Instead of starting on my Slaves of Golconda posts on Muriel Spark last night the way that I should have (posts due Friday), I spent my prime reading hours thinking about how I need to get back on track with my summer reading challenge. So far I've read six out of 21 books from the list, plus three impulse reads, although I'm not going to think of any books by or about Rebecca West as impulse reads from this point on; if I deviate from the summer titles it should be because of West.

Or because of Proust. Stefanie is starting a separate blog for the reading of In Search of Lost Time, with discussion starting in mid-July. Since Swann's Way is actually on my original priority reading list for the year, I'm going to squeeze Proust into my summer reading instead of holding off until fall. I made an attempt to find In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower and How Proust Can Change Your Life in the library last night, but the in-progress shifting of materials onto compact shelving had worked its way to the PQs up on the fifth floor and it was simply too difficult to navigate around the moving crew and all their huge plywood carts. Maybe in a few days.

I did start Mary Lee Settle's The Scapegoat and I'm already in love with the young narrator's voice. The story is based on a 1912 coal strike massacre in West Virginia's Kanawha Valley. Mother Jones is to make an appearance.

Oh, and if you are yet unaware of Ella's Nosy Questions series, my interview at Box of Books went up on Saturday.