What's up next?

Spontaneous library finds! Borrowings from friends! Free books from work! Here's what's happening in my reading world.

I'm getting toward the end of Alison Bechdel's superb collection, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, for my 'A Reading Family' project.

We started back in 1987 and now we're well into G.W.'s second term... so much has changed! It's a saga of love, politics, family, radicalism and changing hairstyles -- a masterwork that is impossible not to get totally immersed in. The only fault I can find with it is that it's too heavy to read in bed.

I've started referring to the characters' activities in the present tense as if they were friends, like excitedly announcing, 'Mo's graduating from library school!' Andy just looks at me and says, 'Who's Mo?'

Last night I started Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the Cherry (and I hope by the end I'll have some clue why it's titled that, because I still have no idea). This book makes me want to sing! And dance! And walk on tightropes between glass towers above hungry pits of crocodiles.

If books are like people, and there are some that go 'blah, blah, blah' and tend to be long-winded, frankly unoriginal, or entertaining but shallow and easily forgotten; and THEN there are the ones that you meet and look into their eyes and immediately feel the electric energy currents sparkling where your auras mingle and feel that their every word drives straight into the heart of your soul -- this book is like THAT.

I want to run away with it, put stars on all its pages, quote it at length, and smother it in chocolate sauce. I can't tell you what it's about, not yet, but it's amazing. More on that later.

We're planning a short trip to Sweden in late July this summer, and I've thought this would be a great chance to do some Swedish-themed reading. On my shelves I've got Let the Right One In, by John Ajvide Lindqvist and One Step Behind by Henning Mankell (Wallander mystery number 7, apparently).

I haven't read any of the previous Wallander books, but have seen some of the Swedish episodes on the BBC iplayer and enjoyed them. This was a freebie I picked up from our 'Books Free to a Good Home' pile at the office, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

Any suggestions of other Swedish literature I should look for before (or after) our trip? And no, I haven't read any Stieg Larsson yet...!