Books in my life

I've got all these books in my life, and not necessarily just the ones I'm reading. Books I'm not reading seem to have just as much a presence. Oh, reader's compunction. I get it rarely, reading as swiftly as I do, but a couple of tomes have been lurking lately, and I know it is absolutely imperative that I get to them, and they're piled on my bedside, but the dust on their jackets is now this thick. I'm talking nonfiction, usually, when I talk like this. To begin a long nonfiction book is a tremendous commitment, requiring sacrifice as to how it keeps me away from fiction. A Short History of Everything and Guns Germs and Steel are way overdue. I'll get around to them. This might be absolutely a lie, but I really intend that it not be.

And then books I should be reading. And not should as in "ought to be but won't" as above, but rather "must" be read, as the whole universe is saying so. Like with Great Expectations quite recently (and yes, I'll get to that book too). Now it's Lucky Jim, which Rona Maynard recommends. And in this interview Kate Christensen cites it as an influence on her In The Drink, which I've just read. (Do read the Christensen interview [via maud newton] by the way, for a fantastic example of chick lit's cannibalistic tendencies, which I've mentioned before.) So I suppose Kingsley Amis is in the cards for me.

As is Raisins and Almonds, which comes recommended by Becky Rosenblum's mother.

Exhausting. But now I actually am reading Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay. Or at least I will be before the night is out. This book has had rave reviews all around, and so I am looking very forward to it.