Plans

Now here's a very enticing idea. Simon from Stuck in a Book & Karen from Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings are hosting a reading challenge later this month called The 1924 Club.
All you have to do is read a book published in 1924. There's a list of possible titles on Simon's blog. I've read quite a few of them but two that I do have on the tbr shelves are The Matriarch by G B Stern & The Three Hostages by John Buchan. I'm looking forward to exploring the shelves to see what other possibilities I have.

Which brings me to my other plan. Christine Poulson (author of Invisible, one of my Top 10 books last year) has just blogged about her plan to stop buying books for a while. I read this & thought Yes! What's good enough for Christine is good enough for me - until Christmas, anyway! I do have several pre-orders on the way - Alison Weir's biography of Lady Margaret Douglas, The Lost Tudor Princess, Claire Harman's biography of Charlotte Brontë, the British Library's collection of Christmas mysteries, Silent Nights, & Jennifer Henderson's biography of Josephine Tey, so I won't feel too deprived. It's the eBooks that are the real temptation because they're so easy to buy & they're invisible so don't even take up room on the tbr shelves. Let's see how long I last.

I've been able to think about all this because we're having a public holiday today - for a football game. It's not even on until tomorrow but we're having a day off on the eve of the AFL Grand Final anyway. So now we're the city with a holiday before a football game & a holiday for a horse race (Melbourne Cup Day in November). It's also the start of the first run of hot weather we've had since last summer. At least the sun is warming up the veggie garden so I can start planting in the next few weeks.

Now for some completely unrelated cat photos. I don't have any new photos of the girls (I almost got a shot of Lucky with my 1924 books but she was unco-operative) so here are the collages I made last year when I discovered the collage app.
The clocks go forward tomorrow night & summer is almost here. Oh well, only six months until I can change the clocks back again!

New Year's Resolutions & Reading Plans

Happy New Year everyone, another year begins. I hope it will be a year full of health, happiness & plenty of good books for us all. This photo isn't especially about New Year but Phoebe is sitting in the wastepaper basket (one of her favourite spots in the study although right now she's on my lap) in front of unread books which is a theme of this post.

I counted up my list of books read for 2013 & I read 115 books last year which is good but not as good as 2009 when I read 172! I know I spend more time on the internet than I did a few years ago as I now have an iPad which makes it easy to look something up from the comfort of my chair without having to start up the PC & disturb a sleeping cat on my lap. However, it also makes it too easy to be led from one thing to another & suddenly discover that half an hour has gone.

I want to read more books from my tbr shelves this year, which is a perennial resolution, I know. But, I'd like to make some sort of a dent in the shelves. I seem to collect books from my favourite publishers but then read very few of them. I don't want to be too structured as I'm not a big fan of reading challenges or being too prescriptive. I'd just like to read more of all these lovely books.

Wodehouse & Slightly Foxed editions. I bought all these Wodehouses from Clouston & Hall when they were remaindered & I'm slowly making my way through them. I subscribe to the excellent quarterly journal, Slightly Foxed, & also to their series of memoirs in these beautiful pocket-sized hardbacks. I've also subscribed to their new Slightly Foxed Cubs, the children's historical novels of Ronald Welch - even more to read!

Hesperus Press & Greyladies, two more favourite publishers. There are also a few E F Bensons & a Hugh Walpole there.

Nonsuch Press, Capuchin & Canongate.

The Folio Society (along with some Mary Stewarts, a Walter De La Mare & a D E Stevenson).

OUP & Penguin Classics.

Virago (as well as some books on mostly women's literature. You can see by the spine labels that I rescued a few of these from my library when they were being withdrawn).

I also have other tbr shelves organised by subject like this overflowing shelf of  mostly mysteries.
Some are rereads - Marsh, Fraser, Heyer, Tey - but I really do want to read them again so I haven't shelved them on the main shelves. I also picked up that stack of Arcturus Crime Classics from Clouston & Hall a few months ago.

Finally, this is the stack of books on my desk which is meant to indicate that these books are next to be read... I won't tell you how long some of them have been sitting there. The 6th book from the top does deserve special mention, though. Mary Gaunt's Kirkham's Find was republished by Penguin as part of a wonderful series of reprints of Australian women's novels. They were published in the bicentenary year of white settlement in Australia. For those of you who don't know when that was, it was in 1988. The book hasn't been sitting on the desk that long but I did buy it that year so it probably rates as my oldest tbr book. I must read it! It has one of my favourite paintings on the cover, Clara Southern's An Old Bee Farm, & this is definitely the year I will read it.

