Wednesday Reads

You might have noticed a theme among book bloggers when Wednesday rolls around. Posts about books — specifically what’s been finished, is in progress, and is up next on the to-read pile — abound. If you were wondering about the origins of this habit, you might want to check out Should Be Reading, home of the theory that mid-week is a great time to share your reading status with the world.

I love reading these posts, but I’ll admit I tend not to participate. Why? Because I’m often painfully slow to finish books once I start, and I would hate anyone to take that snail’s pace as a reflection on the quality of the books. If I’m not enjoying something, I don’t bother to finish anymore. Life is way too short and I am far too busy to keep reading a book that doesn’t interest me. Better to move on to something else from one of the teetering stacks around the apartment. But the reality is that most of my reading time goes to unpublished work; client manuscripts, rewrites, outlines and so on, plus an endless onslaught of submissions. And given I can only talk about those projects in the vaguest of terms, there doesn’t seem much point.

However, I also feel like I don’t discuss actual books enough on this blog. I get excited over my clients’ work, of course, and will occasionally reference other authors I admire — often when linking to an intriguing interview or bit of writing advice from them — but I don’t provide much of a clue regarding my reading tastes. So I’ve decided to start sharing. Probably not every week, because of that snail’s-pace thing, but at least a couple of times a month.

So, what am I reading? On the work front I’m finishing up some early chapters for one client and then I have a rewrite to read from a second client. I’ll probably try to work through some submissions later this afternoon — partials rather than full manuscripts, which I more frequently tackle on the weekend unless I have a breather during the week.

As for books with covers, it’s been a while since I’ve finished anything, mostly because I have a fair number with bookmarks tucked into them and I keep rotating what I’m reading. I’m about a third of the way through WOLF HALL by Hilary Mantel, which I’m loving. I am also picking my way through Neil Gaiman’s FRAGILE THINGS, which is short fiction and poetry and allows me a mini sense of accomplishment. On my Kindle I’m reading SOMETHING ABOUT YOU by Julie James, and MIDNIGHT RIOT by Ben Aaronovitch.

What’s next? The to-read pile is actually five or six piles at this point, but I’m itching to read Mary Robinette Kowal’s WITHOUT A SUMMER, and I have Mette Jakobsen’s THE VANISHING ACT right beneath that on the stack. I also just got a copy of HIDDEN CITIES: A MEMOIR OF URBAN EXPLORATION by Moses Gates, which sounds fascinating.

That’s it for my current reading line up. What are you all reading? Have you recently finished something you want to recommend? What are you looking forward to? Please do share — I’d love to hear what books have you excited.