to try hard this year to do, the first is keeping up with writing about what I am reading/finishing (in a more timely manner that is) and the other is to try and keep my reading pile under control (yes, much easier said than done) by not letting myself start a new book until I finish something on my reading pile. And the moment I write this, in my mailbox arrives my copy of Daisy Goodwin's Victoria, which I have been really looking forward to reading (I wonder if I could possibly read it in the next ten days or so in anticipation of the Masterpiece presentation of the film adaptation?).
I bet you won't be surprised to hear that I have a slightly curious mode of reading and choosing my reads--I have a number of 'mental categories' of books I like to have on the go at once--in theory anyway (a classic, a mystery, a novel, my NYRB subscription book . . . you get the idea). So, one book per category until I finish whatever is in progress. Now that I have finished a Virago, I get to choose a new one. I already have the choices narrowed down to four! Maybe my new Virago will be my next teaser.
I'm making happy progress in my current mystery and have already started thinking of where my next crime will take place, or by which author--today's thinking (because you know it may change tomorrow) is that maybe something cold would be fitting, or it is time to catch up on my Elizabeth George/Inspector Lynley series, or maybe I will stay in Austerity/Post WWII England. Or maybe I should insert a nice spy story about here. The choices are limitless considering the backlog of mysteries I have on my shelves.
Have I mentioned that I am reading about George and Martha Washington--about their marriage and I find it all fascinating? It is generally the book I read on the treadmill at the gym, so I hope to get in a little time with it this weekend.
I've been book grazing this week, reading a little bit here and a little bit there and suspect there will be more of the same this weekend. But I am leaning towards starting a new graphic novel (am allowing myself a library book, too) that I have had sitting by my bedside. Actually I think it would be considered a graphic nonfiction book, which I find I quite like!
What will you be reading this weekend?