Hello friends. It has been a long while. Longer than I realized actually. I'm here and reading away, as many books on the go as usual. (Which for me can be a pile). It's so easy to be offline when you start (or maybe stop is the better word). I've got a bit more than half a year of my Typepad subscription left and it seems a shame to ignore it when it has been paid for. I guess it's time to think about whether to try and be more present or just let things go (here that is). My intentions are always good and the idea of a semi- or even just weekly post seems manageable, but then it never seems to materialize. I wonder how many of my virtual book blogging friends are still around (feel free to raise your hands and say hello).
While I ponder these questions, I do keep up my bookishness in the background (or rather, in real life). I am not very present in general on social media, though I do read a lot of online newsletters and newspapers/magazines. I keep an occasional eye on Twitter by way of a daily digest. When I think about things or reach out and click on an outside link I do quite enjoy being a lurker at least. So, one more try, and I'll see how it goes. I have not wanted to let things go entirely and lose all the content (some of the reviews and many of the lists) from my previous postings here, but as I seem to refer to them less and less, maybe it would not matter to let them just disappear from the ether?
As I contemplate whether to discontinue blogging, I can finish out this year and share a little of what I have been up to; or rather today, I will share some ideas of where I hope my rest of 2023 reading will take me. Last year I read/reread M.M. Kaye's romantic suspense novels, her "Death in . . ." series of books. This year I am rereading/reading Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet Chronicle series of five books. I have read the first two multiple times (usually thinking I need to read the series through but not quite completing the task), but this year I am finally into volume three, Confusion, so I am about halfway through with two volumes left.
I love Sue Grafton's alphabet mysteries, but the last couple of years have not seen me pick up more than a book or so a year. I am at letter V (V is for Vengeance) and I feel it is time to see Kinsey through to letter Y. I have all the books, and I can (and just may) revisit them later, but I want to finish out the series.
This year is definitely one to try and complete or make progress (okay, and maybe start) some favorite series. I have been spending time with Ruth Galloway (Elly Griffiths) and solicitor Ben O'Keeffe of Inishowen (Andrea Carter). I plan on getting back to Alan Parks's Harry McCoy novels and read the second and third Vera Kelly books by Rosalie Knecht. I've been keeping up with Jacqueline Winspear (has Maisie finally retired?) and Ashley Weaver's newest Electra McDonnell novel is one of my current reads. I've tried a Deborah Crombie mystery (and hope to read more) and now am trying something entirely different, the first Falco mystery by Lindsey Davis!
I have this loose plan on reading all of Annie Ernaux's memoirs/novels, but that may carry over to another year. I like her writing very much. And I have been revisiting a series of childhood favorite books by Constance C. Greene featuring "Al"-Alexandra. They are just as delightful as the first time around.
That's a few highlights. I do want to read more literary fiction in general and much more literature in translation, too.
However, I have finally planned a short real, away from home, vacation and will be traveling to New York City in August. I would love any New Yorkers or those familiar with the city to share any must-sees and must-dos particularly that have to do with books, bookstores, library, literary-related places and also places for film lovers (next to books I am a film lover and spend most weekends seeing as many movies (old and new) as I can at a local indie cinema.
I am also in need of a really good quintessially-NYC novel to read this summer. (Well, maybe more than one, but at the moment I am thinking I will pick up a Betty Green novel--I have already read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, so maybe another of her books). I want a book that is as much about the place as the people and the plot. Suggestions welcome.
I know I say this every time I post (which is hardly never these days), but I do want to check in here more often. If nothing else, there is a lot of clean-up and catching up that must be taken care of.
Happy reading everyone.