What Books Came Into Your Home Today?--January 2009

New Year, new slate, new books! All good things, eh what?

oh i say, jolly good old chap...hip! hip!.... tally ho!

oh my god did i really type that tripe?

;-p

I have a book order that came in. I will pick it up tomorrow. I also have 2 Book Mooches coming, not sure if they have been sent yet. More details later.

Nipped into Borders yesterday while waiting for an appropriate time to arrive at the party we went to... but they didn't really come in the house until early this morning.

Got a couple bargain books, Wish You Well by David Baldacci and Red River by Lalita Tademy.

No mail today, but it is a new year and all things are possible!?

Yesterday I got the fully annotated edition of Walden by Henry David Thoreau, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Lovely book.

>5 hemlokgang: hemlok if your 2009 reality manages to include mail deliveries on holidays, I *INSIST* on living in it with you!!

>2 jdthloue: jude, HAPPY HAPPY!!! Welcome 2009. I feel sure it's a palmy, balmy 75 degrees there in the Southland...oh wait...that's southern OHIO...*shiver*

In case anyone browsing here in the next 2 hours (until noon Pacific time), our very own rocketjk has a jazz show on Internet radio over here! It's really cool so far!!

I did get a couple of books for my husband yesterday: QED: Beauty in Mathematical Proof by Burkard Polster and Sacred Number: The Secret Qualities of Quantities by Miranda Lundy. Even though they are officially my husband's, I'm looking forward to reading them.

I bought Marked by P C Cast at Barnes and Noble today.

Was visiting my mom and she gave me some books she had finished reading.

Mister Roberts
Garden of Lies
Jane and His Lordship's Legacy
The Perfect Storm
Only Love
Cordina's Royal Family: Gabriella & Alexander
Brothers of Cain
Presumed Innocent
Memories Can Be Murder

So how come the thread link from the Gathering PLace ends up in What Came into Your House - January 2009?

...gremlins...? It works for me every time, and I have checked to see if the URL is correct twice now, and it seems to be.

Try again? I am baffled...you're the second person who's said this and I can't replicate the problem! Eeeeuuuuu.

>7 richardderus: richard richard

wrong group..but yes, it's SE Ohio...and it was 10 degrees at my house this AM...i went back to bed...

After the Goldrush by Lewis Buzbee and They Worked All Their Lives by Carl Chinn came through the letter box today. Yes, I DID order them before Xmas (honest!) - still haven't bought anything this year and it's the 2nd already! And can anyone tell me what it is they put in so many books by University presses (not all, but the ones with glossy pages) that makes them smell so gorgeous? I may never get round to reading this one. I might just sit here and sniff it for the rest of my life.

I failed to put this in the December thread, a couple of wonderful Christmas presents from my husband:

Sandman: The Dream Hunters by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano
Signal To Noise by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Dave McKean

Went to B&N yesterday -ate too much at dinner and needed to walk it off and since B&N was just next door and it was warm...... ;-)

Used one of my gift cards and came away with:
Justinian's Flea by William Rosen
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Dewey by Vicki Myron (finally! I've been dying to get this book and last night it was 40% off for B&N members!)
Barefoot in Paris by Ina Garten

While I was there, I also ended up sitting in a comfy chair and read Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich. My husband was off getting some tea and browsing books so I had literally a couple of hours to kill. It saved me having to buy another book though and since this is a fun and quick read, I managed to finish it while waiting for him to come look for me.

Popped into the library, looked at the sale books, walked out with:
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Nothing to Lose by Lee Child
Underground by Haruki Murakami
All hardbacks, not bad!

From the library:

Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card

A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

All except the YA book are ones I've been meaning to read for years.

Got the Twilight Box Set for Christmas which I went through in three days-- I couldn't put them down. I was at Costco and picked up A thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (I haven't read Kite Runner, but I intend on getting a copy sometime soon...) and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. I'll be starting Wroblewski's book soon... I read a chapter waiting in line at Costco and it seemed very interesting.

