In many ways I am not an optimist. That would be because I have a strong streak of cynicism running from top to tail. Hand me a library card, however, and I could out-Pollyanna Pollyanna.
It seems fairly traditional that I start off each new year with this re-invigorated spirit of reading, and this year is no different. My bookish challenges remain a central feature of my yearly goals – that’d be the Booklitzer 200, the 1001 Books, the Off the Shelf and my Goodreads challenge. Thankfully many overlap.
Unsurprisingly then I have started my year off with a large pile of library books with which to challenge my persistence and possibly my sanity. One alteration to my usual behaviour is the fact that they now live on a shelf of their own rather than in a stack by my bedside, thereby reducing my tendency to jump from one to another and back to the first again. Multi-task-reading begone!
So what am I planning to read, ever so optimistically? These.
As you can see they nearly all tick off one or more challenge boxes. Right now I am on the home-straight with Paulo Coelho’s Veronika Decides To Die, and am enjoying it so far. Not quite as much as I did with The Devil and Miss Prym but then, I’m not finished yet.
You will have also realised that I have become fascinated with the noir period and the hard-boiled detective fiction thereof. For those that know me this won’t be a surprise. I’ve always loved the films that these books inspired, or were translated in to. I’ve also slipped in a Waugh. It’s been a lifetime since I read Vile Bodies and feel it is overdue that I return to that style of satire.
