Addicted to Reading

I confess – I am a reading addict.  I filled out a survey yesterday that asked how many books were on my to-read list; sadly, the answer is 95.  It would take me over a year to read all the books on my current list as things get in the way of reading non-stop, like the inconvenience of having to work for a living.  But, like most librarians, I love making lists of books I have read and books I want to read.  Thank goodness for Goodreads; it helps me keep track of my reading.  But I am afraid my to-read list also reveals just how long some of the books have been on my list.

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton has been on my list since September 2011; it was published in 2008.  I have read all of Kate Morton’s books but this one as she is skilled at writing historical gothics, one of my favorite genres.  The House at Riverton weaves together the past and the present.  In the summer of 1924, a young poet commits suicide on the night of a society party at a great English country house, witnessed only by two sisters, Hannah and Emmeline Hartford.  The sisters never speak to each other again.  Flash forward to 1999 when Grace Bradley, 98 years old and a former housemaid at Riverton, is contacted by the director who is making a movie about the young poet’s death in 1924.  Memories begin to surface in Grace’s mind, threatening to reveal an appalling secret she has never been able to forget.  Morton combines mystery and romance set during the time when the Edwardian period was changing to the roaring twenties.  How could a fan of Downton Abbey resist this book?

Number 95 on my list is Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird, published this month.  Set in the 1950s in a small town in Massachusetts, Oyeyemi uses the framework of the fairy tale Snow White to tell a moving story of the value assigned to appearances and the ugliness of racism.  Boy Novak leaves New York in quest of a beautiful life, the opposite of the life she is leaving behind.  She marries a widower, becoming a stepmother to his lovely daughter Snow Whitman.  Boy never plans on being a wicked stepmother, but when her daughter, Bird, is born dark-skinned, exposing the Whitmans as African Americans passing for white, the old fairy tale obsession with the mirror takes over in a whole new way.  I love re-imagined fairy tales, so I am looking forward to reading Oyeyemi’s imaginative take on Snow White.

I am making an effort to refrain from adding more books to my to-read list until I manage to read a good portion of the ones on the list now.  But I really don’t think I’ll be able to quit cold turkey.

(I am reading Juliet by Anne Fortier right now. What are you reading?)