Your 2023 Reading Year Is Suddenly Cut Short--You Can Only Read One More Book This Year--What Do You Read? (8/13/23)

[Marc]

Your 2023 reading year is suddenly cut short. You can only read one more book this year---which do you choose?

(Your 2024 reading year should return to normal.)

(Apparently, this question never posted despite two separate attempts earlier this week... )

[Alwynne]

Does it have to last until the end of the year, so likely to be a good idea to pick something lengthy? Or is the year actually shorter?

[David]

I'm looking most forward to Kate Briggs's The Long Form. Even though it's been out for awhile, I've been waiting for the Dorothy release to read it.

[Ruben]

A horrific scenario you are painting there, Marc.

For me it would be The City of the Living by Nicola Lagioia - an Italian In Cold Blood

[Vesna]

Completing The Poems of Emily Dickinson.

[Glenda]

A Gentleman in Moscow. Amor Towles.

[Marc]

Alwynne wrote: "Does it have to last until the end of the year, so likely to be a good idea to pick something lengthy? Or is the year actually shorter?"

Lasts until the end of the year.

[Marc]

Ruben wrote: "A horrific scenario you are painting there, Marc. "

Bleak, isn't it? Just thinking about it makes me appreciative of the reading time I do have. :-)

[Bretnie]

Ducks, Newburyport since it's like 1000 pages and it would force me to read it!

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Can I read Proust's In Search of Lost Time?

If not, then I'll go with War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

I'm going for length here.

[Alwynne]

Bretnie wrote: "Ducks, Newburyport since it's like 1000 pages and it would force me to read it!"

I don't think even total desperation could bring me to pick that up again, the style was just so irritating, although keep meaning to go back to it to find out what happened at the end.

[Alwynne]

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "Can I read Proust's In Search of Lost Time?

If not, then I'll go with War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

I'm going for length here."

In that case I might go for Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage cycle starting with Pointed Roofs, Backwater, Honeycomb, 13 separate pieces overall and Richardson regarded each as a chapter rather than a separate novel.

[Bretnie]

Alwynne wrote: "I don't think even total desperation could bring me to pick that up again, the style was just so irritating, although keep meaning to go back to it to find out what happened at the end.
"

Ha, interesting! Ok, my new idea is to pick a book that would benefit from multiple re-reads - like something where you go back and re-read it to pick up on all the things you missed the first time, or to see a mystery unfold where you already know what will happen. I can't think of what book that might be. Maybe Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. Mandel, but dang it's a short book.

[Whitney]

This would likely be my opportunity to finally read The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

[Ellen]

Remembrance of Things Past

At least the last volume

[Jenna]

Lol I’m with Alwynne on Ducks, Newburyport. Totally by accident yesterday because I didn’t have a book with me and I was stuck at the hospital for hours with a family member I started 1Q84 on my library app on my phone and now I think I will be reading only one book until the end of the year 🤣