A Work in Progress

A Few Bookish Add-ons & Other Notes

Are there any Martha Grimes/Richard Jury fans out there?  Does it matter if I read her detective novels out of order?  I have read some of Emma Graham novels (in order and I do mean to get back to those unread books in that series I have on my TBR pile).  I want a 'proper' detective novel/police procedural, and while I know I should read Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, I am just not sure I am in the mood for it at the moment.  I have been reading The Break Down by B.A. Paris, and while I am enjoying it, it is a novel of suspense and I can see where it is headed, if you know what I mean.  I am feeling a little jaded with thrillers of late and think I need to get back to traditional mystery novels.

I also need to get back to my short story reading.  I love short stories, and I miss them, as I have not been reading them with any sort of regularity this year.  I know sometimes you need a break from a particular genre, and I have had one.  Curiously I am feeling the need and desire to read short stories, but at the same time I can't seem to sit down with them.  I guess I have just fallen out of the habit and I need and want to fall back into it!  My friend Cath gave me a copy of John Burnside's Something Like Happy and I was reading it quite contentedly earlier this year, flying through the stories, but then it (as is so often the case with my reading) was just a sensory overload of books and something had to give, and sadly it was my short stories!  I was also reading Tegan Bennett Daylight's Six Bedrooms for my Australian Literature summer reading project and things fizzled a bit somewhere in the middle.  I was enjoying both books very much, so I think this weekend's reading is going to include both books and we'll see if I can find the magic of short stories once again.

And speaking of short stories, in reference to autumn RIP reading, I have pulled out my two volumes of Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature edited by Alberto Manguel.  I return to these books every year as they are chunky volumes filled with all sorts of wild short story treats.  Fantastic indeed--and that is in the bizarre and surreal sense.  They are out of print, but if you go in for this sort of thing, they are well worth looking for and I am sure you can find inexpensive used copies.  I want to try and read at least one story a weekend for my RIP reading.   

On to the next related topic, and this is where the 'bookish add-ons' comes into play . . . I always make lists of books, but more often than not I end up reading something else entirely.  Isn't this always the case?  I have recently come across books that are very appealing and will fit in nicely with my current reading.  So, while it is entirely likely I will still choose something from my RIP reading list, I have ordered a copy (and it should be arriving this weekend) of Carol Goodman's The Widow's House, which just sounded nicely atmospheric.  I used to read all her books right when they were released, but I lapsed somewhere along the way.  This is set in her usual upstate New York and has a crumbling estate and the sound of babies crying at night.  I hope it is as good as I want it to be, and happily the reviews seem to be positive.

I am currently reading and much enjoying Jane Gardam's Bilgewater (and she is now one of those 'I want to read all her books' writers) for my September prompt.   I might still pick another book from the pile, but my last bookstore visit netted Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.  Both books look like perfect stories with school settings and I can't wait to start reading both of them.

You can see where my weekend reading is going!  And now for a few links to explore that caught my eye this week.

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Here are five linked short story collections that "are better than novels."  I have to concur that the Tim O'Brien book is amazing and one of my own favorites!

Thanks to Smithereens for the reminder that it is now the Season of Stories and I have signed up and hope to get those stories in my email inbox, too. 

Last year I bought and read all the stories in the 2016 Short Story Advent Calendar (save the very last story . . .).  I have signed up to get the update on the 2017 edition.  (Yay).

Why is it I like bookish scenes involving food?  It seems there is a proclivity of great detectives who are also obsessed (add in Frank Tallis's DI Oskar Reinhardt and Dr. Max Liebermann as the two Viennese are always drinking chocolate and eating pastries . . . maybe I need to pick up the next unread book in that series for a little detective goodness!).

Happy reading everyone.  Hopefully your weekend will include some bookishness.  I will be watching my mailbox for my next NYRB Classic and hopefully reading lots of short stories.

