Anticipation - Booking Through Thursday on Saturday

I've only just discovered the "Booking Through Thursday" web site – well, I'm still learning about the blogosphere. And while I'm really late to be answering this week's question, it was so intriguing I just have to put in my 2 cents.

The topic is: "What new books are you looking forward to most in 2008? Something new being published this year? Something you got as a gift for the holidays? Anything in particular that you’re planning to read in 2008 that you’re looking forward to? A classic, or maybe a best-seller from 2007 that you’re waiting to appear in paperback?"

Well, to start with, I'm just hoping to read more books than I read in 2007. And I must admit I haven't really been keeping up with the new titles for spring 2008. So I'm not actually anticipating anything "about to be published." Most of the books I'm looking forward to reading have been out for a while. But I am hoping to get to a couple of works that came out last year – The Gravedigger's Daughter, by Joyce Carol Oates, and Philip Roth's Exit Ghost.

Of course, I'm excited about reading all the books I've chosen for the couple of challenges I've signed up for – especially Civil To Strangers, by Barbara Pym, and Twig (Elizabeth Orton Jones). Those two titles have been on my "To Read" list for decades.

I also want to get back to a few books I started in 2007, but never finished: A Gentle Madness, by Nicholas A. Basbanes; The Peabody Sisters, by Megan Marshall; and Jose Saramago's The Double.

I'll probably be reading quite a lot of children's lit, since I've gotten myself into the Young Readers Challenge. And I'm really looking forward to that. Also, I've decided to try to read all the Hazel Holt and Monica Ferris mysteries that I haven't read yet.

I'm NOT planning to tackle War and Peace, which seems to be on everybody's list this year. Strange how these trends go – a year or so back, it was Tristram Shandy. I didn't read that one, either.