Book Diversion

It's no secret that I don't always follow my reading list in any precise order, though usually the main thrust of my reading is determined by the list with occasional forays into my library holds list (to keep the inactive holds from expiring).

Currently, I am about halfway through the LOA volumes of William Maxwell and Dawn Powell.  It was starting to feel a bit too much of the same reading through them in a short space of time, so I decided on a minor diversion to read three somewhat thematically linked books: The Book of Eve, Basic Black with Pearls and Sandra Beck.  All three are by Canadian authors, and I'll try to get to the reviews fairly soon before too much time has passed and my first impressions are lost.  (As a bit of an aside, I just didn't like Sandra Beck all that much.  A while ago I had thought I scored a signed copy from House of Anansi Press, though in the end they were sold out.  If I had gotten the signed copy, I would have been very loathe to part with it, but since I didn't, I will put it out in my Little Free Library and see if anyone else appreciates this novel more than I did.  So another way I was saved from myself...)

I think the diversion might last a little bit longer than I originally anticipated, however.  First off, I want to read Salman Rushdie's last 3 volumes.  None of them are particularly long (300-400 pages), but it will still take a while to get through them.  In addition, I have sort of hinted that I needed to clear out a lot of books in the basement as part of a general clearing out down there.  While most books were pretty clearly in the keep or discard category, I ended up putting together a box of books that I expect I would want to read once (or even just skim in the case of non-fiction).  I am going to make a concerted effort to get through this box before I return to my regular list (probably a small number are actually on the list, but I don't have the time to check right now).

I already knew that I was very unlikely to tackle Fontane's Before the Storm and Tolstoy's War and Peace this winter, and this diversion makes it impossible.  I guess I will pencil them in for the end of 2020.  While I probably won't read a long book to wrap up 2019, if I do (mostly because I do have some vacation time to burn up), the two contenders are Perec's Life: a User's Manual and Mann's The Magic Mountain.  But mostly I have to get through the books in the box...

Edit: It sounds like The Magic Mountain is probably the most appropriate to read in the winter time, especially when fighting off a lingering cold.  That said, I'm not sure I will actually tackle it this winter.  I've heard that the Woods translation, which emerged in 1995, is vastly superior to the older translation (that I owned during high school(!) but never actually got around to reading and ultimately discarded prior to one of my many moves).  Once in a while it actually pays off to be a bit of a laggard, at least in terms of improved translations.