10.02.2007

So Many Books, So Little Time


BookGirl never thought she'd have to admit to having too many books to read. But I'm starting to feel just a bit overwhelmed about my book commitments. A few months ago, I joined a second book club because I wanted more diversity in my book club menu. Last month, I signed up for two Lit classes because I wanted the opportunity to read and re-read some classics. Not to mention that my own personal list of TBRs (to be reads) grows by the day.

This month, one book club is reading Fingersmith by Sarah Waters; the other is reading Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross. Over the next six weeks, we're covering Lord Jim, Howard's End and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in my Early Modern Novel class. And over that same period, we're reading Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in my class on The Brontes. I'm already nearly a book behind in each.

Right now I'm juggling Fingersmith, Jane Eyre and Lord Jim. I was interested enough in Lord Jim that I opted for my own Conrad mini-fest and just finished Heart of Darkness. And, a page here and a chapter there, I'm reading Charles Baxter's The Feast of Love.

I may have been a titch overambitious when I committed myself to all this. So much for tackling Middlemarch before the end of the year...

Artist Credit: James Tissot, Reading a Book

5 comments:

Sarah said...

Wow! That's a lot of books! Are you enjoying Jane Eyre? It's one (of many!)of my favourite books
x

Riverlark said...

BG, maybe you should start listening to one book while you're reading another! Wow.
I'm in the first third of Anne Patchett's new book but taking it slow.
Wish you were here...I'd take you to hear Patricia Hampl read on Sunday. She breathed new life into memoir 30 years ago and has her most beautiful to date "The Florist's Daughter" out this month.
Miss you!

MyHandboundBooks said...

Wowsers! When I was doing my lit degree i don't think i ever had that many books going at one time! But it sounds like fun :)

(I totally recommend delaying middlemarch as long as possible...it took months to force myself through that book).

Clara said...

Sarah, I'm almost done with Jane Eyre and loving it! I read it years and years ago and, while I liked it, I'm finding so much in it that I didn't appreciate the first time around.

RL, now that I remember who Patricia Hampl is, and that she wrote Blue Arabesque, which I loved, I wish that I could be there too.

Rhonda, I have to admit that having to read too many books is the kind of problem I love to have. All problems should be like this!

Beth Lee said...

That is a lot of reading. But it's such a high-class problem, isn't it?
I just finished Jane Eyre again a couple of months ago. It was a wonderful experience, again. And I did get more this time around.
I like Middlemarch too, but when I re-read it about six months ago I was a little less enamored of it than I had been the first few readings.