There's so much reading-related activity happening lately at Planet Kitten, I thought I'd just do one of those catchall posts.
1. Finished Trilby. An odd book, surely, dated and very late-Victorian in tone and topic. But I'm very glad I stumbled upon it and managed to read it. (A long analytical post to come, I promise. I need to digest it a bit.) I'm thrilled that I managed to finish 3 books during my Month of Romance Reads!
2. Memoirs of a Muse by Laura Vapynar. About halfway through this one, and I am really enjoying it. I think the subject matter (a girl obsessed with Dostoevsky and his muse, who aspires to be a muse herself) is compelling to me, and the author's prose is clean and sure. A future post on this, absolutely. With any luck, I will finish in time to add a fourth romantic read for February (and all that in a short month!). I don't recall how or where I heard about this book, but if it came from a fellow blogger, many thanks.
3. Book-buying binges. Well, I've maxed my credit cards on Amazon.com and the QPB site, and my new bookshelves already are bulging at the seams. Check out my (partial!) TBR list on Library Thing, if you don't believe me. And what did I do this weekend? I stopped by a sidewalk sale on my way home from the DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park and, for $2, picked up: Alias Grace and Bluebeard's Egg (short stories) by Margaret Atwood and If I Told You Once by Judy Budnitz. Isn't it fortunate that I happened across the two Atwood books, just after finishing Cat's Eye -- and being determined to read more of her? I am planning to delve into the short stories during my evening bus commute. But, with all of these books waiting impatiently for me, covers closed and silent and begging to be exposed to light and sight, I am so overwhelmed, I don't know where to start! There are too too many good books in the world for one poor little reader.
Lucky for me, the monthly list of reading seems to help me focus. And, so far, feels doable and satisfying. I'm gearing up for essay reading in March -- a nice change of pace from novels, with room built in for whatever else strikes my fancy.
How are your reading adventures going lately?
8 comments:
Oh, that Memoirs of a Muse sounds intriguing. Never heard of it. So what did you get at Amazon and the QPB site?
Freaking too many books to count here, Iliana. I'm waiting arrival on Virginia Woolf's London Essays, Simone de Beauvoir's Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, Steinbeck's East of Eden Letters, oh, and The Stories of Stephen Dixon.
I will quote some passages from Memoirs of a Muse in a not-too-distant post...
Ooh, I've wanted to get hold of Bluebeard's Egg for quite some time now. I'm glad you mentioned it. I'm going to add it to my BookMooch list.
oh, I liked memoirs of a muse ...
I liked Memoirs of a Muse, too.
This post makes me want to curl up under the covers with a stack of books and read for days.
Isn't wonderful to have a long TBR list - I feel the pressure but get so excited at the possibilities! There are definitely too many books in the world (sigh). Thanks though, I'm really curious to look at Memoirs of a Muse now, sounds intriguing.
I've never heard that Atwood had written short stories before, that sounds nice!
Memoirs of a Muse sounds interesting. Looking forward to your post on that.
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