I am ready for July to be over. This month has felt like it has been dragging on and on. I didn't read nearly as much as I wanted to this month, or rather I should say I have finished a very paltry few books, but as one of them is the chunky The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton, I should be pleased (and I am actually). I have a couple of books to write about (actually a couple of recent books but a number of older books that I wonder if I will be able to write about properly now since ever day puts more distance between it and my memory), which I hope to do next week.
This weekend will be more Aussie reading with Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice and a new acquisition, Kirsten Tranter's The Legacy. I am not sure how I happened upon her, but I am very much intrigued by but it is a slow burner of a book and I am still figuring out relationships. It is set in Australia as well as NYC. I also have been reading Emily Bitto's excellent (Stella Award-winning) The Strays set in 1930s Australia about an artistic and very bohemian family who seem to take into their home various sundry others. I fear something bad or at least unhappy is going to occur. I want to wrap up my Australian reading in August (maybe I will dig out some postcards I have gotten from there for a few visuals, too), but I might see if I can squeeze in one or two other books first. Maybe another book by Nevil Shute or a crime novel? I have amassed quite a selection now.
Now that I have gotten through the door stopper Morton novel, I have a few other new books in mind, but I feel, too, like I need to keep that momentum going and focus on that reading pile (rather than adding to it). But there is plenty of variety. I think I might spend some time in Corsica and get back to Saudi Arabia. And if I do start a new book I have a couple of strong contenders (well, more than a couple, but the books on the top of the pile at the moment . . . ) out from the library. One is Mary Lovell's The Riviera Set: 1920-1960: The Golden Years of Glamour and Excess, which sounds like the perfect vacation read for those who cannot afford to go on vacation. If I can't be one of those glamorous visitors to the Riviera, it would certainly be fun to read about them. The other book is by Joshua Cohen, who I have never read but I have been hearing very good things about his Moving Kings.
And then there is the Booker Prize longlist to think about. I have a couple of books on my pile and am a bit curious about a few others, but I want to just read the one or two that appeals most (they all look pretty highbrow and maybe more intense than I can manage at the moment).
Plenty of reading material but maybe not so much free reading time this weekend. I will squeeze in as much as I possibly can, however!
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And now I have to share some fun links and bit and bobs that I have come across this week!
I am an absolute sucker for a nicely designed book, and had I not already owned many of these (or already read) I would want them all. Aren't they pretty?
I am a Great Fan of beach reads (both of the literal and figurative sort), but there is a whole genre of them going by one of the display tables at a local B&N and this list! The Lovell book might be my beach read, but it is always fun to look and see what is new (or old).
It looks like Murder on the Orient Express is not the only Agatha Christie novel to be adapted (or re-adapted) to the big screen once again, Amazon is going to produce a further seven more!
Recently I bought Jo Nesbo's The Snowman in anticipation of seeing the movie, which is out in October. You can see the trailer here. The movie looks quite creepy, so I wonder how the book will read. I have only read one Harry Hole mystery, though I have always meant to go back and read more as I was sort of taken with him when we first met.
Whenever friends tell me they will read a book or story aloud to each other, I think that is very cool and wish I was in a situation where I could do that as well. Anyway, as you can see here, they are on to something! I think reading aloud or oral storytelling is a very long tradition.
The intersection of art and literature (two of my most favorite things in life). I am going to watch for these! I'm not sure when they are coming out but they are on my list.
Happy reading everyone.