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 I’ve had some inspiring success with my reading this week. I’ve been diligently reading A Suitable Boy, which I’m really enjoying. There are a few political parts that are slightly boring, but it’s such a small fraction of such a huge book, and I’ve found myself feeling like I’m living in India with all the characters. I’m discovering that I really like books about changing cultures; they’re exposing the cracks and trying to figure out who they are. In this book, the British have fairly recently pulled out of India, many of the families were partitioned away from their homes thanks to the creation of Pakistan, and the countryside hierarchy is about to change completely thanks to new legislation. And, of course, there is Lata’s (and her mother’s) struggle to find “a suitable boy” in a changing India. It’s so interesting and enjoyable, but I’m going through it slowly. I figure I’ll get frustrated if I go days without finishing any books, so I’ve been reading lighter books alongside it. It is nice to live in a book for a while though. and I’m thrilled that I have another of Vikram Seth’s books hanging around for when I’ve finished.
I also have had some lovely book acquisitions this weekend. My mother-in-law gave me a bookstore gift card for my birthday, so I had a lovely time selecting 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, Arthur & George by Julian Barnes, Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold, and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. I’ve already read the first one and should have a review this week. I also was inspired by The House of the Mosque and Dawn at She Is Too Fond of Books to read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and get another perspective on the Islamic Revolution in Iran. I really enjoyed that, too. So this week I read my first non-fiction of the year, my first graphic novel of the year, and my first classic of the year, which was The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton. In short, I am accomplishing my goals to diversify my reading so far, and I hope I can keep it up!
I hope to get a lot read this week, as Keith is headed off for 3 days away to start his new job, and I’ve finished the game I was playing on my Xbox 360. I’ve been thinking of reviewing the games when I finish them – if others can review film and TV, I don’t see why I can’t review games, and I will probably complete less than one a month – but I haven’t decided yet. I haven’t worked out how to knit and read at the same time, but we still watch enough TV and movies to give me plenty of time for both. Next Sunday I will be in the air heading home for a couple of weeks, so posting may be slightly more sporadic as I haven’t as many scheduled posts these days. In any case, I hope you all have a lovely week and a good book to keep you company!
 Do you read the inside flaps that describe a book before or while reading it?
I haven’t done a Booking Through Thursday question in a long time! And the answer is no, I don’t. I really, really hate spoilers. I prefer to know pretty much nothing about a book going into it. I used to read the flaps or back cover because I didn’t have an effective way of getting recommendations, but I am always irritated when I’m halfway through a book and the events on the back cover haven’t happened yet. I prefer to go into a book knowing virtually nothing about its contents. Maybe a general idea of what it’s about, where it’s set, that sort of thing, really as vague as possible. I like to know that others thought it was good and worth a read, but really books work best when they’re left to unfold on their own.
I do occasionally read the flaps after I’ve finished, but I generally find that they’re getting more spoilery as time goes on. Maybe that’s just because my hatred of spoilers is growing, but this is why I write my own summaries. I try to give as little away as possible, but I know other people would probably like to know what a book is about, so I do continue to include that first paragraph of summary.
This is my first time participating in this meme, hosted by Alyce of At Home with Books. Since it’s Edith Wharton’s turn on the Classics Circuit and I’ll be bringing you a review of one of her books, The Custom of the Country, later this month, I decided to feature my favorite, The Age of Innocence.
I adore this book. I was frustrated in high school by a lack of new reads. I liked mostly the same stuff as I do now, but there was a whole lot more romance and fantasy reading going on then, as I needed a lot of comfort with all the angst and drama that goes hand in hand with teenagerhood. I think eventually I wanted something a little deeper. I don’t remember how my teacher recommended Edith Wharton to me. I read a lot of great books through her senior year; she gave us both fascinating modern literature and a great selection of classics, and I often wish I owned more of the books we read that year so I could give them a try as an older reader. I know I started with Ethan Frome and loved that. Then I moved on to this, and I really liked it on the first reading. Eventually we had to choose a book to write a research paper on, and I decided to go with this one.
