A Work in Progress

Teaser Tuesday: Howards End is on the Landing

It won't come as any surprise to you to hear that Susan Hill's Howards End is on the Landing is turning out to be a most enjoyable collection of bookish essays.  I will say that she does have some very decided opinions about things, some of which I don't agree with, but it is always good to read another perspective of the world.  I am trying to read an essay a day and just read leisurely rather than plow through.  This seems a book to be savored slowly.

Today's essay is about libraries, which seems fitting since it is National Library Week.  She comes about it in a circuitous route but with a nice flow.  It starts with the question (or maybe statement) that girls read more than boys, and then she wonders if it is true with women and men.  And then she brings up a topic after my own heart--middlebrow literature.  Two teasers for you today, and this one is one I had to mark in my book since she brings up author Barbara Pym. 

"Would I like Barbara Pym?  Where should I start?  Anywhere, really.  Odd that.  It is not always the case.  You should never begin reading George Eliot with Middlemarch, nor Trollope with The Way We Live Now, and one of the lesser Muriel Sparks might put you off for good.  But Barbara Pym is Barbara Pym.  Try Quartet in Autumn.  On the other hand, start with Jane and Prudence.  You will know within, say, thirty pages, whether she is your cup of tea or not, and if not, then that is probably that.  I am glad I did not read The Mill and the Floss first or I would never have tried another George Eliot, and Travels with My Aunt is not a typical novel by Graham Greene, so it does not much matter if you do not care for it.  But any Barbara Pym with give you the idea.  If you like her, just read on."

That has been my experience, too.  I love Barbara Pym and I think Quartet in Autumn is my favorite so far.  I have yet to try Trollope--duly noted where not to start, but I must admit the only Eliot novel I have read so far is Middlemarch.  I love Muriel Spark, but I think it is right to pick up one of her best known or most important books first and then fill in the rest.  Pym comes about as a subject when thinking about her mother and the Boots Libraries found in shops. 

And then she changes tack and starts to talk about, maybe lament a bit, today's libraries and how much they have changed (not necessarily in her opinion for the better).  She recalls as a child going to the library when she was young--her mother going into the main library while she went into the children's building--and does such a thing exist anymore?

"There was one in Scarborough, attached, but separate from, the main lending and reference libraries and when we arrived there every Saturday morning, my mother walked in at one side while I walked down to the other.  If the private library had Boots' stamps and stickers,the public children's library sometimes had labels on a book declaring that it had been fumigated.  Infectious and contagious diseases were still rife then.  Chickenpox.  Measles.  Scarlet fever.  Tuberculosis.  Mumps.  Whooping cough.  Children died of them.  Books that went into infected houses might be returned thick with germs, so it was necessary to report certain illnesses when books were returned, so that they could be put into special fumigation chambers to be rendered clean and safe again."

I had no idea.  Sometimes library books, well worn and heavily used do look like they could be carrying all kinds of germs, and I think I might not mind if they were still fumigated!

Bought and Borrowed: Weekend Finds

At the same time I am looking at my in progress reading piles and thinking about the books on my shelves as yet not read, I am giving into new book temptations.  I can't help it, as I have gift cards to use and spending a few hours in the bookstore is always a pleasant way to spend a cold, wintry April afternoon!  Usually I buy something in the cafe and sit with a few new books to peruse and choose one (or maybe two), but this weekend I have a little splurge as you can see.  Buried in Print and I were chatting about Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, which is now in theaters.  I had looked at it in the past but after our conversation it appealed even more especially when I found out it was filled with pop culture references from the 80s, which is when I grew up. 

Then I saw the preview for the coming film RBG about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which I am very excited to see.  She seems like such an amazing woman and why have I not read about her before now?  I am glad so wonderful a woman has become such an icon as she is a great role model.  So I opted for Linda Hirshman's Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World.  There are a couple other books I was contemplating buying but I hope to get them from the library. 

Martin Cruz Smith's Tatiana is an Arkady Renko mystery set in (I think) contemporary Russia.  I read one of the Renko mysteries a very long time ago, and while I try and read mystery series in order, I might just jump right in on this one mid-stream.  This was an impulse buy on the way to pay, but it was a bargain discounted book so not too much guilt was involved in adding it to the pile.