#21- canissa- a Thousand Splendid Suns is great as is The Story of Edgar Sawtell
I received The Ultimate Hoops Guide to Marquette University basketball from another MU alumni

Two titles --

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
Search the Dark by Charles Todd

I just picked up Lisa Kleypas' Dreaming Of You at a local used bookstore. How did I not know said bookstore's existence, you may ask? Especially since I've lived in the same town for more than twenty years? I don't know. I mean, I knew it was there... crazy me just never went inside. But now I worry BookMooch is going to lose a lot of my "business"! We'll see.

I also picked up Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book and Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach at Borders yesterday. I'm very excited to read both! Not sure when I think I'm reading all these books; they just keep piling up higher and higher...

#21 - Canissa,

Was it a long line or a short chapter? This time of year, our Costco's are really crowded.

#23 - santiago,

I enjoyed Search the Dark. I read it, then sent it to a moocher in Brazil.

2 books came in today:

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, via SwapTree
and
A Violent Grace by Michael Card, from a BookMoocher in Florida.

Went to B&N (after saying that I wouldn't, of course) and actually found 3 books I wanted in the "buy 2, get the 3rd free" sale:

1491
The Worst Hard Time
oops, can't remember the third, but it was non-fiction, too.

Got texts for one class in the mail, and went out and bought texts for another this morning. Still waiting on three more in the mail. Thankfully none of them were that expensive, which is nice because with grad school comes many more books. They all look very interesting, though! At least I won't mourn the loss of personal reading time all that much with this lot.

For the intro theory class:
The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms by Ross Murfin
Texts and Contexts: Writing About Literature with Critical Theory by Steven Lynn
Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide by Lois Tyson
Critical Terms for Literary Study by Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin

For the Holocaust lit class:
The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps by Terrence Des Pres
Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte
The Holocaust and the Literary Imagination by Lawrence L. Langer
Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays by Lawrence L. Langer
Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive by Giorgio Agamben, translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen

Today I bought:
Three Men in a Boat
The Man in the Brown Suit
The Big Four
The Pale Horse

I have not bought any books yet, in 2009

I received my first BookMooch book today!

Rift Zone by Raelynn Hillhouse

I scored a copy of The Gravedigger's Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates via BookMooch.

I got quite a few books for Christmas, but having just read Twilight so I could see the movie, I had to go on Amazon and order the other three books so today New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn arrived... along with, ahem, three more books that I 'accidentally' added to my order at the same time - Moan About Men by Juliana Foster, Bohemian Manifesto by Laren Stover and Among the Bohemians by Virginia Nicholson.

My mum has been very fierce about it - but what she DOESN'T know is that there are still well over 100 books on my wish list and I have my eye on a copy of the Bill Amberg leather The Picture of Dorian Gray to fawn over... It's my version of shoe addiction, okay?!

#18 cameling I see you got Barefoot in Paris by {Ina Garten} I have that book and really like it. I got Back to Basics by Ina Garten for Christmas. I enjoy her show and cookbooks.

I found two books at Borders today ! Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella and The Case Of The Missing Books by Ian Sansom .

Received The coffee trader today, just in time for the group read.
Furthermore I bought Bingo! by Clark Accord, a book about the Surnamese community in the Netherlands. Interested in that since I did my intership in Suriname (formal Dutch colony in South America).

two BookMooches:

A Great Deliverance & Well-Schooled in Murder both by Elizabeth George......i am slowly acquiring the Linley/Havers series...have read most of them except the last two....Ms George is a fine writer of intricate plots and pretty believable characters...i recommend her work to mystery lovers..

;-p

On friday, with gift certificates

Farthing - Jo Walton
The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God - Etgar Keret
Animal People - Sinha Indra
Blackstrap Hawco - Kenneth J. Harvey

Because there was 25% off...

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The Life and Death of Laura Friday by David Murphy
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
Black Oxen by Elizabeth Knox (in the bargain bin)

I bought the New Age Illustrated Classic, Edgar Allen Poe The Best of Poe for my cat to lay on so he'll stay off the books I'm trying to read. It works.

