This is what happens when you get caught in a downpour on the way to work. Especially when the bus you are waiting for does not show up. And there is no shelter to wait inside. Soggy book syndrome. It has been a while since this happened. I don't mind a little rain, but it is the near-torrential kind that comes in on a slant and drenches you (and everything in your bag) that bothers me. As I wait for my copy of Elizabeth Poliner's As Close to Us as Breathing to dry out a bit, I guess I will turn my attention to my other books. As the Poliner is actually this month's prompt read, and this month's prompt is "a day at the beach", I guess I will just pretend I had a day at the beach and it was on a rocky beach on the coast looking out at the ocean that caused the sogginess. If only.
We are (here where I live) now into a four day stretch of "so hot and humid there is a weather advisory" weather (the feels like temperature later today is going to reach 109F--can't wait). That means nothing too mentally taxing and I am just going to be happy to find a cool place to read. Or think about reading.
Or better--let's think about books. I've been thinking about picking up Dorothy Whipple's The Priory. It is a hefty one, however. But I think I want something very British. Perhaps something by Barbara Pym or Jane Gardam--too long for both of them. Maybe Dan Fesperman's Safe Houses--a little cold war espionage story. Something cold and snowy to counteract the heat. I was thinking it was time to reread Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising, which is set in inter in Cornwall, and then continuing on with the quartet of books.
I am also in the mood for a classic. Just your garden variety classic novel--either modern or of the high school reading list type. I was thinking (thanks to my friend Readerlane) something by Eudora Welty perhaps, or maybe one of Colette's works (and I have a whole stack of them). Or maybe a modern novel like Jeannette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, or maybe something by Angela Carter who has been on my mind lately. My classic reading has been really deplorable this year, but there is always time to rectify it, right?!
And since Kinsey Millhone has had my attention I have been thinking about female PIs. I was trying to think of one who was (fictionally anyway) working in the 1960s. Only men come to mind--who am I missing? Kinsey came later. There is plenty of vintage female sleuth stories, but a working PI/detective? I keep thinking about British Jane Tennison who started out in the 1970s, but it took her ages to climb the ladder to get where she did (and boy was it messy).
Well, things to think about for the next few days. If you have a favorite (unputdownable is nice since the heat is going to distract me) classic or can think of a good female-led/driven crime series from before the late 1980s or so, do share. I hope it is much cooler where you are, and if it is just as swelteringly hot, what are you doing to keep your mind off the weather?