And the last book was the best deal as it was already discounted especially deeply as it is the first B&N Book Club read, Meg Wolitzer's The Female Persuasion, which I have heard good things about.  If I can read it in time I am hoping to get to my local store's book discussion, too.

Ah yes, there is a continuous influx of library books in my house.  Current hightlights include:

The Eight Mountains by Paolo Cognetti -- "A modern Italian masterpiece, The Eight Mountains is a lyrical coming-of-age story about the power of male friendships and the enduring bond between fathers and sons. “There are no more universal themes than those of the landscape, friendship, and becoming adults, and Cognetti’s writing becomes classical (and elegant) to best tell this story…a true novel by a great writer." (Rolling Stone Italia)

How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less by Sarah Glidden -- "Sarah Glidden is a progressive Jewish American twentysomething who is both vocal about and critical of Israeli politics in the Holy Land. When a debate with her mother prods her to sign up for a Birthright Israel tour, Glidden expects to find objective facts to support her strong opinions. During her two weeks in Israel, Glidden takes advantage of the opportunity to ask the people she meets about the fraught and complex issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but their answers only lead her to question her own take on the conflict."

The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida -- "Written by Naoki Higashida, a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, it is a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Parents and family members who never thought they could get inside the head of their autistic loved one at last have a way to break through to the curious, subtle, and complex life within."

The Italian Party by Christina Lynch -- "Half glamorous fun, half an examination of America's role in the world, and filled with sun-dappled pasta lunches, prosecco, charming spies and horse racing, The Italian Party is a smart pleasure."

Tangerine by Christine Mangan -- "Tangerine is a sharp dagger of a book—a debut so tightly wound, so replete with exotic imagery and charm, so full of precise details and extraordinary craftsmanship, it will leave you absolutely breathless."

You see why my reading piles are always so big?

State of the Nightstand: April 8

Some shifting this week.  A few books have been moved into 'limbo' (not quite returned to their shelves but I know I don't have time at the moment to spend time with them (library books and Women's Prize List book calling my attention at the moment).  Front pile and close to the bottom is my newest find author-wise of Janet Frame, the April NYRB Classic has been added and a Virago Modern Classic as well.  A few books lined up to jump in the fray very soon, too!

Weekend Reading Notes: April 6

Now that I have a handy new iPod I've started choosing podcasts to download to listen to on my walks along with my music (which I need to learn how to tidy up into neat playlists).  Along with West Cork, which is really riveting, Buried in Print recommended a few true crime shows, the first of which is Serial that I started listening to last night.  It's amazing how quickly my walks to the bus stop pass when I have something interesting to listen to.  I also am a fan of Beaks & Geeks which are shorter interviews with authors about new releases.  I already have added to my wishlist of 'want to reads'.  If you have a favorite podcast please do share.  Anything bookish is good, but I also like investigative shows (like the true crime podcasts) or movies (of which I have yet to find one that I like).

Oh, (and in my meanderings) I just came across this episode of Read or Dead and have added it to my list for this weekend!

I don't tend to pick up books in the science fiction/fantasy genre, but I want to try and expand my reading horizons a little this year.  Maybe I should start with something from the Hugo Award list?  Happily we even have a number of these in my library's popular fiction collection.

I also want to read a book about Autism as it is Autism Awareness Month.  I have brought home a copy of The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida and might start it this weekend.  The books in the link I shared all look interesting, so I might see what else I can get my hands on.

I've already got Laura Lippman's newest novel on my bedside book pile, here is an interview with her to complement it (and likely prod me into picking it up right now) . . .

If you are looking for a good crime drama to watch, I highly recommend Collateral which is streaming on Netflix right now.  It is really well done and I think Carey Mulligan is pretty amazing.  Sadly there won't be a second season, so savor those four episodes!  Killing Eve also sounds great, but I don't have BBC America . . . Maybe I could be tempted to subscribe?

Here's something a little different and for my friend Kathy: Top Ten Books about Horses!

