Pee El Are

Ana at Things Mean a Lot has declared January Long Awaited Reads month.  But we have a name for that around here, don't we?  Personal Library Renaissance!

And while I can't guarantee that I'm going to participate-because let's face it, I'm nothing if not unreliable--I do LOVE to fantasize about them.  So, on the theory that I'm going to spend January (which is to say, roughly 6 to 8 books, depending on their length and ambition), let's speculate on which of the many tempting choices I might slot into that time.

First, 100% definitely, would be The Sleeping Partner, by Madeleine Robins.  I absolutely loved the first two Sarah Tolerance books, and was quite disappointed at how hard it was to get my hands on the third one, which is not available as an ebook.  I think the author may have switched from a mainstream publishing house to a small press--to be perfectly honest, the cover of this one looks like something put together at a self-publishing place.  But it looks like it's actually a very, very (very) small press--reading between the lines of their mission statement, possibly founded by writers who'd been treated poorly by publishers in the past.  Upshot: wanna read right now!

True Sisters, by Sandra Dallas, is next on the list.  The thing about this list, I just realized, is that it's going to be depressing because by definition, these are all books I've been really excited about for a while.  It's sad that I haven't read them already.  I raved about how psyched I was for this book back at the beginning of the year. Mormons, Sandra Dallas--how have I not read this yet?

And how is it possible that any good, self-respecting Neil Gaiman fan hasn't yet read American Gods? I know Mike says it's not his absolute favorite, but I just listened to Gaiman's reading of his story "Click-Clack the Rattlebag," and a) it was incredibly creepy, and b) I'm primed for some new Gaimain.  (That link, by the way, just takes you to a blog post about the story; it was available free on Audible.com through Halloween but isn't there anymore.  I have no idea what happened to it.)  I've even read the sequel to American Gods, but not the book itself yet.

Slot four will be filled with something by Colette.  I read The Vagabond for book club ages ago, and I have to credit that as one of those discoveries that makes book club so worthwhile--I would never have read  it otherwise, and I'm SO glad I did.  (Other such discoveries, if I may digress, include Cloud Atlas and Revolutionary Road.)  I recently bought myself a bunch of used books by Colette, including Gigi and The Cat and The Complete Claudine, both of which are compendiums.  I think I'd probably start with Gigi, though, out of love for the musical and curiosity about how it differs.

This is just a start, but it's fun to speculate.  January?  Well, if I look at the pile I'm working on....January might be about right.