I have written out on paper the new online book of Alexander McCall Smith. And started reading it.

Corduroy Mansions, (Chapter 1-70 of the e-book) by Alexander McCall Smith. Telegraph.co.uk

Wow... that's dedication!

Stopped at the library and picked up:
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. I could NOT wait any longer on this book and will be starting it by the end of the week.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. For a 2nd copy.
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die by Peter Boxall. Just what I need, hundreds of more book suggestions! It looks fascinating, what can I say!

From the library, all I can afford of late:

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Sweetheart by Chelsea Cain
Fractured by Karin Slaughter
The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz
Real Murders by Charlaine Harris
and
Don't Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me :o)

In my cart at Amazon, though (4 for 3 sale!):

The Black Echo and The Black Ice by Michael Connelly
Shakespeare's Landlord by Charlaine Harris
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Many of these are for this year's 888 list.

The Bookbinding Handbook - another new hobby beckons.

From the library: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. A friend just loved this book.

A nice little stack of books has been waiting for me at the office during the holidays, so today I'm taking home
Two Secret Santa books:
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes... (for the upcoming baby)

Two books from publishers:
The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
The Magician's Book by Laura Miller

Plus, something from Bookmooch:
30-Minute Meals 2 by Rachel Ray

one more BookMooch...one more Elizabeth George title (Touchstone is so wrong):

Deception on his Mind

can't recall how many more to go before i own this whole lot...yes, im a bit obsessive!

;-p

I picked these up at Borders yesterday thanks to a 30% off coupon- The Friday Night Knitting Club and Knit Two-both by Kate Jacobs and Yogi- The Story of an American Original by Carlo DeVito

Posty brought me Tea with Mr Rochester in {only-just}acceptable condition from Green Metropolis. It is a 1952 paperback though so I'm grateful that's it's still intact and prepared to overlook the fact that someone appears to have poured a cup of tea over it sometime in the last 50 odd years!

Today I went to the library and checked out Heretic. I also wanted to check out design for Murder but it turned out my library doesn't own a copy (thought they did) so when I got home I put a hold on the only copy in the county system. Hope I get Heretic read before the other comes in.

Of course, I am also still in the process of reading The March. Once again I have two books in process.

3 mooches in today:

The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly
The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty
and
Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant by Jenni Ferrari-Adler

Today I received a copy of Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn.

Today I bought two books;

The first is for my mother's 93.th birthday ; Swarup, Vikas : Gutten som hadde svar på alt
(Q and A)

and a cookbook with a pair of food-tweezers. The book was at sale; 70 % or more off, (rest-stock).
Spania og Portugal by Arne Brimi, one of Norways great chefs.

And I had hardly any cookbooks before, LOL :-}}

The Senator's Wife
Mortification
Splendid Solution

Splendid Solution is about Jonas Salk. He did some of his work at a place that was once connected with where I work. I thought I would like to read about all of this....

Got two more books in the mail for my Holocaust Literature class this afternoon.

Auschwitz and After by Charlotte Delbo
and
The Kommandant's Mistress by Sherri Szeman

Recieved my first book of the year today via bookmooch:
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
So cool! A little piece of 2009 history for me!

Had another gift card to use, so I went to B&N on my way home and picked up 3 books:
The Limits of Power by Andrew Bacevich,
On Giants' Shoulders : great scientists and their discoveries from Archimedes to DNA by Melvyn Bragg
and Why Mermaids Sing by Candice Proctor

From the library:

The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman and
Things I've Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi

Borders because of multiple coupons and Borders bucks:

Three Novels: Samuel Beckett: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett because the folks in Literary Snobs made it sound so appealing.
A Visual Dictionary of Architecture by Francis D.K. Ching so that I know better what I am talking about.