It was only digging through it and isolating its themes that I completely fell in love with it. This happens to me a lot, because apparently whenever I pick a book apart and it holds up to my digging, it becomes a favorite. I love the image of the restrained New York society and how Newland is inspired so deeply by Ellen Olenska to realize just how stifled he is, but struggles with the conflict between his passion and his duty. Edith Wharton’s writing is beautiful and brings me deeply into this novel every time I read it. And, this may constitute a spoiler so skip the rest of this paragraph if you haven’t read it, I love the ending, although I was devastated the first time. I thought it was perfect for the story as a teenager and that view has remained the same. It’s a gorgeous, tragic novel that simply astonishes me. It’s a book that I want to start again every time I read it.
This is actually one of my top two of all time. The other is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. This is why I should read more classics!
I had fully intended to participate in this weekend’s Bloggiesta, because there are definitely things that need to get done around here. I need to make sure I’ve visited everyone participating in my challenge, set up a link page for reviews, and consolidate the info on a tab, I have an opinion post I’ve been meaning to write, and I have 3 reviews that need to get done. And I’m sure there are plenty of other tasks that I could do, like fix the images from when I lost my blog awhile ago, but to be honest, Friday rolled around and I just wasn’t feeling it. My husband got into an accident on Thursday and while he’s perfectly fine, repairs are frustratingly expensive in a month where money is very tight due to his job switch. As in, we have two months to get through on about half of a month’s pay. So, it’s either cut deeply into savings we need, or go back to the credit card we just paid off. It’s so frustrating; if he could have crashed two months from now, we could have shrugged it off fairly easily, that’s how much more he’ll be making, but now we just have to get by somehow. The road wouldn’t have been icy in March anyway. Needless to say, I won’t be getting those books I mentioned in the last post until March, and my birthday on Tuesday is looking a whole lot less exciting. The fact that my job prospects are horrid to say the least has not really been helping.
So, what have I been doing besides fretting? Reading a ton of comfort reads. I’ve read a book a day so far this month, which is downright strange after I declared I wanted to read less. I went straight for the comfort reads and have been completely indulging myself, although I did start A Suitable Boy, my target challenge read for the month, and I’m enjoying it so far. 100 pages a day will get it read in a couple of weeks. It is nice to see my TBR numbers shoot down for once, especially considering I was anticipating a shoot upwards with my birthday and Christmas so close together. Since I haven’t actually received any books – I haven’t even received my Holiday Swap gift – it’s going to go down even further, although I think my parents have some books for me at home, where I’ll be in a couple of weeks.
Those comfort reads have actually got the wheels in my brain turning though. Yesterday I finished an older medieval romance, The Lily and the Leopard by Susan Wiggs, and it really had me thinking how much had changed, and how it’s pretty easy to see why others can disdain romance novels. I really didn’t like it. Too much physical activity and purposeful misunderstandings had me both failing to believe in the romance and wanting to slap the characters. Sure, there are some modern books like this, but the few I’ve read this year have proven far more worthy. It’s set right before and during the Battle of Agincourt and the author’s research is surprisingly decent, but I just have so many things to say about this. When I feel better about life, expect a post!
Anyway, apologies for the depressing nature of this post! I hope to be back to my cheerful nature sometime soon, just wanted to let everyone know what was going on. I’m planning a visit to Massachusetts in 3 weeks to see some of my college friends and I can’t wait. I haven’t seen one of them in over a year because I haven’t been home for long enough and the train is expensive, but I’ve been lucky this time and I’m heading up at a fraction of the cost, albeit only for about a day. As long as the weather doesn’t prevent it, all I have to do is suffer through the flight, since I abhor flying more than anything else, and hopefully when I return to the UK I will have an interview or two to attend. Fingers most definitely crossed.
I hope everyone else is having a much brighter start to their 2010! See you next week!
Over the past few weeks, I’ve taken a step back from blogging and focused more on my other interests. I had a fairly quiet Christmas with hubby’s mother and brother, and though I didn’t receive any books as gifts, I did receive some cash and I am deliberating over my potential acquisitions. It’s also almost my birthday, so I have more potential for bookish gifts. These days I try to only buy what I can’t get from the library as I really don’t have space for all the books I’d like to own and I’m finding that I actually don’t want to reread all that many books. So I’ve been spending time comparing lists and contemplating! My mother-in-law also gifted me with a knitting project, so I’ve been learning to knit. Although I’m not very good yet, I am excited by all the projects I can now contemplate, and it’s really not as hard as I remembered from when I was a little kid.