Litlove has recommended Eva Dolan's crime novels to me and they do sound good.  On her recommendation I bought Long Way Home some time ago but have yet to read it.  This interview with the author (about a newer book) makes me want to pull it out this weekend, though, and start reading it now.

Philip Kerr recently passe away.  Why is it when an author dies you suddenly feel the need to start reading their books?  (At least I do).  I have a few of his Bernie Gunther novels, which now I think I might go in search of.  I have always meant to read them . . .

I didn't set out to make this an 'all crime' novels reading notes, but it seems to be what I am most focused on at the moment.  As a matter of fact I've given into temptation and bought three ebooks this week, all inexpensive digital deals.  This time it is vintage crime: Patricia Wentworth's Anne Belinda, Charlotte Armstrong's The Chocolate Cobweb (kind of crazy title!), and Geoffrey Household's Arabesque.  They are all pre-1950s works, and sound like great fun. 

This weekend, however, I want to try and make some progress on a few nightstand books.  I seem to be moving at a snail's pace these days.  How many times in this post did I say . . . maybe I'll pull 'this' new book out to read?  And, admittedly, I have written down those titles.  While there 'might' just be a new addition to the reading pile, I plan on spending time with some old friends (do you think of books as friends, too?).  And there might just possibly be a bookstore visit this weekend, too.  Since it is going to be cold and snowy (still), books will have to be my escape.

Keep the Home Fires Burning, CHE

It's been a while since I first met the Hunter family of Northcote, England, but their story, begun with Goodbye Piccadilly, continues on in Keep the Home Fires Burning.  This is very much an 'upstairs downstairs' family saga.  The Hunters are the main focus of the story, but their servants, their extended family and various members of the Northcote community pass through the pages as well. 

Just as a quick rehash to orient things, the previous book covers the year 1914 and the beginnings of WWI.  The Hunters are an average upper middle class family.  Edward, a banker, and his elegant wife Beatrice have six children, but it's the four eldest children around which most of the drama swirls--David, Diana, Bobby and Sadie.  Both Edward and Beatrice have siblings which play a role in the story, as well as the Hunter servants.  Belowstairs there is Cook and Ada, both working a long time together and for the Hunters as well as housemaid Ethel who has her sights on something better and with an eye for the best man who can take her away from the drudgery of her life.

The Hunters are a likable family, more nouveau riche than aristocratic, but their daughter Diana makes a conquest with the oldest son of the local aristocratic family, the Wroughtons, which ruffles more than a few feathers.  Both Lady Wroughton and Charles's younger brother, Rupert, are sure she is just out to get a title and his money and do everything they can to sabotage the romance.  But everyone knew Diana, whose beauty is the pride of the county would make a good match.  She's not just beautiful but she is a decent person.  It makes for uncomfortable interactions between the more urbane Hunters and the stodgy and always-oh-so-very-correct Wroughtons. 

Sadie has a love of horses and an incorrigible companion in the form of a dog named Nailer who follows her about and gets into touble.  She would much rather be mucking about in the stables than going off to finishing school, which she has worked hard to avoid.  David is the first to go off and sign on to go fight in the war and Bobby remains at University.  For the time being. 

And so, 1915 the year that Keep the Home Fires Burning covers, sees the war becoming mired in Europe and most decidedly not 'over by Christmas'.  The world and especially that of the Hunter family sees sweeping changes and nothing is certain any longer.  While there are a number of battlefield scenes, most of the drama takes place at home.  It's an interesting perspective on the war as their are details I hadn't realized about what WWI meant for life at home in England.

Edward's sister Laura, a smart and determined suffragette, becomes a lady policeman, which mostly entails patrolling the railway stations keeping an eye out for white slavers, giving advice to mothers and children and making sure drunken soldiers get to their trains on time and stay out of trouble.  Needless to say the women are a source of much ridicule, but Laura manages to hold her own and becomes close to one of the other women constables.  Although I knew zeppelins dropped bombs on London during the war I had no idea of the devastation they caused as housemaid Ethel encounters one first hand on one of her days off in the city.  Ethel, a sassy and very independently-minded woman knows how to play coy and attract the men, but she is careful in which ones receive her attentions.  She is with her latest beau, and the one she has been most serious about when the bombs start falling.

