One of my goals for the New Year was to start reviewing right after finishing a book, so that I didn’t gain a review backlog, and not allow myself to read another book until the review was finished. Unfortunately, I’ve already failed miserably! My reading in 2011 has been off to a roaring start, but that means I have five reviews (yes, FIVE) already waiting to be written. I’ve decided to amend my goal and instead do all the reviews on the weekend after I’ve read them, when I normally have more time and feel a bit more like writing. This does mean I have five reviews to write today, but I can manage if I get my head in the right place.
In other bookish news, my TBR has similarly skyrocketed this week. In part, this is because I had some money for Christmas, and decided there was no better way to spend it than buying new books. I’ve already welcomed two of these purchases into my house and I’m anticipating more over the next week. It’s bad for my shelves, but I do like to support the publishing industry by buying new, and after accumulating a year-long wishlist of books slightly more expensive than I could buy during the year, it’s nice to just purchase them and have them for my very own.
Plus, I’ve realized how little I’m actually paying attention to my Kindle and under-utilizing it. I know I can read classics on it for free, but I’d never really ventured beyond Amazon, getting stymied whenever there was a charge. But while I was perusing blogs yesterday, I stumbled across this post on Eva’s blog, and with her new Nook she’s downloaded lots of classics that I too would love to read. I must admit I’ve now gone a little crazy with public domain books, but I think this should mean I’ll feature more classics in time, as I get them read.
Speaking of ebooks, I wanted to let you all know about a free e-novella from HarperCollins. David Vann, author of the upcoming Caribou Island, has released his novella Sukkwan Island for free. It previously appeared in his collection, Legend of a Suicide, and won the Prix Medicis award for best foreign novel in France. Definitely worth a download. It’s available on Amazon, the Sony ebook store, and for the Kobo ereader, and I’m told will shortly appear for the Nook as well.
Finally, in terms of reading today, I’ve begun to read A Tale of Two Cities for the read-a-long hosted by Jen at Devourer of Books and Nicole at Linus’s Blanket over on What’s Old Is New. I’ve wanted to re-read this for years, and doing so with the actual publication schedule seems both fun and doable. I’ve finished the first installment and it took less than half an hour, so my initial impressions were correct. I can’t wait to get a bit deeper in and see if I enjoy it as much as I did in high school. I also managed to read one of those way-too-old ARCs, Something Missing, between today and yesterday, which was surprisingly delightful and shouldn’t have sat in my review pile for so long. Yesterday I completely devoured The Raising by Laura Kasischke in one sitting, and only wish I didn’t have to hold my review until March! It was excellent and I’m not sure how I’ll keep the gushing out of my review – I was totally consumed by the book and put off everything I’d planned for the day just to keep reading.
This week, I think I’ll be spending some time in the realm of non-fiction, with Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson and Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. I’m very excited about both of these and plan to savor them over the course of today and the next few days.
What do you have planned for this Sunday? Any great books on your horizon?
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