That, and my newly revived interest in video games (perhaps not the most worthwhile of hobbies, but I’ve been feeling low lately and it really helps), has shown me that I’ve maybe been spending a little too much time reading and blogging this year. I’ve enjoyed diversifying my activities and it’s much easier to spend time with someone doing something that isn’t sticking my nose in a book. I have no intentions to stop reading, but I think I want to read less, and to read more specific books. I mentioned some of this in my 2009 wrap-up post, but here is an outline of my goals:
- Read more classics. I love classics and I’m finding them so much easier to read these days, I think because I have 4 years of literary theory behind me. I want to get to more of the ones I own in particular.
- Read more non-fiction. I feel such a lack of learning in my life right now, and while I’m still unemployed and have the mental concentration, I should seize this opportunity to learn about other subjects, cultures, and people.
- Stick to a reading plan. I want to read 1/3 of my own books, 1/3 review copies until I can cut that number down, and 1/3 library books, so that I can diminish my TBR pile but also feel like I’m reading something new with the library and review books.
- Read one longer and/or more difficult book per month. I saw this on another blog and I love this idea. I want to read one huge chunkster or longer classic a month. I’ve had A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth sitting at me from the top of my immediate TBR pile for at least a month now. It’s my January project and I want to start it as soon as I’ve finished my current read.
- Don’t feel guilty. This is my most important goal. I don’t want to feel guilty for not reading every day, for not blogging every day, for doing something else with my time. I don’t want to beat 2009’s total of 283 books.
If I don’t achieve these goals, that’s okay too. They’re just outlines. And if all I want to do is read in my free time, that’s okay too, especially after I get a job and my time is more limited. I’ve seen a lot of similar posts to mine this week, and I wish everyone success with their 2010 goals.
 It may not have been too obvious, but I’ve taken somewhat of an unofficial break from blogging these past couple of weeks. First Keith was off work for a week and around, so I wasn’t too inclined to spend all my time on the computer as I normally do, and I just drifted away from it. Then, the exact day he went back to work, I got sick with a nasty cold virus that had me actually unable to focus on reading a couple of days this week (the horror!) and I couldn’t summon the mental energy to write posts or read any of those currently filling up my Google Reader. I also had a job interview that required some preparation, and all my efforts went in that direction for about a week. So my loot has gone unrecorded, but that’s okay because there isn’t all that much of it. This is two weeks’ worth, too. I think I may have more that I missed, but it’s hard to tell, so I’ll just go with the most recent acquisitions.
   
- The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood – I have become very interested in the Canongate Myths series recently, and since I also decided to read more by Margaret Atwood, this seemed an obvious choice. Plus, it’s nice and slim, and I’ve been reading plenty of chunksters lately.
- Painting Mona Lisa, Jeanne Kalogridis – This is called I, Mona Lisa in the US. In response to this selection, you might say, “But Meghan, you haven’t read that other book you have by Jeanne Kalogridis!” And in protesting you’d be totally right, I haven’t, but since I enjoyed The Agony and the Ecstasy, I decided this was related enough to warrant borrowing.
- Agincourt, Juliet Barker – Let’s be honest here. I am hating being unemployed and I want a job. The one thing I do like about it, though, is that generally I have the brainpower and the will to read lots of history. I’ve enjoyed and learned from Juliet Barker’s books and essays on chivalry, so I’m interested to see what she thinks of the Battle of Agincourt.
- Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell – I’m due for my turn on the Classics Circuit next week and so I’m reading this now. I’m so late on it because I really wanted to read Wives and Daughters, but someone has had it taken out of my branch of the library and since it’s available in other branches, I can’t request it. Annoying, but I’m sure Ruth will be enjoyable.
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Well, after all my worrying, my visa application process was almost ridiculously simple. My new passport arrived two days before the appointment (nothing like the last minute!) and the officials didn’t even look at most of the paperwork they’d requested on the application. I’m halfway between annoyed at all the unnecessary stress and worrying I went through and relieved that it was so easy! Anyway, that’s all done now, and all I have to do is wait for a card in the mail that contains my actual visa.