Sadie has been doing the thing she loves most, helping train the horses being shipped over to serve in the war effort.  She is most disturbed by the idea of gas being used in battle and the idea that while the soldiers have gas masks (ineffective as they likely were) the horses have nothing.  Sadie is just on the cusp of turning into a proper young woman.  She has always been more of a tomboy than a girl who likes dressing up, but in the previous book she became friends with a young veterinarian who shares her love of animals.  He is called to Europe to serve but she doesn't forget him.  Her sharp edges begin to refine, and when she starts visiting the wounded soldiers in a makeshift hospital in Northcote male attentions give her moments of pause.

David is surely the apple of his mother's eye.  He is the favored one even as she knows she should not play favorites.  When he becomes engaged with a pretty young woman, the sister of a good friend, of whom he has been enamored by, Beattie is devastated.  He uses leave time to go visit and ask Sophy for her hand rather than go home to his parents which only saddens and angers her.  While David was still training he met and became friends with a modern young woman of a good family.  They could and did talk about everything and he continues to write to her.  Curiously David doesn't see the attraction Antonia has for him.  When he writes home he doesn't give details to his family so as not to worry them, only tells Sophy how much he loves and misses her, but opens his heart to Antonia and tells her everything he is experiencing.

There is so much that happens in this book, as you can see.  Cynthia Harrod-Eagles has set things up nicely to continue on in 1916 in The Land of My Dreams, which I am eager to start.  So much drama and I was careful not to give spoilers away--keeping in mind this is war and bad things happen, people die, people have affairs . . .  I may have to give more detail next time I write about the continuing story!  I'm not sure how many books are planned, though there is a fourth book now available about 1917.  Perhaps another one after that?  I hope so.

Dying Voices by Laura Wilson

If you like crime novels and you don't already know Laura Wilson's work, she is well worth looking for.  She writes in the vein of Ruth Rendell, psychological suspense, and she does it really well.  I've been collecting her works and will happily make my way through them.  I'm already contemplating which book to reach for next.  They aren't exactly (at least her novels--she also writes a detective series which I have yet to explore) straightforward crime stories, and they aren't exactly just thrillers, but they have elements of both.  I think they have the best elements of each genre with a good dose of the domestic and psychological thrown in. 

Her second novel, published in 2000, Dying Voices, concerns a reluctant heiress and the death of her mother.  The catch is her mother was kidnapped some twenty years previously and thought to have been murdered, but when a body is found and identified as being her mother, the death occurred only two days earlier.  A shock for Dodie Blackstock several times over.  She's been living a life of deceit that she didn't realize, and now everything she thought to be true and the normal life she has worked so hard at achieving is crumbling about her ears.

This is a story told in parallel.  It moves back and forth in time between those disconcerting days when an eight-year-old Dodie must endure the kidnapping and subsequent ransom of her beautiful mother.  Present day Dodie looks back at the crime with new eyes when she finds her mother has been alive all along.  A mother who kept her name and phone number in her address book allowing for the police to contact her with the disturbing news.  It all begins to come into sharp focus as she pieces together those events that took place in 1976, not so very long after the headlining news of Patty Hearst and the drama surrounding her own kidnapping scandal.

Dodie's childhood was not a particularly happy one and peppered with the sort of drama no child comes out of without a scar or two.  Her father was an incredibly wealthy business man with a string of marriages and liaisons, the extent of which Dodie doesn't realize until much much later.  Nothing she ever did was quite good enough and she lived in fear of his reprimands.  Her mother, beautiful and gentle was never quite his match and the pressures of the marriage become apparent to Dodie only much later when she reflects back to her mother's peculiar behavior leading up to the kidnapping.  When she is taken and ransom demanded her father refuses to pay--sure it is some ploy to extract money.  He's not even sure his wife isn't in on the plot herself. 

Things become increasingly messy and a botched police intervention puts an end to it--leaving several dead and no sign of the missing mother.  Eventually she is declared deceased and Dodie is left on her own with a mostly absent father, a vapid stepmother.  Her only saviors, if that is what they can be called, are a business partner of her father, a sympathetic man who keeps an eye out for the child and Joan who runs the household.  Joan has been dedicated to her father and the family for as long as Dodie can remember. 

