Hooray for the weekend (it's been a long week!), and double hooray for book mail yesterday as the third volume of the comic Paper Girls was on the porch when I arrived home. I am going to have to pace myself as it looks like a quick read in a couple of hours. After this there will be another long wait for the next installment (and a peek at the back shows that there will indeed be more). I read the first page or two last night and I might need to refresh where the story left off in the second volume, but it looks sort of crazy, far out there. (And hopefully just as enjoyable as the first two books).
I have been doing far too much browsing, borrowing, ordering and pulling of books from my own shelves. I have stacks of books all over my bedroom that will need to be tidied and there has been lots of new books grazing. I will have to share my new library finds and newest book acquisitions. Along with Paper Girls I have also started a new book of short stories that also just came in the mail. I am sure I must have come across Polly Samson through some of my wanderings, but when the price of Perfect Lives dipped on the Book Depository, I knew I had to have it. Whenever a reviewer notes that a book is the sort that makes you miss your bus stop, I always look twice. Maggie O'Farrell (whose books I have read and loved) blurbed "with her effortless prose and unflinching eye, Samson dips beneath the surface of apparently contented, even blessed lives and the result is compelling, disturbing and moving." I have only just started reading the first story in the collection, but I have a warm feeling already about her writing.
I see that Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is slated to publish the fourth book in her novels set in WWI, I thought I had better pick up the next book. I read Goodbye, Piccadilly last year. I am not sure how many books there ultimately will be, but each book seems to cover a year of the war. The first was 1914 and now I am reading Keep the Home Fires Burning (1915). I have The Land of My Dreams (1916) at the ready, and I am just waiting for the paper edition of The Long, Long Trail (1917) to be published later this year. When the Boys Come Home (guessing that will be 1918 and maybe the last book?) won't be out until next year, so there is plenty of time to read my way through the books, but I was in the mood for some historical fiction and have settled nicely back into the lives of the Hunter family. This set of books is much like her Morland Dynasty saga (though those books follow one family through most of British history). Someday I am going to finish those books, but for now the WWI novels seem much more manageable.
Otherwise the books on my sidebar are the books I have been reaching for lately, though with special emphasis on Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice. While I am very much enjoying the story (but will Jean and Joe Harman ever meet back up and get together . . .), my copy is an old mass market edition with the tiniest of print that runs from the gutter to the edge of the page. Small print is so much harder to read these days sadly. I have two books left from my reading Australia project. I still have one to write about that I just finished (and loved), which will mean I managed to read about seven books by Australian authors. Do I try and squeeze one more in to make it a nice round eight?
I have not made much progress in the WITMonth, but maybe I can still read one more book. I did finish Badriah Albeshr's Hend and the Soldiers, which (again) I need to write about (soon before too much fades away in my brain). I have been carrying about Eileen Chang's Lust, Caution which is a novella (maybe even only a short story really) that was adapted to film. I have been eager to read her, but I was hoping to read a full novel as well. With all the insanity going on at the moment with North Korea, I was thinking I might pick up Han Kang's The Vegetarian. I realize she is South Korean, but I might pair it with Suki Kim's Without You, There is No Us: Undercover Among the Son's of North Korea's Elite (not translated but by a woman writer and one that looks most illuminating).
So, there you go, my reading plans for the weekend! I always have such grand ideas when it comes to books and reading (which is why it's probably a good thing to think it out before the weekend starts so I know what to pack in my tote bag).
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I have fallen behind in my emails, so there is loads to explore when it comes to online bookishness, here are a few that caught my eye and I will have to investigate more this weekend, too.
I'm not a romance reader per se (mystery mostly being my genre of choice), but I don't mind a novel with a dash of romance in it. The RITA Awards were just given, so there might be some interesting titles on their winners or finalists lists.
As soon as I am finished reading Australia, I think it will be time to turn my attention to fall and you know what that means . . . ghost stories! Here is a list of ten. I have read half of them already, but the other half might hold some possibilities. I don't usually need too much help finding a new ghost story to read, but I am always open to suggestions!
Lately (actually more often than lately) art and literature or reading about art (or novels that have something to do with art or artists) are on the edge of my mind. Here are a very few (I think I own all of them . . .).
Happy weekend everyone. And happy reading.