Robert

Got some money for Christmas and of course the first place I went to was Chapters. I ended up getting:
Charlaine Harris- The Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set... I've been hooked on the new HBO show True Blood.
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler
Blindness by Jose Saramago
The Shack by william p. young
The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta
I think that's about it for now. Who knows.. I seem to have an addiction.. Can't stop buying books. I'm reading the Sookie Stackhouse boxed set now. Has anyone else read them? Quite quick reads, not super impressive but good to get your mind off work for a bit.

My first buy for 2009:

The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

Another pre-Christmas order - Fliegelman's Desire

ETA - That no-more-buying thing lasted 6 days! Just sent off another order yesterday. Okay, so no more this month. . . . . maybe.

Spotted a mouse when out for a meal so got a freebie so could buy books guilt free with the money I 'saved'

Cooking in a bedsitter
Happy Days with the Naked Chef Jamie Oliver
a book of Pereic's essays
Oliver's story the sequel to Love Story which is just as bad

God yes - I remember Oliver's Story - that really was awful! Did you manage to catch your mouse again ready for next time?

It's my birthday. I'm going to buy some books. I'll return to this thread after the trip.

Happy Birthday - and happy book hunting!

I received two book mooch books yesterday: Oath of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and The Currents of Space by Isaac Asimov.

I also received five books from Amazon: The Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bower, The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt, One Minute to Midnight by Michael Dobbs, Understanding Digital Libraries by Michael Lesk, and Indexing from A to Z by Hans Wellisch.

my mailman outdid himself today
from a Biblio.com gift certificate
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Oyster by John Baguenet
from BookMooch:
What Came Before He Shot Her by Elizabeth George (chalk up one more for EG)
my order from Better World Books:
Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar (for a group read on Shelfari
The Crying of Lot 49 by Pynchon
Butcher's Hill by laura lippman
A Stolen Tongue by sheri holman
The Coffee Trader by David Liss (for the LT group read

i am going to be busy for a while....have to get my eye/brain function in working order
;-p

66: ellevee
Happy Birthday !

>66 ellevee: HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLEVEE!

Happy Birthday, Ellevee!!! Hope you get some great books!!

Ellevee, many happy returns of the day! Good Hunting!

Happy birthday, Ellevee! May your books be plentiful!

I finally picked up Medical London: City of Diseases, City of Cures by Richard Barnett, a historian for the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL (University College London), which I had ordered from the London Review Bookshop before Christmas. Like a proper Brit, it was patiently waiting for me at the post office for the past week or so. It consists of a book of essays (Sick City: Two thousand years of life and death in London), a gazeteer of places of medical interest in the city, and six maps in pamphlet format for six different walking tours based on separate medical themes (the medieval Thames, a journey through the 'Plague Year', a day in the life of an 18th century medical student, tall ships and tropical diseases, Soho by night, and Bohemian medicine in Chelsea), all in a beautifully packaged box. I think I'll put aside all of my planned reading and dive right into this!

Happy Birthday, Ellevee!

#54 - I loved Q & A when I read it. The ending was a bit too tidy, but otherwise, a very nice read. Good present for your Mom.

The last of the textbooks has finally arrived (figures the last one to get here was the one I was supposed to be reading for the first week of class! Oops...)

War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust by Doris L. Bergen

> Happy Birthday, Ellevee! Hope you are loving Case Histories! Excellent book!
My 1st Bookmooch of the new year:
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. A lot of buzz on this book lately ,it sparked my interest!

Just finished and reviewed The Economist Book of Obituaries for the Early Reviewer group.

And I just started The James Boys by Richard Liebmann-Smith (the touchstone doesn't work for the title)

Went to my club for a meeting and came home with The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman from the lending library, and then went to the downtown Seattle Library and bought Book Lust by Nancy Pearl from the Friends' shop.

4 mooches in today:

Persuasion by Jane Austen
Washington Square by Henry James
A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve
and
Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres

#82 Are you really reading Captain Corelli for the first time? God I envy you! I still read that book at least once a year if not more - sheer perfection. Hope you have as much of a great time with it as I do.

