With my Classics Club deadline rapidly approaching in July, I’m full steam ahead on the last few books I have to read from my list of fifty. (When I finish Great Expectations, today or tomorrow, I’ll be down to seven left unread.) So I’m expecting that much of my spring reading time will be dedicated to those few holdouts. But I am planning to sprinkle in some springy reads here and there – for a little relief between doorstoppers, because the remainder of my Classics Club list contains such chunksters as The Three Musketeers and East of Eden, not to mention two Trollopes. I’ve pulled together a spring stack that is winking cheerfully at me from my bookshelf, and I’m already thinking about which one to pick up first this season.

• On Wings of Song: Poems About Birds and A Nature Poem for Every Spring Evening will scratch the spring poetry itch. I’ve already started A Nature Poem for Every Spring Evening (and I’m already behind on the nightly selections – whoops) and it’s a delight, as expected.
• Spring also wouldn’t be spring without garden writing, don’t you think? My Garden World satisfies the Monty Don category – yes that’s a necessary category – and I’ve been wanting to read the gardening memoir Seed to Dust for ages. Calling it now – this is the season I get to it.
• I pre-ordered Sinister Spring, the latest collection of short mystery stories from HarperCollins’ collection of special editions of Agatha Christie. I’ve already read, and really enjoyed, Midsummer Mysteries and Midwinter Murders, and I’m looking ahead to the publication of Autumn Chills later this year. In the meantime, a couple of chilly spring evenings with the Queen of Crime will be just the thing.
• Another one I pre-ordered: A Countryman’s Spring Notebook, the latest collection of Adrian Bell’s seasonal nature columns from Slightly Foxed. They published A Countryman’s Winter Notebook a couple of years ago, which I adored, and I’ve been anxiously looking for an announcement of another seasonal Adrian Bell collection ever since. There was actual whooping when this one became eligible for pre-order. I’m saving it for a warm evening in the backyard.

I’ve got some other spring reading I’d love to tackle if I have time – more garden writing, mostly. We’ll see! In the meantime, I’ll be very satisfied if I get through all of these this spring, especially with the Classics Club reading on my agenda. Spring is my fourth favorite season, as I often say, but with reading like this to look ahead to, I don’t anticipate any difficulty getting through the months between me and my beloved summer.

What are you planning to read this spring?