But when she gets the phone call about her mother, Dodie is far away, leaving in London and trying to make a life for herself without the help of the family money.  She has wanted nothing more than to lead a 'normal' life, not an easy thing for a child who never had a worry about anything and was not even sure how to navigate the real world.  It took much trial and error to understand how to live an average life, and she is about to lose it all with the coming notoriety of the truth about her mother's life after the kidnapping as well as the events surrounding the crime. 

This is a story that is well done and suspensefully told.  You begin doubting everything, just as Dodie does.  And then you begin wondering if you should also be doubting Dodie.  It is a slow burn of a reveal as all the little secrets begin to come out and illuminate the truth--both from Dodie's childhood and now, to her mother's death.  I previously read Hello, Bunny Alice, which also has a 1970s setting and which I liked equally as well.  Maybe it is time to get acquainted with DI Ted Stratton!

Tuesday Teaser: Towards Another Summer

Although Janet Frame has always been on the periphery of my radar, I had not thought of picking up any of her books.  I've been aware of her for a long time but have always classed her in that upper echelon of literary fiction that is, at least now, just outside the realm of my grasp.  But then I came across a reference to a novel that was published posthumously and the description called out to me: "It deals with a single weekend in the life of Grace: like the author a cripplingly shy New Zealand novelist abroad in chilly 1960s England. Grace is mortified by her own sense of ugliness and absolutely incapable of ordinary social demands. I don't think I've ever read anything that deals so beautifully with extreme self-consciousness and the isolation it produces." 

So I requested a copy of Towards Another Summer from my library and didn't hesitate to start reading.  I am now beginning to learn about Frame's life.  She is one of those amazingly talented writers who can turn a critical eye in on themselves and write about it so honestly and unsentimentally.  I almost don't want to know too much before reading, but I do know she tried to commit suicide and spent many years in psychiatric hospitals.  She wrote several autobiographical works that were made into a movie.  For lack of a better way to say it, she seems to have written about misfits and those who feel outside of and uncomfortable in society.  I can appreciate that and so I am very curious now about her books. 

I do plan on exploring her life (and likely more of her work) more now, but just a teaser to give a sense of what I am reading.  Her writing is lyrical and artistic in the way her sentences hang and flow.  Grace Cleave is the narrator, a writer who comes from New Zealand and you can tell she yearns for the warmth of her homeland yet she doesn't really feel a part of either there or London where she is trying to make a living. 

"Nothing was simple, known, safe, believed, identified.  Boundaries were not possible, where nothing finished, shapes encircled, and there was no beginning.  A storm raged, and Grace Cleave was standing in the midst of it, one hand pressing her skirt against her knees, the other pressing her dust-colored fading hair against her skull.  In these circumstances it needed courage to go among people, even for five or ten minutes.  A weekend in Relham with Philip Thirkettle, his wife Anne, her father Reuben, and perhaps--Grace did not know--one or two children--seemed a promise of nightmare.  No escape.  Two or three days.  The problems of what time to get up, go to bed, what to say, where to go, and when, had reached, for Grace, the limits of insolubility: you see, during the night Grace Cleave had changed to a migratory bird."

What follows will be the story of this painful weekend.  I've fallen into the story quite nicely and even her artistic storytelling style and the fact that Grace feels to akin to a bird doesn't feel awkward or difficult.  I hesitate to say, why didn't I pick up her work before, as I think it has just come to me at just the right moment.

April Prompt: Don't Bother Me I'm Reading

I'm trying to keep it simple this month as my prompt, 'Don't Bother Me I'm Reading', could easily inspire a nice overly healthy pile of potential reads.  I'm thinking a book about books or about the pleasures of reading, but maybe something novel-ish, set in a bookstore or about a character who is a little OCD about reading (maybe like me?).  I didn't come across a book of the latter theme, but I have a few others that would work nicely including a reread which I think I can easily squeeze in on a nice leisurely afternoon sometime this month.  From top to bottom, which shall I start with?