Into my home today came E M Forster's Aspects of the Novel (again - ordered before Xmas) plus 3 CDs that I orderd during my 'I must not buy any more books' period. Oops! Still, at least it's not shoes (or so I keep telling myself) which would be MUCH more expensive and not give me half as much pleasure.

3 books came into my home today:-

The Crossroads by Niccolo Ammaniti
Something To Tell You by Hanif Kureishi
When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson

The Autobiography Henry VIII by Margaret George and The Stone Maiden by Susan King.

two BookMooches:

Payment in Blood & Playing for the Ashes both by Elizabeth George (only 2 more to go!!!!)

I received The Xenophobe's Guide to the Americans from BookMooch and The Alcoholics, from the great Jim Thompson. I should be satisfied, but I'm waiting for the UPS guy to deliver 11 more books from all over the country and I want to gloat over them.

Just 1 today:

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

#88 I'm not stalking you but, god, that's another great one - I would be rejoicing too!

Bought Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson and Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West.

I was bad and got:

Songs For The Missing 50% off at B&N
Sum of Our Days
Gods Behaving Badly
Still Alice
Queen of Sorrows
Enchantress of Florence

I was at a "badding" trip to Sweden today and got:

I Hades käftar :

Very strange, most of my post disapeared when saving. I'll come back later

Last night I got my second SantaThing book, Anne of the Thousand Days, which took its own sweet time showing up. My other book this year season showed up before Christmas.

New try;

I was at a "badding" trip to Sweden today and got:

I Hades käftar (Arms of Nemesis) by Steven Taylor for myself

Geographica : atlas och uppslagsverk över världens folk och länder (Geographica, the Complete Illuatrated Atlas of the World) by red. Gordon Cheers
For my sons birthday

and
Niklas mitt i veckan : 60 favoritrecept för en godare vardag från SVTs program Niklas mat (A Cookbook from a Sweedish TV-chef) by Niklas Ekstedt for myself

The Family Bones came to me from the author :)
It llooks entertaining :)

There was a new issue of Lapham's Quarterly at Borders, so I looked for it at Barny Noble's. They get in so few copies that the stack didn't last until I got there. So I bought The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality by Andre Comte-Sponville.

I guess, icky as it is, I'll have to go back to Borders for the quarterly even though I likely won't ever read it.

In the mail today, from Barny Noble, The Mahabharata: 2. The Book of the Assembly Hall 3. The Book of the Forest translated by A. B. Van Buitenen. This is the second volume in the Chicago translation. Since I finished the first volume just a while back I've felt I don't really have anything to read at night, despite having plenty.

Robert

From B&N:
Obedience by Will Lavendar
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

I picked up 2 interlibrary loan books from my local library--Stratford, CT--today. They are:
Morvern Callar a novel and Fraktur:Folk Art and Family an illustrated history of the Pennsylvania German calligraphic, pictorial style.

#83 & 89 - Booksloth,

Thanks for the affirmations re: my book choices. Good to know that I've picked good ones. :-)

Off to read...

I came home from a very rainy day with two mooches waiting for me: Your Roots Are Showing by Elise Chidley and Kathleen Tessaro's Elegance. I also got an Amazon order -- The Anglophile by Laurie Gwen Shapiro. They're all in the stack now, patiently waiting their turn!

After a really long and stressful day at work today, it was so nice to come home and find packages waiting for me. Apart from a friend sending me a complete boxed set of anime The Familiar of Zero, I also received from fellow moochers, Map of Bones by James Rollins and Snobbery with Violence by Marion Chesney.

I received The 19th Wife from a friend today in my mail. This week, I also had Housekeeping and Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor arrive. I have a big stack TBR on my nightstand now!

OOOPS
I Hades käftar (Arms of Nemesis) by Steven Taylor. It tourned out I had it, so one more book for mothers birtday.
;-)

I got a very nice surprise on coming home from a day of errands done in the rain yesterday...my sister, hearing that I wanted a book to start studying for a degree plan, sent me William Rufus by Frank Barlow.

