sunday-salon-2My reading week started off very slowly but momentum picked up at the end of the week and I have now read two completes novels, The Death House by Sarah Pinborough (reviewed here) and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North (which I only finished earlier today so I am still contemplating what I thought of it, apart from it being really excellent of course).

Challenges

My tally for the TBR Double Dog stands at eleven books so far. And I haven’t yet started the Cornflower Book Group’s April read of Jane Eyre, though I’m going to take some time out today to plan my reading so that I don’t get overwhelmed or, just as importantly, left behind.

In progress

My current reads are as always shown on the blog sidebar; I am currently working my way through an anthology of sci-fi short stories called Irregularity, which I am really enjoying.

The Jonathan Strange Update

I have finally taken the decision to set Jonathan Strange aside and will write a DNF post about it in the next few days. I am actually very sad about this and not totally giving up on the possibility that I may actually be able to finish it one day.

New books

The book buying embargo is still holding but several books came into the house this week, still technically not breaking the terms but ooh, probably stretching it a bit. One is the new Mary Russell novel by Laurie King, Dreaming Spies, which looks really good but in honouring the terms of the TBR dare as well as breaking with years of tradition I have not only set aside but actually let the Book God read before me. I am stunned by the extent of my own magnanimity 🙂

And on a trip to Manchester I was given a gift by my friend’s husband; a copy of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists which to my shame I have never read.

I also went to a bookish event on Saturday night to see/hear Den Patrick and Jen Williams talk about their new novels, The Boy Who Wept Blood and The Iron Ghost respectively. A really enjoyable discussion but of course if you want signed books you have to buy them, and as they are both second novels in their sequences then you have to buy the first volumes too, so we walked out four books the heavier. I’m not calling that an embargo breach because The Book God paid for them. Rationalisations, don’t you just love them?

Climbing up the TBR pile

A few of books we already have in the stacks came to my attention this week and have made their way to the top of Mount TBR:

Odds and Sods

One of the things I’m trying to do this year is sort out my study which is so cluttered with books and papers that I would be ashamed to share a photograph of it with anyone. In moving books around to make space for other books I came across a couple which I have apparently had for ages  but have no memory of whatsoever:

  • Encyclopaedia of Snow by Sarah Emily Miano – apparently I read  this in 2004 and thought it was OK but it isn’t triggering anything in my brain at all
  • The Murder Room by PD James, which it looks like I’ve had for years but don’t seem to have read. I can’t possibly have had a James novel for that long without reading it, surely? I shall have to investigate.

Hope everyone has a great reading week!