Bonne année 2015
Hello,
I don’t know what time it is for you now, if it’s still 2014 or if you’re well into the first day of 2015 already. For us, the New Year has just started and…
Je vous souhaite une bonne et heureuse année 2015.
I wish you a Happy New Year. I wish you health, success and joy. And books, of course. Lots of amazing books of all kinds.
I don’t have precise reading plans for this coming year except the ones for my Book Club, Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion with Jacqui in April. You’ll probably hear about Hungarian, Italian and Austrian literature. I want to read more by Thomas Hardy and I’m on a mission to reduce the TBR to a reasonable size.
Well, I guess I have plans, after all. And I’d love to hear from yours.
I hope we’ll spend an amazing reading year together.
Cheers!
Emma
Book Around the Corner 
Bonne année Emma:)
As I write, it is mid-morning on New Years Day. We have blue skies and sunshine here in Melbourne, and I am looking through my window at the last of the springtime jasmine, which will very likely be scorched by the sun tomorrow because it’s going to be 38 C. (I shall be staying indoors with the air-conditioning on. I am not a beach person as you know!)
Thank you for the pleasure you’ve brought me during 2014, I’ve enjoyed your reviews and I’ve enjoyed the conversations too, even when I haven’t joined in.
All the best, from Lisa
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Bonne année à toi aussi, Lisa.
Thanks for your message. I still can’t imagine being 38°C outside on New Year’s Day. 🙂
I don’t always have time to read all your reviews but I sure enjoy the ones I read. You’ll have even more time to read now. I wonder how many reviews a week you’ll post. 🙂
Emma
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Totally agree with you, Emma! Lisa is one of most prolific reviewers – a reviewing superstar really!
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Still NY’s Eve here. I don’t really have many specific plans, but I too want to reduce my TBR pile and I’d like to return to some of my favourite modern authors. I’d also like to read more Victorian Sensation fiction and some classic crime titles too.
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Sensation fiction is such fun! Wilkie Collins and Sheridan Le Fanu are two of my favorites.
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I’ve been thinking about Wilkie Collins lately.
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I’ve got a Wilkie Collins shelf at Goodreads so you can check my favorites.
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I bet your TBR is even bigger than mine.
I have downloaded some Victorian sensational fiction, so I may read one this year.
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It’s a TBR room. Forget a pile.
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*chuckle* I’ll say that to my husband. What are my poor TBR shelves to a TBR room?
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Brrr, the picture looks cold, Emma. It is cold here, about freezing, but dry for a couple of days. We should have gone down under to visit Lisa!
Happy New Year! I still have a few hours to go.
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It’s a picture I took in January 2014, in Paris. It was a Sunday morning, it had snowed during the night and everything was so quiet almost eerie.
It also reminded me of a painting by Caillebotte, “Boulevard Haussmann, neige”
Happy New Year to you too, Dagny.
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Happy New Year Emma and thanks for your varied and opinionated posts! I think its time I re-read some Hardy- he is so distinctly his own writer.
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Happy New Year to you too.
“Opinionated” goes well with some of my billets, that’s true. Wait until I write about the dreadful (to me at least) Ravissement de Britney Spears… 😉
About I’ve started The Hand of Ethelberta and I loved the introduction Hardy wrote. Have you read this one?
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Happy New Year, Emma. That picture brings to mind the cold of Lyon which I will not forget. Its sunny and blue skies here too, a mild winter. I planned to read in French only in 2015 and I will try to finish the books I bought but havent touched yet (including those from Lyon, what a shame…)
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Happy New Year, Nino. I hope everything will stay quiet in your country in 2015.
It was cold indeed when you visited Lyon. At least you got to taste some vin chaud!
You plan to read in French only but not only French literature, am I right?
PS: Did I tell you my post about Dans les meules de Beyrouth got me an email from Toufic Youssef Aouad’s grand-daughter? She’s about to publish a French translation of one of his books.
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Hi Emma, yes anything written in French but it could be translated. Yes, you mentioned it to me. She was at the Salon this year precisely to promote the new book, Le Pain, but I didnt get the chance to meet her
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I’m curious about Le Pain. Have you read it in the original?
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I did, yes, years ago. I like the author’s writing, as you know. It’s a tough book. It is set in the early years of WW1, within The Great Famine that was perpetrated against the Lebanese. They say that almost a third of the population perished in it. Therefore, I don’t know if you might be keen on reading it…
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I am. I want to know what happened.