The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley -- I read his Parnassus on Wheels some years ago and of course enjoyed it immensely.  This sounds like great fun, too.  "Mifflin, who hawked books out of the back of his van in Christopher Morley’s beloved Parnassus on Wheels, has finally settled down with his own secondhand bookstore in Brooklyn. There, he and his wife, Helen, are content to live and work together, prescribing literature to those who hardly know how much they need it. When Aubrey Gilbert, a young advertising man, visits the shop, he quickly falls under the spell of Mifflin’s young assistant, Titania. But something is amiss in the bookshop, something Mifflin is too distracted to notice, and Gilbert has no choice but to take the young woman’s safety into his own hands. Her life—and the Mifflins’—may depend on it."

84 Charing Cross Road by Helen Hanff -- How many times have I read this one already?  But it is a classic for me and I will happily read it again and again.  It has a charm that is unsurpassable.  The movie is good, too!  "This charming classic love story, first published in 1970, brings together twenty years of correspondence between Helene Hanff, at the time, a freelance writer living in New York City, and a used-book dealer in London at 84, Charing Cross Road. Through the years, though never meeting and separated both geographically and culturally, they share a winsome, sentimental friendship based on their common love for books. Their relationship, captured so acutely in these letters, is one that has touched the hearts of thousands of readers around the world."  I like Helene Hanff's other books, too.

Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill -- "Early one autumn afternoon in pursuit of an elusive book on her shelves, Susan Hill encountered dozens of others that she had never read, or forgotten she owned, or wanted to read for a second time. The discovery inspired her to embark on a year-long voyage through her books, forsaking new purchases in order to get to know her own collection again."  Maybe reading this will inspire me to do the same?

Reading Diary by Alberto Manguel -- "A Reading Diary: A Year of Favorite Books -- "While traveling in Calgary, Alberto Manguel was struck by how the novel he was reading (Goethe's Elective Affinities) seemed to reflect the social chaos of the world he was living in. An article in the daily paper would be suddenly illuminated by a passage in the novel; a long reflection would be prompted by a single word. He decided to keep a record of these moments, rereading a book a month, and forming A Reading Diary: a volume of notes, reflections, impressions of travel, of friends, of events public and private, all ellicited by his reading."  . . . And this one sounds good, too . . .

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi -- "Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Azar Nafisi, a bold and inspired teacher, secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; some had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they removed their veils and began to speak more freely–their stories intertwining with the novels they were reading by Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, as fundamentalists seized hold of the universities and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the women in Nafisi’s living room spoke not only of the books they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments."

The Nafisi the book I had most in mind for this month, but pulling out all the other books makes the choice far more difficult than I anticipated!

April NYRB: Basic Black with Pearls

"Shirley and Coenraad’s affair has been going on for decades, but her longing for him is as desperate as ever. She is a Toronto housewife; he works for an international organization known only as the Agency. Their rendezvous take place in Tangier, in Hong Kong, in Rome and are arranged by an intricate code based on notes slipped into issues of National Geographic. He recognizes her by her costume: a respectable black dress and string of pearls; his appearance, however, is changeable. But something has happened, the code has been discovered, and Coenraad sends Shirley (who prefers to be known as “Lola Montez”) to Toronto, the last place she wants to go. There the trail leads her through the sites of her impoverished immigrant childhood and sends her, finally, to her own house, where she discards her pearls and trades in her basic black for a dress of vibrant multicolored silk."

Originally published in 1980 when Weinzweig was fifty-eight.

State of the Nightstand: April 1

I'm happy to turn the calendar over to April.  I have high hopes that I can make some small dent on my reading piles.  A couple of books did shift out and a couple of new ones in.  One review copy that came as a surprise in the mail and when I dipped in I found I didn't want to put it down.  It's time to pick a new Virago and I have (tentatively) decided on a Rosamund Lehmann novel (I have read and liked her writing in the past).  I am ready to pick a new book for my April prompt, buy more about that tomorrow.  I've not quite decided but I think there might be a book or two that gets returned to the shelves and saved for later, and it's time to pull at least one of the books from the back pile to read and finish this month!