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A little while ago, I wrote about my progress with my reading goals for 2019. Overall, I was quite content, despite the fact that I’m a little bit behind with one or two goals. However, something I didn’t speak about were the books I’m looking forward to reading in the second half of the year.
Part of that is, of course, the age-old problem of being a mood reader. While I can usually say which types of books I’m generally interested in, I find it rather difficult to predict which particular books I might be in the mood for at any given time. I tend to cycle through genres – for example, I rarely read two fantasy books after one another, and I almost never read two volumes of the same series back to back – but it’s not a predictable kind of cycling. It tends to be very spur of the moment, which is why my monthly TBRs are more guidelines than actual rules. Unless there’s a bookclub read, of course, and even then I can’t always promise that I’ll actually get to it. Needless to say that I have a TBR half a mile long.
Nevertheless, I usually have a couple of books that I’m more excited to read than others, and it’s these books that I want to talk about today.
Lately, I’ve really found myself in the mood for poetry. I’ve bought quite a couple of poetry collections, both during my trip to the UK in May, and while back at home. I haven’t actually picked them up yet, but that’s because I’m saving them for the NEWTs Readathon in August. Poetry makes excellent readathon reading material because collections are usually short and you can read them in short bursts, something that is very useful if you also have other work (read: thesis writing) to do.
Some poetry collections I’m looking forward to: Elizabeth-Jane Burnett’s Swims, Mary Oliver’s Blue Horses, Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky With Exit Wounds and Jen Campbell’s The Girl Aquarium (not pictured)
I also feel like reading more literary fiction. I have just finished AS Byatt’s Possession and I’m in the mood for books with a similar scope. I’ve actually started The Goldfinch once before, but I wasn’t quite in the mood for a lengthy Bildungsroman at the time and put it down again. I know it’s not quite a Victorian novel (though neither is Possession), but I feel like it still fits the mood with its reflections on art, complicated relationships, and growing up. Plus, I’ve recently reread Great Expectations and I suspect that will give me a different view on the novel.
My excitement about We, the Drowned and The Hungry Tide are actually fuelled by a similar craving: I want more large-scale tales that encompass a variety of topics, including nature writing, travel, and – possibly – romance, clothed in complex narration and beautiful writing. I hope these books will give me both.
I also want to read more LGBTQ+ fiction. I’m not a huge fan of romance as a genre, but I don’t mind so much in books with LGBTQ+ themes. Even so, I tend to pick books with background LGBTQ+ rep – meaning books where the characters happen to be LGBTQ+ rather than books about being LGBTQ+ (unless we’re talking memoirs or poetry). I also prefer the more adult stories about complicated relationships, parenthood, and conflicting identities to straight-up coming-out-stories and first love, which is why I rarely read YA. I picked up both Freshwater and English Animals at Gay’s The Word in London in May and really hope they’re what I’m looking for. I also hope Freshwater will give me more complex writing composed of different bits and pieces, a bit like Possession did. (I’m also aware that Freshwater deals with mental health issues and is at times very dark, so it’s probably best to say I’m wary but very curious.)
Last but not least, I’ve been in the mood for more non-fiction. It took me a while to warm up to reading non-fiction for fun (I used to only read it for work/research, which is a very different experience), but I’ve been lucky with my recent picks and am willing to try more. I borrowed This is Going to Hurt from my sister, who is an anaesthesiologist and claims the book is very true to her experience working at a hospital (albeit in a different country), and I’ve picked up Quiet for myself because – guess what?! – I’m an introvert and I’m curious to see what Susan Cain has to say about us. To be quite honest, I’m not sure how long my interest in non-fiction will last – I’m mildly worried I might run out of books I’d want to read – but I plan to enjoy it as long as it does.
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Naturally, my TBR contains a lot more books than those mentioned above, so do expect a fair share of random picks, new buys (even though I’m trying to curb my spending…), and long-time favourites in the months to come.