I’m trucking along in my quest to read as many of the books in the stack you see here as possible.  Life’s been a lot less busy over the past week, which has really helped matters.  (Both in terms of reading time and stress levels.)  I was also able to renew both Beautiful Creatures (now due back June 21st) and The Mother-Daughter Book Club (now due back June 29th), although another book popped up on the holds shelf.  (For purposes of not allowing this endeavor to go completely off the rails, I’m not worrying about that one – or the six I have on hold right now – at least, not until next week.)  Here’s how reading went this week:

• Finished Eighty Days and loved it (read my full review here) and returned it to the library on time.  Whew!  And then there were five.
• Blazed through Leaving Everything Most Loved, as I always do with Maisie Dobbs mysteries.  They’re quick reads, although they are some of the more thoughtful serial mysteries published recently, I find.  I always enjoy my time with Maisie.  And then there were four.
• Finished Leonardo and the Last Supper, which was a fascinating look at Leonardo’s life and career through the lens of The Last Supper, one of his most famous works.  (I don’t know if it’s the most famous, as the book claims – there’s a certain lady named Lisa who’s pretty well-known too.)  I felt like I was back in my Medieval and Renaissance art history class, freshman year in college.  And then there were three.

Now I’m about to embark on The House Girl, to which I’m very much looking forward, and I expect to finish it in time to return it, Leonardo and Maisie to the library by the deadline (June 18th) or maybe even early.  (I’m actually shooting for a Sunday return, so we’ll see.)  Then I will probably finally crack the spine of Beautiful Creatures, since it’s the next one due back and also since I made a tactical error by letting my mom read the book and now I have two people haranguing me to read it instead of just one.  So it seems that this particular quest is actually going very well.

Except.  While in the middle of this stack, I went on another book-reserving frenzy and I have six books waiting for me on the holds shelf.  One of which is over 900 pages of non-fiction about how parents shape their children’s identities.  Uh.  And also one more at home that popped up on hold before I got through these.  (Summer for the Gods, about the Scopes trial.)  Now, granted, one of the books on hold is for my mom to read (Beautiful Darkness – yep, I’ve created a Caster Chronicles monster without even having read the first book myself) and one is an audiobook for me to play in the car on my commutes.  But then there’s the other four, and… I guess I’ll be continuing these updates after next week, at least for a little while.