So, more reading from the tbr shelves (I haven't even mentioned library books or ebooks but they don't take up nearly as much room) & I have a resolution about blogging too. I'd gotten into the habit of posting two reviews a week as well as a poem on Sunday & I'm starting to feel a little constrained by the schedule I've set myself. I think it's stopping me from picking up longer books unless I'm reading them in installments with a reading group because I want to post those two reviews a week. I also subscribe to some lovely magazines & journals which I want to actually read rather than just pile on the coffee table. So, I will try to be less structured this year & post more serendipitously & not worry if there are no posts some weeks because I'm reading Trollope or a big biography. I may put up more cat pictures if the girls are in the mood to pose or photos of my veggie garden which is looking wonderful at the moment - green tomatoes on every plant & the promise of an awful lot of pumpkins (I only have one plant which is taking over the garden, how many do they produce??).

So, that's it. My reading resolutions for the year, such as they are. I'll look forward to hearing about everyone else's resolutions, if you make them, & reading some wonderful books in 2014.

Reading Plans for 2013

I've been making a few plans for my reading this year. I only read 106 books last year which is way down on the 143 I read in 2011. I think one of the reasons for this is that I'm spending more time on the internet now that I have an iPad. I joined Facebook to keep up with friends overseas but, even though I don't post very often, I spend half an hour nearly every night reading other posts, following links to articles & blogs & it's cutting into my reading time. It's so convenient to be able to settle down with Lucky on my lap & play with the iPad. I'm planning, as always, to stop buying books for a while & concentrate on my tbr shelves which are overflowing & full of riches. So, my reading needs to be more focused this year & there are a couple of anniversaries that I'm looking forward to as opportunities to reread two of my favourite authors.

Pride & Prejudice was published 200 years ago this year. A perfect excuse to read it again & I have lots of books about Jane Austen & her work on the tbr shelves that I'm looking forward to reading as well. A new book that has just been published & is on the way to me right now is by Susannah Fullerton, President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia. It's called Happily Ever After : Celebrating Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Fullerton discusses how the book was written, its early reception & growing popularity. I'll probably need to watch the BBC series again as well.

2013 is the centenary of the birth of Barbara Pym. There are plans around the blogosphere to reread all Pym's novels. You can see the details at Heavenali's blog here. I'm not sure I could keep up with one a month but I will read my favourites again - Excellent Women, A Glass of Blessings & Some Tame Gazelle. I'm also going to read the Pym I've been saving, the only one I haven't read, A Quartet in Autumn. What I've been saving it for, I'm not sure but I liked the idea that I hadn't read all Barbara Pym's novels, there was still one more treat in store.

My other project is to celebrate Persephone Books & their 100th title which was published a few months ago. I'd like to catch up with the Persephones I still have to read & hopefully find time to reread & review some of my favourites. I read most of my Persephones before I started the blog so I'd like a chance to revisit my favourite titles & reflect on how important Persephone has been to me reading over the last 12 years.

Then, there are a couple of reading projects I'm right in the middle of. I'm reading Fanny Burney's  Camilla with Dani at A Work in Progress. I'm nearly half way through, just about to finish Volume 3 & enjoying it very much. Although I do have to wonder just how many more misunderstandings Camilla & Edgar can endure without running mad. This is a long book, over 900pp, & I think it could definitely have been shorter. However, as it's my lunchtime book, I'm able to keep track of the plot without becoming overwhelmed by the complications & the urge to want to just put Edgar & Camilla in a room together & make them talk honestly to each other!

Then, Team Middlemarch at Dovegreyreader is coming to an end. Only the last two instalments to read & we'll be finishing appropriately in the middle of March. I've enjoyed the chance to read this brilliant novel again after many years. Maybe I'll be finishing Middlemarch & Camilla at around the same time?

That's probably enough to be going on with. Does anyone have any reading plans?

Overflowing with blessings

What to read next? So many lovely books have come into the house in recent weeks that I'm having a hard time deciding what to read first. I spent last weekend reading Millions Like Us by Virginia Nicholson, one of the books I didn't get to last year & wanted to read before the end of this year. I loved it & I'll be reviewing it soon. Another of the books on that list was Georgette Heyer by Jennifer Kloester but after reading Captive Reader's review, I'm not sure I'm in the mood when there are so many other books clamouring for my attention. My copies of the beautiful Virago reprints of High Rising & Wild Strawberries have arrived.

