Reading for Fun--Finally

It looks like that after this month, I will actually get to read some books just because I want to again: nothing for work, nothing for writing projects--just reading for the simple joy of reading. Here's a few works I'm waiting to sink my mental teeth into and masticate and savor:

Mountolive and Clea--the third and fourth volumes of Lawrence Durrell's "space/time" series, The Alexandria Quartet, which I initially read several times more than thirty years ago, and the first two volumes of which I reread recently, but have been unable to get back to. Definitely a young person's work, but still wonderfully readable, magnificent in its evocation of place. Maybe I will finally get through Durrell's The Avignon Quintet as well.

Swann's Way. Marcel, here I come again.

Rising Up and Rising Down--the shorter version--by William Vollman. Recommended by a friend whose taste I trust, and who has discussed the longer version in enough detail so that I am pretty sure I will not be disappointed.

A Winter's Tale. Every summer I try and get though one Shakespearean play I have not read, and the late romances (save The Tempest) are a far range of mountains I have put off until now.

The U. S. A. Trilogy by John Dos Passos. Because it's there.

And a pinch of Pynchon (although he generally comes in 50 lb. bags).

That should keep me occupied.