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Everyone in the world, plus their auntie, seems to be posting about their plans to read at least 50 books in 2008. My first reaction to this was: "Only 50?"
However, in the small hours of this morning, cursing my recurrent insomnia, I for the first time in 2008 finished reading a book. And, I dunno, the bug came along and bit me, or something. If I keep up the habit of making a public record of my reading -- something by no means guaranteed, especially if I find myself perusing Swedish Nurses Do Dallas or whatever (purely for, er, research purposes, you understand) -- I'm not planning to write reviews or even reviewettes of them all, as other folk seem to be doing.
Further, I've become much more ruthless recently about abandoning books if, after the first 100 pages or so, I'm finding them unrewarding. I suppose I should have a policy as to whether these, too, should be recorded.
Anyway, buke #1 for 2008 has been Harps in the Wind (1945) by Robert Hichens; I was reading a copy of the US edition, retitled The Woman in the House (the original UK title is far more appropriate), that I think I picked up at World Fantasycon this year. It's printed on that wartime economy paper for which I've always been a sucker. The book's a supernatural romance involving a couple brought together because she yearns so much for a man who was kind to her during her adolescence that, in much later life, she unwittingly draws his astral projection to her. He experiences these events as strange dreams, and ya-de-da-de-da-da.
In fact the whole tale could have been told quite easily as a short story -- or, if one wanted to create a bit of yer atmosphere thingie, a novelette -- and I spent much of the time wanting to throw the book at the wall as Hichens's indescribably prissy narrator flanneled around in all directions for pages on end when he could have told us something in a sentence. The novel does have its moments, though; overall, worth reading.
** The new book I've started (also in the small hours of this morning) is Last Rituals (2007) by Yrsa Sigurdardottir, translated from the Icelandic -- sounds pretty damn' posh, eh? -- by Bernard Scudder.
** For another perspective:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pds_lit has posted her views on the Hichens novel at http://pds-lit.livejournal.com/14935.html.
However, in the small hours of this morning, cursing my recurrent insomnia, I for the first time in 2008 finished reading a book. And, I dunno, the bug came along and bit me, or something. If I keep up the habit of making a public record of my reading -- something by no means guaranteed, especially if I find myself perusing Swedish Nurses Do Dallas or whatever (purely for, er, research purposes, you understand) -- I'm not planning to write reviews or even reviewettes of them all, as other folk seem to be doing.
Further, I've become much more ruthless recently about abandoning books if, after the first 100 pages or so, I'm finding them unrewarding. I suppose I should have a policy as to whether these, too, should be recorded.
Anyway, buke #1 for 2008 has been Harps in the Wind (1945) by Robert Hichens; I was reading a copy of the US edition, retitled The Woman in the House (the original UK title is far more appropriate), that I think I picked up at World Fantasycon this year. It's printed on that wartime economy paper for which I've always been a sucker. The book's a supernatural romance involving a couple brought together because she yearns so much for a man who was kind to her during her adolescence that, in much later life, she unwittingly draws his astral projection to her. He experiences these events as strange dreams, and ya-de-da-de-da-da.
In fact the whole tale could have been told quite easily as a short story -- or, if one wanted to create a bit of yer atmosphere thingie, a novelette -- and I spent much of the time wanting to throw the book at the wall as Hichens's indescribably prissy narrator flanneled around in all directions for pages on end when he could have told us something in a sentence. The novel does have its moments, though; overall, worth reading.
** The new book I've started (also in the small hours of this morning) is Last Rituals (2007) by Yrsa Sigurdardottir, translated from the Icelandic -- sounds pretty damn' posh, eh? -- by Bernard Scudder.
** For another perspective:
pds_lit has posted her views on the Hichens novel at http://pds-lit.livejournal.com/14935.html.
