It's Monday! Fall Reading Progress and What I'm Reading This Week

Last fall I decided to start reading my hardcover fiction at night, and now I've burned through about half of what I had on the shelf. I've been concentrating on the books that have been with me the longest, and now there are no hardcovers on my shelf that are more than 5 years old. I'm really, really happy about that; it means that if we have to move again any time soon, I won't be carting as much old weight around. Except for one or two, those books are all sold or donated, on to new readers. It's nice to actually see room opening up on the shelves!

I would anticipate being more or less done with the hardcovers towards the end of next year if I keep going and maybe after that I'll pick another category. Like ARCs, and work from the oldest again.

I finished Lion's Honey, by David Grossman (short and sweet) and DNF'd The Symmetry Teacher; I also finished Red Notice, by Bill Browder, last week and All My Puny Sorrows, by Miriam Toews.

Now I'm on book three of the Patrick Melrose series, Some Hope. Bad News took place almost entirely in Patrick's head; now we're jumping from character to character like in Never Mind. We'll see where it goes. We still have Edward St. Aubyn's crystalline writing so that's a good start.

Bedside I'm reading My Cat Yugoslavia, by Pajtim Statovici,
alternately about an Albanian woman getting married and an ethnic Albanian Muslim who grew up in Finland and his rather complicated social life. I like it a lot, and unlike some of the things I read this year that I felt pressured to rush through, I'm taking my time with this one and just letting it wash over.

I haven't picked a new nonfiction book but it may end up being Sargent's Women, by Donna M. Lucey, about four of the women whose portraits John Singer Sargent painted. He is probably my favorite painter.

And in audioland I'm still enjoying Peter Ackroyd's history of gay London, Queer City. I have a few hours to go on this entertaining and enlightening story.