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Perfect. I think you should be able (by now) to find it in France since it was released in November here
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Happy New Year, Emma. Your blog has been a great discovery for me, and I’m looking forward to following your billets this year. My TBR needs some serious attention this year, and I’ve just finished number five of twenty books I plan to read before allowing myself to buy any others. Looking forward to reading Play it as it Lays with you in April.
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Happy New Year, Jacqui
Your blog was also a great discevry for me this year.
I’m not sure we’ll have fun with the Didion in April because it’s not a fun book. The discussion will probably be interesting. I read Max’s review of it after we decided to read it along and I’m glad I’ll have someone to discuss it with. It seems intense.
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Bonne année! Happy New Years to you and your family Emma.
I also want to read Thomas Hardy this year.
I look forward to reading your posts in 2015.
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Happy New Year to you and your family as well.
Do you already know which Hardy you’ll read? I’m reading them in chronological order.
I enjoy reading your reviews even if I don’t always comment. I’m looking forward to your 2015 blogging year.
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Belated Happy New Year.
We have some reading plans in common. Reducing the piles and Italian Literature. I’m currently reading Il Gattopardo.
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Belated Happy New Year to you too.
Any suggestions for books set in Savona, Verona (except the obvious one) and Padova?
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No, I’ve compiled a list but I realized it’s heavy on books set in Sicily.
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‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’ by William Shakespeare 🙂 I hope that is not the obvious one 🙂
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Bonne année to you too, Emma! Hope you have a wonderful year filled with beautiful books and wonderful reading moments! Loved the picture 🙂
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Bonne année, Vishy.
I also wish you lots of wonderful hours with books.
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Thanks a lot for your wishes, Emma 🙂
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i like the simplicity of your reading plans – so many of the posts I’ve been looking at over the last few days seem incredibly detailed. if they work for that reader, then good for them. I know I would feel ultra stressed by them.
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Thanks. I have a job that requires a lot of planning and I really don’t like to do it for reading. I have the Book Club books and I like to participate to bookish events but I love picking books according to my mood.
As Daniel Pennac says, “Read is a verb that doesn’t go well with the imperative tense”. It should never be forced and detailed reading plans wouldn’t work for me.
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what a wonderful quote
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Happy new year Emma, may it bring you many good book-related discoveries! Your plans for 2015 sound great and I am looking forward to seeing what you’ll read. I know you also have exciting travel plans. If you need suggestions or ideas, you know where to find me!
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Happy New Year!
I’m looking forward to discovering more of Hungarian books with you. Lucky me, you read in French which means that any book you read is available for me.
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I mean practical travel suggestions, not just literary, btw!
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Thanks. I may contact you.
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Happy New Year, Emma!! Here’s to lots of good books and great experiences in 2015!
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Happy New Year to you too, Andrew. I’m looking forward to you next book but I suppose it won’t be released until 2016.
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What a lovely photo!
Happy new year Emma! Your plans sound rather good. Mine are to catch up on some groundwork reading as I’m thinking of it (Joyce, Woolf, a few others) and generally to read more, since while I’m yet to do my best of 2014 post it really doesn’t look like I read much in 2014.
Part of the reading more is also of course to try to reduce the TBR annex which otherwise I might have to build to my house.
The Pennac quote is good, and your attitude to reading plans is much as mine. I have to plan everything else, as you do, it’s nice to have some pleasures that don’t require slots in Outlook calendar.
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Happy New Year Max.
I hope you’ll have more time to read in 2015 and I’ll happily follow your reading journey.
I love that quote by Pennac, I try to remember it when I’m tempted to say “Read!” to one of my children. Nothing good can come out of that order.
You should see my Outlook calendar. I had to put colours to differentiate meetings per theme and highlight the ones I can’t move around. No way I’m doing this for my hobbies.
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A very happy & bonne année 2015 to you and yours, Emma! I look forward to reading whatever you choose to write about this year, but I’m happy to see another great California novel already in the plans. I was just in L.A., and thought again of Play It As It Lays as I do every single time I have to make the transition from the 101 freeway to the 110. You’ll know what i’m talking about when you read the book.
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Happy New Year to you too, Scott.
I’ve tried to read another LA novel (Le ravissement de Britney Spears) but I abandoned it. I’m looking forward to the Didion, I was impressed by her style in Run River.
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