Just when I think I have got my book juggling act under control I suddenly find more books being slipped into the mix. Who is doing this? It can’t be me, can it? I’m sure it isn’t. I am sure there are evil book gnomes at my house, I can hear their gleeful evil laughter as they scurry back into the shadows after leaving yet another good book for me to read. As for the library books that keep arriving for me, I think the evil book gnomes have hacked into my library’s computer system and are manipulating the hold request queue so the books I thought I wouldn’t get for months suddenly all start coming to me at the same time. Stupid evil book gnomes.
Nonetheless, the growing pile is composed of books I am really excited to read. One book I actually bought, pre-ordered two months ago. That book is The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It has many of the same characters in it as Shadow of the Wind and supposedly includes threads from that book as well as Angel’s Game. It is only 278 pages so relatively short. I also received a copy from the publisher that will become a blog giveaway soon.
I thought China Mieville’s YA book Railsea would be the first book of his I ended up reading. I also thought I wouldn’t get my turn for it until September at the earliest. After finishing Clash of Kings I decided I wanted to read Mieville now and began The City and the City. So far it is delightfully strange. And of course I just received notice from the library that my turn for Railsea is now and not in September. It has people in line for it behind me so I can’t dilly-dally.
A book that I just got from the library that I am especially excited to read is My Poets by Maureen McLane. It is being called a book of “experimental criticism” and is part criticism part personal memoir – a hybrid sort of book – about McLane’s life and poets that have been important to her for various reasons. It sounds so delicious and I have high expectations. I hope it doesn’t disappoint.
Arriving in the mail is a biography of Clarice Lispector, Why This World by Benjamin Moser. I’ve been wanting to read Lispector for ages and know nothing about her. I assumed she was American but then caught on that she wasn’t. So I thought maybe she was French and wrote books like those of Maguerite Duras. But it turns out she is Brazilian and wrote in Portuguese. Oxford University Press is the publisher of the biography and they also sent some excerpts of her novels. However, I requested The Hour of the Star from the library, a novella, so I can have more than a sample.
Of course these books are in addition to all the books I am already in the middle of. Looking at my outstanding library requests it also appears it will shortly be my turn for A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava. Yikes! I am going to need another vacation with several long plane rides in order to get through all these. How are your own book piles doing? Do you also seem to have an infestation of evil book gnomes?
My Poets looks wonderful! Thank for pointing it out.
Those evil book gnomes, just have a love/hate thing going for those pesky critters – but they can be great fun! I recently read Julian Barnes Sense Of An Ending on this blog’s recommendation and really enjoyed it so I had to read more Barnes. I had an old unread paperback of some of his essays, Something To Declare which is all about French life and culture – especially Flaubert. Barnes writes about Madame Bovary so passionately that I will have to read the book again. Am currently starting Ishiguro’s first novel A Pale View Of Hills; I loved Never Let Me Go so expect to enjoy this but wonder what book gnomes it will bring along.
Ian, yes, definitely a love/hate relationship with those book gnomes. Glad you enjoyed Sense of and Ending. You would probably like his Flaubert’s Parrot too. Barnes is a great Flaubert fan. I’ve not read Something to Declare but will eventually I’m sure! Loved Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go but haven’t read anything else by him. I keep meaning to read Remains of the Day but that is what everybody reads so let me know what you think of A Pale View of Hills
It is very,very elliptical.In a lot of ways it reminds me of Sense Of An Ending. I need to digest this book more but this very economical style of writing can be so powerful and haunting (in less skilled hands it can be just frustrating ).
Ian, oh I am intrigued by your description!
pburt, I don’t remember where I discovered it but it does hold very high potential!
Don’t talk to me about those gnomes!!
I also love the sound of My Poets so will be very interested to hear what you think of it. Or maybe I should give in to the inevitable and pre-order it now? I’ve also been intending to read The City and The City for ages. Must try to get to that out – out of my way, pesky gnomes!
Litlove, I suspected you might have gnomes too
Doesn’t My Poets have an intriguing sound to it? I have to read Ragnorok this weekend but hopefully I can squeeze in a bit of My Poets too. Just a heads up on The City and the City, Mieville does not immediately explain things and it is at times kind of confusing, but just go with it and eventually it starts to make sense.
How intriguing,Stefanie, I do recognise half of the photograph on the front cover of My Poets to be Emily Dickinson but who is the other half? And I’m looking forward to hear what you think of it!
Cath, the second half of the photo is William Carlos Williams. It isn’t easy to tell so thank goodness there was jacket design credits on the book flap!
I am number 20 on the library waiting list for Bringing Up The Bodies and it’s just as well. I finally used my Happy Birthday gift card from the office yesterday on The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry yesterday and am not going to even *think* of anything else until I finish it, The Outermost House, River of Smoke, So Big, and The Sea Hawk. And if those blasted gnomes think they can get the better of me, they’ve got another thing coming! I’ll just let them wrangle with the ghost that lives in my piano. But that’s another story altogether.
Grad, I keep seeing River of Smoke when I visit the library and have come so close to bringing it home with me but then I hear that evil gnome laughter and have so far resisted. It will make it home with me eventually though. I’ve not read Wolf Hall yet. I bought a copy last summer in paperback and I just haven’t gotten to it yet. Maybe this winter. It seems like a good curl up with cats and a blanket book. As for the ghost in your piano, I think it might be in cahoots with the gnomes
In the place where I live we have the number eleven bus. It’s behaviour is a byword round the city. In theory it’s supposed to run every ten minutes but in reality they hunt in packs and three of them arrive together around every half an hour. I have waited on a frosty morning for forty-five minutes and then got on the third of four. Library books the city’s system have clearly been tutored by these same number eleven buses because they do exactly the same thing. Witness the four that turned up for me this morning. I am so glad it’s not just our system that works this way.
Oh Alex! I love it! The number eleven bus is a perfect analogy. I wish I could start saying “it’s like the number eleven bus” when referring to things like all my hold requests arriving at once but no one will know what I mean!
When it comes to describing the number eleven bus on a cold and frosty morning ‘perfect analogy’ is not the first phrase that comes to mind:)
Heh, we don’t have a number eleven bus, but on occasion I have had to wait on a well-below freezing afternoon in the snow and gusting winds for a late bus. No fun at all!
Oh yes! the book gnomes have invaded my house and my library hold list too. Once they know where you live, the pace of arriving books gets more intense!!
Kathleen, I am afraid you are right about once they know where you live. Since I don’t plan on moving house any time soon, I suppose I just have to make peace with the critters!
The heat must bring out those gnomes–they’ve been doing the same exact thing to me! I’ve got Tana French’s newest waiting for me at the library. Am working on a coupel of ‘obligation’ reads (including for the Slaves) but as soon as those are out of the way….I’ll be adding to my reading pile, too!
Danielle, oh, yes, the heat! They are like the ants coming up out of the ground in spring! Tana French has another new novel? Yikes! I still haven’t gotten to her second and third one.
Oh, the evil book gnomes are all over the place here in the Barton household. I’ve got one hacking into my library’s computer system, too, both requesting books for me AND making them all arrive at the same time. Meanwhile, Tana French will be arriving in my mailbox some time this week, and I’ve just had someone (certainly not me) agree to review an ARC that should also be arriving soon. Sigh! Then again, life would be quite boring if one didn’t have to remain ever vigilant, always on the lookout for what the gnomes have gone and done now.
Emily, those gnomes sure are wily! Hacking library systems, replying to emails, pushing place order now buttons. Even when we are vigilant they manage to evade us!
Pingback: Sunday Caught My Interest « Reflections from the Hinterland