Do you ever have them? I mean weeks where nothing you start to read seems quite right. I realised this morning that I have five books by my bed and, as you can see from the bookmarks, I've made some inroads into them all, but somehow nothing has me rushing upstairs longing to get back to it. Two are books I won in draws -- Cold Comfort Farm and Mr Chartwell. I started them both before I went to France and I shall certainly finish them but since I came back a couple of days ago they haven't called out to me. The Gielgud biography is a review book and it's great, but I can only read it in fairly small chunks. As for EH Young's Celia, I've been saving it for months and really looking forward to it because I had so much loved three of hers that I'd already read -- Miss Mole, William, and Chatterton Square. I think the problem with this one was that I picked it up when I'd just finished Patrick Hamilton's The Slaves of Solitude, which I had enjoyed so much that Celia somehow didn't feel like the right thing to move on to. So last night in slight desperation I picked up the Ngaio Marsh, one I haven't read before -- obviously a relaxing classic crime novel but so far just about OK.
I think the problem is partly that I'm tired after a day of travelling back from France and two days of rushing around like a headless chicken. But also, Patrick Hamilton's prose seduced me so much that I just want more of it. I'll be reviewing the Slaves in the next few days, but this morning I'm off to the Central Library to see if they have any of his other novels. What a writer! Watch this space.