Autumn Reading: RIP XII

For once the temperature matches my mood and my reading.  Just in time for RIP XII it has turned cool and this morning's walk was a brisk one.  It's one of those "wrap and peel" kinds of days that the meteorologist likes to call them where I have short sleeves on under a sweater.  It's my favorite kind of weather where I can sleep with the windows open and finally tuck up under a blanket or two.  And it is also my favorite reading season of the year, too.  (Is there such a thing as a 'reading season'?--well, you know what I mean, cool weather inspiring books you want to read with a hot beverage in hand and the wind whipping outside with a gentle rain hitting the windows perhaps).

Estella's Revenge is hosting the event this year, and while I have not formally joined in for several years now, I will be reading along in spirit and choosing a few books that are seasonally creepy and atmospheric.  It has come upon us so quickly that to be honest I have not had much of an opportunity to plan my reading, but I took a quick look at my shelves and managed to pull a few books down and will like add more along the way.  So for September and October I hope to read a book or two and this is the pile I will be starting from:

The House Between Tides by Sarah Maine -- I think this is the book I am most keen to read at the moment.  "An atmospheric debut novel about a woman who discovers the century-old remains of a murder victim on her family’s Scottish estate, plunging her into an investigation of its mysterious former occupants."

The Other Side of Midnight by Simone St. James -- I think I have another of her books unread tucked away somewhere and I hope to read one of them this fall as she has a new book coming out early next year.  Her books always have a good mix of suspense and romance with a supernatural tilt to them.

The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore -- I must pull this book off my shelf every year with the intention of reading it!  "Bestselling novelist Helen Dunmore’s historical novels have earned her comparisons in the press to Tolstoy and Emily Bronte. In her newest book, Dunmore mines the past to chilling effect in this evocative and sophisticated ghost story about a love affair between a neglected wife and a mysterious soldier."

The Road Through the Wall or Come Along with Me by Shirley Jackson -- I know I have other books by Jackson, though where they have gotten to I am not sure.  These were two of the unread books by her I found. " Pepper Street is a really nice, safe California neighborhood. The houses are tidy and the lawns are neatly mowed. Of course, the country club is close by, and lots of pleasant folks live there. The only problem is they knocked down the wall at the end of the street to make way for a road to a new housing development. Now, that’s not good—it’s just not good at all. Satirically exploring what happens when a smug suburban neighborhood is breached by awful, unavoidable truths, The Road Through the Wall is the tale that launched Shirley Jackson’s heralded career."  The latter title is a collection of short stories and other short writings.  I would be thrilled if I actually managed to read a short story each weekend, but we'll see how that goes.

Asylum or Dr. Haggard's Disease by Patrick McGrath -- I have this 'collection' of books by McGrath yet I have never read him.  I think it is likely I will start with one of these books.  The first: "In the summer of 1959 Stella Raphael joins her psychiatrist husband, Max, at his new posting--a maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane. Beautiful and headstrong, Stella soon falls under the spell of Edgar Stark, a brilliant and magnetic sculptor who has been confined to the hospital for murdering his wife in a psychotic rage."  and the latter: "With consummate artistry and profound understanding of the frontiers of human experience, McGrath proves himself once again an unsurpassed craftsman of literary suspense. This is the story of a mysterious doctor, racked by morphine addiction and tormented by memories, living on the English coast during the early years of World War II."

The Blood Doctor by Barbara Vine -- "Barbara Vine (a.k.a. Ruth Rendell) deftly weaves this story of an eminent Victorian with a modern yarn about the embattled biographer, who is watching the House of Lords prepare to annul membership for hereditary peers and thus strip him of his position. Themes of fate and family snake throughout this teasing psychological suspense, a typically chilling tale from a master of the genre."  Or maybe an older novel by Vine or written under her real name, Ruth Rendell. 

Are you reading along this year and which book have you started with?  And the inevitable question of--have you come across a nice creepy book of late or a good ghost story?  Suggestions always welcome.