A Work in Progress

Waiting in Line: Can't Wait to Read

Not to muddy the "I'm weeding my books right now" process, and should be reading from my immense TBR, but I am also in line at the library for more than a couple of new releases that I am excited to get my hands on.  I am trying very hard to remain patient (not easy when my library is not even actually physically open save for a slow curbside pickup option--not complaining--so happy to have it) and not break down and just order said titles.  (Okay maybe I have ordered one or two).  I shall just try and savor the anticipation.

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell -- I keep hearing how spectacularly good this novel is and how it should win the Women's Prize (it is on the shortlist--so annoying to have a book on the list that you can't even get your hands on!).  It just came out this week and I keep resisting the urge to not order a copy and wait for the library copy, of which I am first in line.  I know we are living in the middle of a pandemic and this is about the (in part anyway) Black Death, but beautiful prose beats sad circumstances.  "A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a tender and unforgettable re-imagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, and whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time, Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, impossible to put down—a magnificent leap forward from one of our most gifted novelists."

The Nesting Dolls by Alina Adams -- This was meant to be my year of big, chunky books and at least one of them is set in Russia.  Alas, not much big book reading going on right now, but this (slightly less chunky) might be a suitable story to pick up in the interim.  "Spanning nearly a century, from 1930s Siberia to contemporary Brighton Beach, a page turning, epic family saga centering on three generations of women in one Russian Jewish family―each striving to break free of fate and history, each yearning for love and personal fulfillment―and how the consequences of their choices ripple through time."

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue -- Double dipping?  I am still in line for this, but I admit that I did order a copy (for which I am now waiting to arrive) as I had a little left on a gift card.  I really try and avoid buying hardcovers, but this is another book I have heard many good things about.  Yes, another book with a very timely setting--this time the 1918 Influenza Pandemic.  It was even due to be published later, but with the timing and subject matter the publisher brought it out early.  "In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders -- Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police , and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney."

The Silence of the White City by Eva Garcia Saenz -- More good press for this international mystery novel.  This one is chunky coming in at over 500 pages, but I think it is (at least) a paperback.  "Inspector Unai López de Ayala, known as "Kraken," is charged with investigating a series of ritualistic murders. The killings are eerily similar to ones that terrorized the citizens of Vitoria twenty years earlier. But back then, police were sure they had discovered the killer, a prestigious archaeologist who is currently in jail. Now Kraken must race to determine whether the killer had an accomplice or if the wrong man has been incarcerated for two decades. This fast-paced, unrelenting thriller weaves in and out of the mythology and legends of the Basque country as it hurtles to its shocking conclusion."

The Lost Diary of Venice by Margaux DeRoux -- Set in Venice.  Historical fiction.  Parallel plotlines.  Smattering of romance.  One jack blurb reads "enchanting from the first page".  Checks a lot of my personal favorite boxes in terms of storytelling.  "In the wake of her father’s death, Rose Newlin finds solace in her work as a book restorer. Then, one rainy Connecticut afternoon, a struggling painter appears at her door. William Lomazzo brings with him a sixteenth-century treatise on art, which Rose quickly identifies as a palimpsest: a document written over a hidden diary that had purposely been scraped away. Yet the restoration sparks an unforeseen challenge when William—a married man—and Rose experience an instant, unspoken attraction.  Five centuries earlier, Renaissance-era Venetians find themselves at the mercy of an encroaching Ottoman fleet preparing for a bloody war. Giovanni Lomazzo, a portrait artist grappling with tragedy, discovers that his vision is fading with each passing day. Facing the possibility of a completely dark world, Gio begins to document his every encounter, including what may be his final artistic feat: a commission to paint the enchanting courtesan of one of Venice’s most powerful military commanders. Soon, however, Gio finds himself enraptured by a magnificent forbidden love."  I hope it is as good as it sounds.

The Two Mrs. Carlyles by Suzanne Rindell -- (Oops, kind of ordered this one too as I didn't want to get in the back of a really long library line . . .).  Another author I have heard good things about (she has several books to her name but I have yet to read any of them--will start with this one!).  In this case-San Francisco.  More historical fiction.  A smattering of romance.  A character reinventing herself.  Smattering of romance.  Can't pass it up.  "San Francisco, 1906. Violet is one of three people grateful for the destruction of the big earthquake. It leaves her and her two best friends unexpectedly wealthy--if the secret that binds them together stays buried beneath the rubble. Fearing discovery, the women strike out on their own, and orphaned, wallflower Violet reinvents herself.  When a whirlwind romance with the city's most eligible widower, Harry Carlyle, lands her in a luxurious mansion as the second Mrs. Carlyle, it seems like her dreams of happiness and love have come true. But all is not right in the Carlyle home, and Violet soon finds herself trapped by the lingering specter of the first Mrs. Carlyle, and by the inescapable secrets of her own violent history."

Too many irresistible stories.  And I need good (and consuming) stories right now.  How about you?  Is there any new releases that are piquing your curiosity?

July 20 Reading Notes

It has been a while since I shared what is on my night table, so here are a few of the books I have been spending time with.

Since the weather has turned rather toasty here (we just had the hottest day of the year so far), it's always nice to reach for a book that is the seasonal opposite.  I am (armchair version) in France at the moment, so I decided it's time to spend some time with Inspector Maigret.  I always love a good Georges Simenon novel and the settings are always very evocative.  I could find one with a sultry summery setting, but one that begins in the cold, dead of night with a chilly wind and rain hitting the pavement is very appealing.  I am midway through Maigret in Montmartre.  The story begins with an exotic dancer showing up at the police station telling of two men she overheard planning a murder.  Then she turns up dead.

