TBR

I love reading others’ lists of the books on their to be read piles. Now, having finished the book, I am suffering from a suddenly overwhelmingly open stack. With no new book to write (at least not yet), I have neither things to read for pleasure that need to relieve the constant diet of Woolfiana (spy novels, Eloisa James) nor things to read for quasi-pleasure that may inform Woolf (African women writers, Lessing). Where to begin?

Alexander McCall Smith’s Tears of a Giraffe was an early favorite but feels a bit light this week. Still, I’m not quite rested enough to resume Don Quixote. Over at Book World, Sandra is not only finishing Cervantes, but reading Johnson and Richardson. Just writing that list shows me that I’m not quite up to her speed. Once around the room with Clarissa was once too many for me, but what about Boswell? This might be a good moment for the Life of Johnson. Or perhaps I should finish the underwhelming but interesting Black Gold of the Sun by Ekow Eshun. I am curious about Case Histories, too. And then, I look at the shelves and feel myself, once again, choosing to neglect Sylvia Townsend Warner, to fail to read Bowen more deeply, to deprive myself of a really deep taste of Auden.

For now, it’s been magazines, I’m afraid. I did a pretty good perusal of this week’s cartoons in the New Yorker. As ever, they did not disappoint.