I tend to shy away from readathons and readalongs in general as I am hopeless at actually achieving the goal of reading straight through for 24 hours or in a timely manner if it is a weeklong or monthlong event. I love the idea of reading with others in tandem--it does help me stay focused. Unfortunately I am a really slow reader and a haphazard one, too. I tend to read according to whim and mood, which is a good thing but lately I more often just dip into books rather than pick one up and read straight to the end. It's become a bad habit, which I am trying to break myself of (at least to the crazy degree I have let it go).
That said, one of the things I wanted to do this year was read more Viragos and more Persephones. So, this is a perfect kick start. Jessie at Dwell in Possibility is hosting a Mini Persephone Readathon June 1-3. I have read one Persephone and two Viragos so far this year. A little thin for what I had hoped for, but there is still time and while I am not likely to read an entire Persephone novel in one weekend, I can choose one now and read along in spirit. If I start reading in earnest now I might manage a good chunk next weekend. So, now is the task pleasure of picking a Persephone to read.
I had a quick look at my Persephone piles and thought I would pick five that jumped out at me (only five? I know!). I may change my mind but here are the five I am thinking about and must now decide on just one.
Heat Lightning by Helen Hull -- "The plot is simple: Amy Norton comes home for a week’s visit to her hometown in Michigan (the town is unnamed but must owe a lot to Albion, where Helen Hull grew up): ‘Now that she was back in the town of her childhood, standing on a corner across from the village triangle of green, a small pyramid of luggage at her feet, Amy’s one clear thought, over the fluttering of unimportant recognitions, was “Why on earth have I come?'"
Miss Buncle's Book by D.E. Stevenson -- "Barbara Buncle, who is unmarried and perhaps in her late 30s, lives in a small village and writes a novel about it in order to try and supplement her meagre income. ...mostly this is an entirely light-hearted, easy read, which can be recommended unreservedly to anyone looking for something undemanding, fun and absorbing that is also well-written and intelligent."
Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins -- "Harriet is based on the 1877 'Penge Murder Mystery’, the death by starvation of a wealthy young woman called Harriet Richardson, who had led a protected life because her very limited intelligence meant that her mother kept her at home in the belief that she would never be able to lead a normal existence. But one day she has the misfortune to meet an attractive, unscrupulous young man who decides to marry her for her money."
House-Bound by Winifred Peck -- "The story never moves out of middle-class Edinburgh; the satire on genteel living, though, is always kept in relation to the vast severance and waste of the war beyond."
Saplings by Noel Streatfeild -- "...her tenth book for adults, is also about children: a family with four of them, to whom we are first introduced in all their secure Englishness in the summer of 1939. 'Her purpose is to take a happy, successful, middle-class pre-war family - and then track in miserable detail the disintegration and devastation which war brought to tens of thousands of such families,' writes the psychiatrist Dr Jeremy Holmes in his Afterword."
They all sound good, but choosing is always so hard. So, the inevitable questions. Have you read any of these? Will you be joining in and if so, which Persephone are you going to read?