I have been meaning to launch my Medieval Challenge this month, but I haven’t done it yet. I do have a list of book recommendations and I’m working on a button, so hopefully I’ll have that up this week. I hope no one is challenged out for 2010 yet!
I’m not participating in Bethany’s Read.Read.Readathon, which I believe has now ended, but I did manage to finish The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone this morning. At 758 pages in my edition, this was no small undertaking. I read it in four days, which is great considering I barely read at all on Friday, too busy spending four and a half hours at the UKBA office and then wandering around in a daze. What a book it was, too, so full of art and life that I’m still reeling a little bit. I found it slow in parts, given that it covers virtually all of Michelangelo’s life and the writing was not the greatest, but now I have this need to go visit his sculptures and paintings. I’ll save the rest of my reaction for my review.
As for the remainder of today, I’m planning on continuing The First Crusade by Thomas Asbridge. This was sent to me by Simon & Schuster UK and so far I’m really enjoying it. The crusades are fascinating and I’m always eager to read a new historian’s viewpoint. I’m not sure if I’ll finish it before I start the next fiction book on my massive TBR stack, which is Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I’m not sure what else I’m going to read the rest of this week either; my hubby is off from work and while we have nothing planned right now, we will probably end up occupying ourselves somehow.
Did you do the Read.Read.Readathon yesterday and today? How did you do? Anything exciting coming up soon on your TBR pile?
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After a few phone calls on Tuesday evening, I managed to get my internet back up and running. I can’t say I appreciated it until it was gone! But now I am very glad to be back and able to see what’s happening. I have to say that I still haven’t managed to comment much, just because I had so many posts to read. It was overwhelming. I managed to clear out the Google Reader, though, so I should be appearing a bit more around the blogosphere now that I feel like I can take time to comment and work through every day.
On Friday, I finally received the results for my MA, and I have very proudly passed, and done quite well considering how the year began. I received what was possibly the worst grade of my life on my first essay, due to a combination of one professor somewhat misleading me about the quality of my essay and my own misunderstandings, and my confidence took a hit. But I received a Distinction on my dissertation, which is the equivalent of an A, and I’m thrilled that all my hard work paid off and I can once again feel like the possibilities of academia are open to me should I choose to pursue them.
This Friday is meant to be my visa appointment, but I’m not sure we’re going to make it, and I might have to mail my documents in instead. You see, I wanted to change my name on my passport after I got married, but before I got my visa, to avoid the extra hassle of carrying a marriage license every time I travel for the next two years. This turns out to have been a mistake. Rather than returning my new passport in the promised 15 working days, it’s now been over 20, and I’m worried. I know they received it and charged me for the renewal, so I’ll be calling the US Embassy if it doesn’t get here tomorrow, and I hope they know what’s happened to it.
Finally, amusingly similar to my last Salon post, I am reading Sookie Stackhouse again. I was excited to find the last three books in the series at the library yesterday and I’ve read two since then (I’ll have more library loot later this week!). I’m still really enjoying these books and they are definitely taking my mind off my worries. I had to leave book 9 at the library because I was at my limit, but I’ll be picking it up next week I hope. I’m also reading Wild Swans by Jung Chang, which I’m absolutely loving. This is a memoir I’m reading for the Women Unbound challenge about three generations of women in China. It’s a wonderful combination of history and family relationships, which I particularly enjoy. My last read is Angels of Destruction by Keith Donoghue. I’m not really enjoying this as much as I thought I was going to, which is a disappointment at 100 pages in, but it’s a review copy I was supposed to review a long time ago, so I’ve got to get on with it.
What are you reading this Sunday?
Even though I have dozens of books I’d love to read right now, somehow I still have issues when staring at the many books I have to read. I just can’t decide which to choose and nothing is calling to me particularly strongly. I solved this issue in part when I found the sixth Sookie Stackhouse book in the library yesterday, but very shortly I’m going to be confronted by my indecision again. I reinstated my policy of rotating my oldest TBR books, review books, and then library books, just making a pile now, but it’s too dark for a picture. I’ll try to compare next week and see how far I get. My next book is The Foundling by Georgette Heyer, though, and I’m looking forward to it very much. Do you ever suffer from TBR indecision?
