Yesterday I finished reading both Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell and Julius by Daphne Du Maurier, leaving me with no books on the go. This morning I started to read The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham, but I like to read more than one book at a time of different genres so that I don’t get them mixed up in my mind, preferably with one non-fiction book.
I think I’ll read a biography or an autobiography.
There was a programme on TV last night about D H Lawrence, a Culture Show Special, which reminded me that I haven’t read his biography yet which I bought a few years ago when we visited the house in Eastwood where he was born. It’s D H Lawrence: the Life of an Outsider by John Worthen who was one of the contributors to the programme. I got the book off the shelf and immediately saw why I haven’t read it yet – it’s in such a small font, with quotations in an even smaller font – not good for my eyes. It’s a pity I don’t have it on Kindle but maybe I’ll give it a go, definitely a book to read in daylight. And as I have just one of D H Lawrence’s books that I haven’t read yet – St Mawr – I may read that. It’s a novella, so it won’t take me long.
Anther book I’ve been meaning to read before now is Peter Ackroyd’s Shakespeare:the Biography. The Classics Club is running a new project next year Twelve Months of Classic Literature with different topics for each month and January’s topic is William Shakespeare. I think Ackroyd’s book would be a good choice for this project. It’s described on the book jacket as
… neither an academic description, nor a didactic analysis. Written with intuition and imagination unique to Peter Ackroyd, a book by a writer about a writer, brilliant and straightforward, it vividly presents the reader with the circumstances of Shakespeare’s life and art.
It sounds just right. I think I’ll begin with this book.
That leaves me with choosing a crime fiction book and I have quite a lot of those to choose from. I haven’t read an Agatha Christie this month so I’m going to choose one of hers or some of her short stories (I have several collections still unread). I think I’ll read the oldest I have, which is N or M? a Tommy and Tuppence war time mystery, first published in 1941. I have a feeling this will be better than the last Tommy and Tuppence book I read, Postern of Fate, which was Agatha Christie’s last novel and not one of her best.
I thought N or M was a proper cosy crime novel – and streets ahead of Postern of Fate.I hope you enjoy it. I’m having an AC re-reading binge at the moment – just finishing The Body in the Library.
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I’m having to spread out reading AC’s books – reading them as I come across them. I did like The Body in the Library!
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Margaret – I hope you’ll enjoy N or M? It’s a terrific story I think and I do like Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. They’re great!
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I’m really enjoying N or M?, Margot I’m about halfway into it and feeling completely baffled.
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So pleased I can comment here again!
I too have terrible trouble choosing the next book to read. I know what the problem is, I just have too much choice. Several hundred books on my tbr mountain, a couple of hundred on my Kindle and library books. At any one time there’s easily a dozen books I fancy starting. The small font thing is a problem isn’t it? It used not to bother me too much but the last year or two has seen me struggling more and more. If only for that reason alone Kindles are brilliant.
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Cath, that’s just it – too much choice!
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