Otherwise Engaged . . .

I can already see that this is going to be a strange year. More than a week in it seems many are still clinging to the indignities and enormities of 2016, reluctant to let go of a losing hand. My plan, however, is to be otherwise engaged for the rest of this year, and beyond if necessary. Life is too short, and my time is certainly better spent with more present and personal matters. I was thinking of that Seinfeld episode when George Costanza declares the summer of George. Well, why not the year of me? Of course, there will be those who will quickly point out that so far as I seem to be concerned, it has always been the year of me.

Anyway, I've kicked off 2017 with some minor skin surgery to remove a couple of troublesome cysts, which has entailed a period of slightly reduced physical activity. This is not a great issue, except I find I have become addicted to my exercise routines, and when I don't get to them, I feel somehow disoriented. So today, the second day after my procedures, I decided to resume walking. This was further encouraged by a welcome, if temporary, return of balmy weather. I walked a few miles around one of my usual circuits, and then enjoyed my cool down time sitting on the front porch observing the few birds still visiting our yard and bird bath, primarily a very arrogant and aggressive mockingbird who seems to rule the roost this time of year. I also noted the first signs of a fairly encouraging crop of bluebonnets peeking through the soil. It was a good start to the day.

This time of year I've also generally written some sort of annual report on my reading, but time has got away from me, and the moment for looking backward has now been overtaken by the necessity for planning next year's schedule of books for the men's book club. As usual, I have compiled a long list of books I thought I might want to suggest, but the current front runner is one I just finished, William Boyd's Sweet Caress (2015), a family saga focused on the life of a female photographer born in 1908. I always seem to enjoy Boyd's novels, but I'm not sure my book club pals will feel the same way, so I will likely also recommend a couple of books I brought up last year that didn't make the cut: William Shirer's Berlin Diary (1941), and Christopher Isherwood's Christopher and His Kind (1976). Generally, I like to recommend books I haven't yet read, but that approach proved problematic last year, so I'll probably take the safe way out this time.

In any event, my first book for this year was Boyd's Sweet Caress. Prior to that I ended 2016 by re-reading a couple more of Barbara Pym's novels: A Glass of Blessings (1958) and No Fond Return of Love (1961). That brought my Pym total for the year to a half dozen. After starting with Jane and Prudence (1953), I went back to re-read Some Tame Gazelle (1950) and continued reading them in order of publication: Excellent Women (1952) and then Less than Angels (1955). I took a break to read some other things (which I mentioned in previous blog posts), then finished my year's reading with those two Barbara Pym novels. Re-reading them all in such a short space of time made me realize how frequently Pym references characters she'd introduced in her other books. Taken together the novels create a nice little inter-textual world, complete with strange coincidences and in-jokes for the reader to pick up on, just another aspect of Pym's sense of humor and delight in irony.

My grand (or not so grand) total of books read in 2016 came to twenty-seven, including the nine read for my book club, a bit of a falling off from previous years when I had been reading at least thirty or more. If I were given to readers' challenges, I would proclaim mine to be to get back above thirty this year, but I'm not off to the best of beginnings. I could boost my total a bit by re-reading a few more of Barbara Pym's (I think there are seven left to go), or I could look around for some shorter books (Boyd's Sweet Caress was nearly 500 pages). But my greater challenge is to find some more books that will fit in with one of my own little reading programs, like those by Christopher Isherwood and Paul Bowles that I read last year and the year before. My book club generally introduces me to newer fiction and non-fiction that I might not otherwise attempt. But I still like to pursue my own interests, even when they take me back over the same territory I habitually travel. So I'll have to start thinking about what I want to read just to follow my own inclinations. Then, of course, there will always be those books I just stumble onto, like the Leonard Cohen biography and William Boyd's latest novel. The main thing, I suppose, is to keep reading and see where it takes me.