My Nanowrimo novel is still going very well. At last count I had around 31,000 words. I haven’t been working on it today, but this is only my second day off all month. At this rate, I will be nearly finished by next Sunday, especially because I made an essential discovery this week. The way I now write is vastly different from the way I used to write. I was a seat-of-the-pants writer, letting the story unfold as it would and as I went along. I can’t do this any more. I found it hard to just write without knowing where I was going and I found it stressful to try and put my characters into situations that would allow them to interact the way they wanted. So I sat down for a few minutes and plotted out the second half of my story. Suddenly the joy is back and it’s just as fun as it was in the beginning, when I did have a plan for how it was going to start. I’m not sure why this change has happened, but I do know I’m going to plot out all my writing from now on. I’m not sure if academics caused this or if I just like to have a plan these days, but I have a lot more confidence in finishing this thing now.
That’s about all that’s new from me this week; not much is going on in my life so nothing more interesting to report! I do hope everyone has a great week, though, with a wonderful book or two to read.
This was a fairly quiet week at the library for me. I haven’t been reading many of the books I’ve taken out, mostly because I’ve actually been reading a bit less this month. For one thing, my evenings are generally no longer my own because I’m married, which I clearly don’t mind, and while I’m unemployed, I’m in charge of the flat, so I spend more time cleaning and cooking. Nanowrimo takes a couple of hours out of my day, and I spend time every day looking for and applying for new jobs, if I can find any I’m qualified to do. There are depressingly few jobs out there that aren’t for IT specialists or business/marketing majors. If there are any British publishing companies out there looking for someone who is passionate about books, I’m willing to work!
Anyway, on to the books! Click on the pictures to be taken to individual Librarything pages.
   
- Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier – Chevalier is a hit or miss author for me, so I got this out of the library for a reason.
- Crazy for You by Jennifer Crusie – I really enjoyed the first book of hers I read and was recently getting annoyed that I’d read all the lightest fiction I have in my possession (in this country – 2/3 of my TBR is in the US) except for a few historical romances, which I’m not in the mood to read right now. Jennifer Crusie seemed like a good way to remedy the situation.
- Touch the Dark by Karen Chance – Same reasoning here as above, and I liked Karen Chance’s story in On the Prowl.
- Daisy: The Life and Loves of the Countess of Warwick by Sushila Anand – I mentioned this book in my Sunday Salon post and I’m still enjoying it. The first half of the book was more about Daisy’s love life, while this second half is much more about Daisy’s involvement in politics. Both are interesting and quite a reflection on the turn of the century in England. I’ll be finished with this one soon.
Have you read any of these books? What did you think?
Library Loot is a weekly meme hosted by Eva and Marg.
Apparently, my recent burnout only applies to historical fiction, not history. I’ve no idea why this is. Perhaps I’m just craving some truth! In any case, I definitely needed an escape from the Tudors. My nanowrimo novel is set in the late Victorian period in England, so I was thrilled to discover a biography of Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick in the library yesterday. When my parents were visiting, we went up to Warwick Castle, and they have a large exhibit based on one of her house parties, complete with wax figures of all the guests from Madame Tussauds in the rooms that they stayed in. The brief explanations of the personalities were not enough for me, so I thought it would be exciting to learn about this woman who was simultaneously a political figure and the mistress of many of the period’s important men, and I was right. It seems like a life in contradictions, but she straddles a fascinating divide between an ignorant aristocracy and an aristocracy campaigning for the rights of ordinary working people.
That novel is going fairly well. I’m ahead of the curve at 17,603 words. I haven’t written anything today yet, but I hope to a bit later on. We had Sky TV installed today and we’ve been busy playing with it rather than getting anything else accomplished. I’m a little less involved with the novel than I was a week ago, but I’m still finding my daily quota easy to meet, and I hope that continues.
One bookish thing I’m very excited about participating in this holiday season is the Book Blogger Holiday Swap. I can’t wait to find out who I’m buying a gift for. If you want to sign up, you have until November 12th, so don’t wait!
Finally, I’d better get back to my novel, but have a wedding picture:
The rest can be found here. Have a good week everyone!
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