Comfort reads are a necessity these days.  I want a story I can lose myself in and as I have a stack of books by Beatriz Williams and she has been a reliable and entertaining storyteller for me, I have been reading The Summer Wives.  Summer (really any time in the year) is when I love to spend a little time at the seaside.  Set on an island off the coast of New England this is the story of a woman returning home after nearly two decades away.  It is a bit of a mystery as the events of that fateful summer in 1951 sent her away, and a man she had fallen for jailed for a crime.  He has escaped just as she returns to the island, so the story moves back and forth in time as the mystery of that summer unravels.  I like how many of her books overlap with a minor character in one book showing up as the main one in another.

I am nearly finished with Attica Locke's suspenseful novel The Cutting Season.  Her writing is every bit as good as everyone has said and why did it take me so long to read her?  This is a mystery novel set on a former Louisiana plantation, which has been renovated into a venue for weddings and other social events.  Caren grew up on the plantation where her mother was a cook, and which she now runs.  One morning as she makes her daily rounds of the grounds she discovers a woman's body, a migrant worker from the neighboring sugarcane fields.  As a single mother trying to safeguard her young daughter she is put into difficult situations and some of the choices she makes means a precarious relationship with the local police.  So many layers to this story.

This is my year of graphic novels and memoirs, so I am always on the lookout for a particular kind of story.  I find that lately I prefer graphic novels over comics.  I like one complete story rather than the serial style of storytelling.  While I am not always a fan of classic novel retellings in the form of graphic novels, when I spotted The Great Gatsby, illustrated by Aya Morton and the text adapted by Fred Fordham, I snapped it up.  I have read the classic several times but it has been ages since the last time, though I might need to go back to the original text when I finish this one.  It is the gorgeous illustrations that initially drew me to the book.  As a matter of fact I like her work so much I have ordered another book she illustrated.

One last mention-I picked up library books over the weekend-braving the heat because I was so excited to get my hands on The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor, a mystery set in Dublin.  Maggie D'arcy, a detective in Long Island, gets pulled back into a missing person investigation.  Her cousin went missing in Ireland 23 years before, never to be seen again and presumed murdered.  When another woman goes missing and Erin's scarf is found Maggie returns to Ireland to try to find out what happened all those years before.  I have only just started and so far it seems quite promising to be a very good read indeed.  The author has written a few installments in a previous mystery series set in Vermont, of which I read the first one ages ago and perhaps it is time to revisit it as well.

Are you reading something really good at the moment?  Or waiting for something really good to be released (I have a healthy list of forthcoming books that I am in line for at the library personally--will tell you about them soon)?

In Consideration of Weeding My Books

This is how distracted I have been.  It's July.  Almost mid-July and not only have I not even thought about my new prompt, am still working on last month's prompt, but had to go and look and see what this month's prompt is even meant to be.  "In Sickness and in Health".  That is almost funny as apparently I am in maybe a little sickness?  Too much heat?  Too much sun?  Too much anxiety is more like it.  This year's reading (like everything else in life these days) is sort of thrown out the window.  

How to even interpret (book/story-wise) in sickness or in health?  Actually, now that I think about it, I am reading Otessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation (and my friends, there is not really the kind of rest or relaxation going on in that story I would happily consider) fits the bill as the narrator is not in a happy state of mind--so little that she wants to sleep her life away.  Problem identified and problem solved.  Whew.  

Now to what has been on my mind lately.  Since December I have been working on cleaning out my parent's house.  My mother passed away in December unexpectedly.  The house she leaves behind is my childhood home and it was filled to the brim with lives lived and still in progress.  Slowly (and with some difficulty--especially now in the middle of a pandemic) it is being emptied.  Anyone who has gone through this knows how painful and difficult it is to go through other people's belongings.  It's almost like erasing a life.  As someone who has put a fair share of years behind me (and with my own house full of things), it has made me realize how much baggage you accumulate over time.  All those nooks and crannies fill up so easily.  

I consider myself fortunate indeed to be able to collect books and have so many, literally my own library, at my fingertips.  But they seem to expand and fill a space.  Like weeds I have piles of books that have popped up all over the place.  Since I have also been fortunate to be able to work from home (though now I split my work time between a laptop at home and my desk at the library) I have really noticed those ever expanding piles of books.  So very many books.  And here is me reading more slowly than I have in years.  Those unread books begin to weigh on me.  I have more books on hand that I will ever get to read and the feeling begins to be overwhelming.

I have weeded books in the past, but now I am embarking on a very serious weeding project.  This is the start of my first foray into my shelves.  So many I have owned for so long and many of them have been read and loved, but I wonder will I ever get around to reading them again.  I think of them as friends almost, but maybe it is time to send some (many, I hope) out into the world and make another reader happy to know and experience them.  It is somewhat agonizing to do this, but at the same time once I start I find that a second or third sweep of a shelf or pile makes it easier to pull another few books.  Interests and passions I had at one time have faded and others take their places.  Why am I keeping books that I am not likely to reach for anytime soon?  Even with this first weeding I think I will still end up with more books than I really "need".

Do you actively weed your book collection?  Do you borrow rather than buy (and then not have this problem?)?  Do you recycle them after you read them?  Or do you keep them (as I have tended to do) and feel you cannot part with them?  They are not all going away, of course.  Someday, though, I hope to downsize my life and move into a smaller home with few maintenance issues.  This means I need to pare my belongings down to maybe half of what I own (less is more these days, I think), and maybe even half of that half.  Hopefully when I have cleared away so many piles and stacks it will be more freeing and the sheer number of unread books will not be overwhelming but a pleasure to enjoy reading.