Apologies to any authors, publishers and publicists who have written to me recently offering books; I've got a large email backlog (and a spam problem) so I'm being terribly slow in replying. I've also gone way beyond tipping point as far as the books in/books read balance is concerned as I'm managing to get through a mere 40% of what I'm sent, so because of sheer volume (no pun intended), good books will inevitably be overlooked, and I'm hesitating over inviting more in to join the mountains already here.
I fret endlessly about this, and I know I've raised it here before, but I wish I could come up with a solution that was workable and fair to everyone. If I say yes to the offer of a book (and I certainly don't accept everything, either because a title doesn't look as though it would sit well with the site or because I occasionally try to stem the flow for a while) I am genuinely interested in reading it and hope that I shall get to it soon, so my heart's in the right place, even if my head isn't - I delude myself by imagining that I can somehow fit more reading hours into the day. A lot of books arrive out of the blue, with no prefatory "would you like ...?" message; some will be of great interest, others less so, but while still welcome, they all just have to join the waiting piles and take their chance in the queue, being opened if they happen to fit my mood and inclination.
Although this is a situation which I'd like to be handling better, I do realise how fortunate I am - it's a nice problem to have - but to get back to my original point, I may have to tweak my system somehow, especially as I rarely manage to get to read anything I buy for myself (apart from the CBG titles), being driven by my perceived obligation to the publishers and authors who have sent me books to always read theirs as soon as possible.
I know this is all a bit of a self-indulgent, 'thinking aloud' post, but please allow me that as sometimes these things have to be aired.
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Related to the above, I am reluctantly going to have to postpone the CBG discussion on The Good Soldier as I haven't read the book yet and a recent bout of nasty eye-strain headaches (caused by reading too much) means I must give myself a bit longer to do so. I hope this won't inconvenience anyone, but let's move the date to Saturday, 30th. July, and if you're not around that day, the comments do of course remain open so that you can contribute your thoughts and impressions at any time. Meanwhile, I'll choose our August book, and if you've any suggestions for that - it must be something that's easily obtainable everywhere, in shops, libraries and online - please do leave a comment here. I was wondering about E.M. Forster, in the light of this post, but what do you think? Perhaps after the Ford Madox Ford we should have a marked change of period, country, genre, even?