Then, there's this pile of new books from the library. The Pinecone by Jenny Uglow, about Sarah Losh, a remarkable woman who was an antiquarian & architect in a period when a woman wasn't supposed to be either. These Wonderful Rumours! by May Smith, the diary of a schoolteacher during WWII. Serving Victoria by Kate Hubbard, life with Queen Victoria by members of her household including doctors & ladies-in-waiting. Thomas Wyatt : the Heart's Forest by Susan Brigden. Wyatt is one of my favourite poets & I'm interested in Brigden's interpretation of his melancholy life. A Question of Identity by Susan Hill is the new Simon Serrailler mystery. I always look forward to this series & I can't wait to see how Simon deals with his new love affair. The Sea Garden by Marcia Willett. One of my most anticipated comfort reads each year is a new novel by Marcia Willett. Set in Devon or Cornwall, her books are always full of atmosphere & family drama. The Fishing Fleet by Anne De Courcy, about the young women who went out toi India in search of husbands in the days of the Raj. Lifting the Lid by Claire Macdonald is the story of the author's life at Kinloch Lodge on Skye. Macdonald may be better known in the UK but I hadn't heard of her. The book is the story of how she & her husband created the Kinloch Lodge Hotel, brought up their family & became a well-known cookery writer.

I've known about Girls Gone By, the publisher specializing in reprinting classic girls school stories, for ages but hadn't bought anything until recently. I didn't read school stories (except Enid Blyton's Naughtiest Girl series) or books about pony-mad little girls when I was a child so I'm not interested in reading them now. However, I discovered these books on their list about young women & couldn't resist buying them. Margaret Finds a Future by Mabel Esther Allan, The Bartle Bequest by Dorita Fairlie Bruce & The Scholarship Girl at Cambridge by Josephine Elder.

The new edition of Brontë Studies will be arriving any day now &, having seen the Table of Contents & noticing that many of the articles are about Anne's Agnes Grey & Charlotte's The Professor, I feel that I should reread both before I read the articles to refresh my memory. It's been years since I read either of them.

I've also been tempted by Dani's plan to read Fanny Burney's Camilla & I've decided to read along. I've downloaded the free copy from Girlebooks but I've also borrowed the OUP edition from work so I can read the notes.

My next book should probably be one of the library books as I know I can't renew some of them. It's a difficult decision & I think a cup of tea & some soothing music (I'm listening to lots of Christmas carols & choirs at the moment) will be needed to help me get there.

Those books I didn't get to in 2011.

Remember this post? At the end of last year I listed some of the books I bought last year that I was sure I would love if only I'd actually gotten around to reading them. The other day I thought I should have a look & see if I had managed to read any of them this year or whether they'd been overrun by the new arrivals. Surprisingly I didn't do too badly. Here's the list, with links to the posts about the books I read.

Helen - Maria Edgeworth
Patronage - Maria Edgeworth
Between the Acts - Virginia Woolf
Westwood by Stella Gibbons
Life Among the Savages - Shirley Jackson
No Surrender - Constance Maud
Millions Like Us - Virginia Nicholson
Georgette Heyer - Jennifer Kloester
Now All Roads Lead to France - Matthew Hollis

I read half of Life Among the Savages before throwing it (gently) aside. I know Simon loved it but I just didn't like the narrator's voice. Maybe it was the wrong day to read it. A very hot day at the beginning of the year when I didn't have much patience with anything so I may go back to it one day & try again.

Having read one Maria Edgeworth novel this year I'm not sure when I'll get to Patronage. The other three books have now left the tbr shelves & are sitting on the desk. I would love to read them all before the end of the year. Then I can write another post about this year's books that arrived in a glow of enthusiasm but didn't get any further than the tbr shelves.

The year of Mapp & Lucia?

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had succumbed to the temptation of rejoining the Folio Society for another year because one of the offers was the boxed set of Mapp & Lucia novels by E F Benson for just $9.95. Of course, I have to order 4 other books at the normal prices but that's really no hardship. I chose Hons & Rebels by Jessica Mitford, The Country Child by Alison Uttley (I've read both of these but couldn't resist these editions as I didn't own copies already), a volume of short stories by Daphne Du Maurier & The Sun King by Nancy Mitford. Folio books are lovely & I do enjoy owning & reading them. I have quite a few Folios that are duplicates of books I already own as they are such beautiful objects. I promised a few pictures & here they are. Above is the box the books live in.

Then we have the books themselves. Gorgeous cloth covers in mauve, pale blue & green. I tried to take photos of the drawings on the front covers but they didn't come out very well.

Here though is just one of the many lovely line drawings by Natacha Ledwidge.

I'm starting to make reading plans for next year & I do think 2011 may be the year I fall in love with E F Benson. Well, I've paid $9.95 for the books, I can't let that money go to waste, can I? Has anyone else started planning for next year's reading?