TBR

Of the novels I read that were written more recently than 1875, the large majority are written by women. The list of authors whose books I pre-order is almost exclusively female; the books I recommend to others are generally written by women. Publishing has been a boys' club for long enough; the guys don't need me to amplify their voices any further.

Obviously, there are occasional exceptions to this trend. My current TBR list has a cluster of fat novels written by men, and I think I might just jump in and read them all in a row. First up is The Claverings. I want to read one more Trollope novel before the end of the year, and this one is next in the queue. 

Years ago now, Jennifer Fulwiler posted that she loved Shantaram so much that she was sad when it ended. I bought the book on the strength of her recommendation (she is the reason I read The Long Ships, which I would probably never have read otherwise; it is fantastic). I have started it a couple of times without getting to the riveting part, but I'm going to give it another shot.

My mother told me I should read Covenant of Water, and I didn't finish it before the library's copy was due. I decided to buy the Kindle version instead of getting back in the library queue, and then I lost momentum. This was last October (alas), so I'm going to need to start over.

The last one on my list is Wellness, which I bought last November because I loved The Nix so much. It's another doorstop-sized book, but I loved The Nix so much that I compared it to a Dickens novel, which is high praise in these parts.

I bet it's been 30 years since I read four novels by men in a row, though maybe it's only been 25. WILL I wind up needing a little palate cleanser at some point in this project? WILL we know who the next president is before I finish them? WILL a pile of fat novels diminish my election stress? Stay tuned and we'll see.