Sunday Salon: Out Sick

I hate being sick with the restless nights and what seems like endless misery and pain. The day is not proving to be much better. I was not able to settle in with my book like I would have liked this morning as a result. Instead I found comfort in updating my wish list. Both of them. I used to just keep one wish list. A regular Word document which later I moved to Excel. Then I decided it might be fun to keep an Amazon wish list for those family and friends who are always complaining they do not know what book to get me for those gift-giving holidays. It is also nice to glimpse quickly at what the books are about during my moments of forgetfulness. The downside to keeping such a list on a book buying site is that it's all the more easier to "add to cart" which itself is a simple click or two away from taking that final step to check out. Ho hum.

I currently am reading a book called Fangland by John Marks. It has been described as a modern retelling of Bram Stoker's Dracula, but with the author's own twists and turns added in. I can see why it earned such a description, both in story and style. I am not even a hundred pages in and the similarities between the two stories is very evident. At the same time, they are both very different. I am enjoying Fangland quite a bit. A friend who recently attempted the novel likened it to The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, and I can see why she might do that.

When last I left off, Evangeline Harker, associate producer for an American news show, had just parted with her temporary traveling companion, a missionary (although, Clemmie much prefers to be called a change agent), who gives Evangeline a dire warning before fleeing the scene. Evangeline, of course, is not sure what to make of the warning or her new friend for that matter. Perhaps later this afternoon I will be feeling up to seeing just what is in store for the young protagonist.

I am drowning in books at the moment, ones I have on tap to read for a variety of reasons, mostly because of commitments I have made. They all sound rather appetizing. I guess it is a good thing that books do not have calories.

In the immediate to be read stack, there is The Sister by Poppy Adams about two sisters who come together again after a long estrangement; The Fisher Boy by Stephen Anable, a mystery set in Cape Cod involving a summer visitor, a local and a murder; and E.J. Rand's Say Goodbye, another murder mystery, this one with a twist of neighborly romance. I am still itching to read Matt Beynon Rees' A Grave in Gaza, which I keep asking myself why I haven't started yet.

I nearly have forgotten that I am participating in any reading challenges this year. As the Unread Authors Challenge draws to a close the end of this month, I am content with the effort I made.

Unread Authors Challenge List:
In A Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes [read]
Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos [read]
The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley [read]
Pursuit by Thomas Perry[read]
Friend of the Devil by Peter Robinson[read]
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

While I failed in terms of meeting the requirements of the challenge in the sense that I did not read all the books on my list, I did succeed in reading plenty of authors I had not read before but had been looking forward to trying. And definitely more than six. So, in that way, I at least succeeded on a personal level. Many thanks to Ariel from Sycorax Pine for hosting the Unread Authors Challenge.

I hope you all enjoy the week ahead and happy reading!