It is Friday afternoon and very warm in my little corner of Switzerland. I thought I would post a short update of what I’ll be reading over the weekend and then find a nice, cool spot under the tree in the garden. I plan on bringing a few liters of homemade raspberry lemonade with me!
I stayed up late last night and read Kate Chopin’s first novel At Fault, which I quite enjoyed. It struck me as significant that Chopin published this novel in 1890; it definitely seemed like a novel ahead-of-its-time. Which I realize is often how The Awakening is described, but that book was actually published nine years later. I’d like to read Hardy’s Tess of the D’Ubervilles next to see how it compares, since it was published in 1891.
There is a small void on my nightstand since finishing Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris, but I’m hoping to fill it by starting to read through The Penguin Book of Contemporary American Essays…
Otherwise I’m on the hunt for some outstanding contemporary fiction. I’ve got lots to choose from on the shelves but haven’t been able to make up my mind:
Do I start Midnight’s Children? Do I read one of the two Carol Shield novels I recently received? Do I break down and read Ishiguro’s Nocturnes, knowing I will have to read from cover to cover?
So difficult…
