I'm on the home stretch of Jane Gardam's Bilgewater, and it is So good. All those readers who 'virtually' pushed the book into my hands--thank you. You were right. It will easily top my best of reads list later this year. It and Barbara Pym's wonderful novel (which I still must get around to writing about). Now, of course, I want to read all her books. As a matter of fact I have collected a number of them along the way, so I have a nice variety to choose from, and choose this weekend I will. Which should I read next . . .?
I am also making good and fast progress in Dana Stabenow's first Kate Shugak mystery and plan on keeping the momentum going. I am waiting for the second book to show up in my mail, but in the interim think I will reread Colin Dexter's Last Bus to Woodstock. Ken Bruen is also beckoning to me as well.
I had such high hopes for a ghostly read or two this autumn, but maybe it is down to the unseasonably hot weather we are experiencing (a run of near 100F days when the humidity is factored in). Maybe it is mysteries this fall that I will fill those 'cool and crisp' days with! Of course there is still all of October to find a good ghost story. Maybe I can find a good Susan Hill novel I have not yet read. Or maybe a few M.R. James short stories.
This list of detective stories perfect for on-screen adaptation turned up at a good moment. I have read several and it was a nice reminder of P.D. James's wonderful detective novels. And there is this list of gritty crime novels set in NYC that looked quite interesting.
This weekend is also going to be a short story weekend as I get through a story or two in my Burnside book. I am hoping to finish it this month still as there is a whole eight days ahead of me to fill with as much reading as I can manage.
Have you signed up for the Season of Stories, in which you will get a new story delivered to your inbox daily? It is due to start sometime in September but I have yet to get a story. I (fingers crossed) am hoping to keep up with the stories this year and get my short story reading back on track.
Did you see that Curtis Sittenfeld's reimagining of Pride and Prejudice, Eligible, is being made into a TV series? I have yet to read any of her books. How did that happen?
I have come across two interesting publisher/author collaborations. The first is a 'behind the scenes look' at the life of a book--Celeste Ng's new novel, Little Fires Everywhere. And FSG's Work in Progress (newsletter)'s Developing Stories--in which they give an author a disposable camera to photograph "whatever compels them". First up is author Samantha Hunt. It's always interesting to see beyond the book, so to speak.
I'll leave you with this very cool book tower made up of over 7,000 books. That is one serious undertaking. I wonder what happens if the book that looks most intriguing and you really want to look at happens to be on the bottom . . .