I put aside Caesar's Vast Ghost and dived right in...so far so fascinating, though VERY academic.

See, doctor, it was like this. I was going to visit my son ('cos it's his birthday) and wanted to buy a quick book-present for a friend whose birthday is also due. As I was en route to Son I could only fly quickly in and out of Waterstones. Even so - books started hurling themselves at me when I couldn't get the one I'd had in mind for the friend and had to start looking round. Then, when I got to the till I found I had 2 '3 for 2' ones so had to go back and find another - which, being quite big, didn't actually save me any money but added another £10 to the final bill. Anyhow - that's how I come to be sitting here looking at Let Me Go, Afloat, Shakespeare's Wife, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read (though, at this rate, there won't be any), The Assassin's Cloak and The Letters of Noel Coward. Oh, I got the pressie too. Is it true that they don't count if you were only looking for a pressie?

>105 Booksloth: Booksloth, absoLUTEly! A little-appreciated fact of life is that a)birthday cake has no calories, b) intending to call your dull relatives/old friends is the same as doing it, and c) items purchased for self while shopping for presents are (karmically speaking) free.

There! Feel better now?

Much. Thank you! (That's the ticker on my book-buying conscience wound back to zero for another day - or until the next lot arrive).

Booksloth, The Letters of Noel Coward is one of the best books I read all last year. Good choice!

Whats up im reading or trying to read new moon!!!!:)

> 75 kidzdoc - let us know how you get on with that one! It was reviewed in The Times but under the wrong title - only the title of the book of essays, which doesn't bring up any results on Amazon. Anyway, thanks to you I've found it at last - they're out of stock right now but I might consider ordering it if you're singing its praises in a few days!

richard-I concur w/ everything you said in post #106--esp. the birthday cake and book one. Especially the book one. I always always sneak and extra book in when I have to buy one for a friend :)

for my birthday..the mailman brought:
White Ghost Girls by Alice Greenway....but it's going to have to wait its turn, i'm afraid

>105 Booksloth: Booksloth - I'm so bad at doing that! When I was at uni I 'popped in' to Borders for a quick look and came out with 6 books - because they were on 3 for 2 and I couldn't get it down to 3 so logically, I had to round it UP to 6 instead. Then another time I 'nipped in' to waste a few minutes while my friends were ice skating (it was cold, I can't skate...) and spent nearly £50 in 20 minutes...

>109 spaz2much: Me too! Was drifting through it quite happily, but now it's suddenly gotten absolutely nail biting and I've actually had to PUT IT DOWN to recover before I go in for the long haul and finish it tonight!

Via a B&N gift card:
The Coffee Trader by David Liss
The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

#108 That was the one that should have been free but cost me an extra £10! Thanks to your recommendation, jf, I now have another reason to not feel bad about it!

#111 But I slipped in an extra 6 books ;-)

#113 I'm always doing it - but then again I have a loyalty card. Every time I buy books at Waterstones, I get points - so that makes it okay! Doesn't it?

Definitely! In the same way as I use vouchers sometimes on Amazon THEREFORE it's okay if I accidentally add a few more things over and above that because TECHNICALLY I'm saving on postage and... okay, that's bad. And when I'm at the supermarket it's fine if I buy extra naughty food because I'm getting more points back on my card if I spend more... I have a very strong ability to go into denial when I want something :-)

So, I went to the mall to go with my brother to buy my sister a birthday gift...and came home with 84, Charing Cross Road. Oh, and I had a coupon. So I should be doubly forgiven for booking-buying, yes? What I really need to do is some guilt-free bookshelves-buying so that I can fit all these books I keep accumulating...

JUDE!! When was your birthday, and how did I miss knowing about it?!?

Many happy returns of the day, youngster! *mwah* Birthday smooch!

Yes - happy birthday to every one who has birthday in january, let us now.

It has happened again. Mysterioulsy the postman brought a science-book. Number 3 in a series. My hubby had said yes to get the two first for free. We have both forgotten all about it so today the fullprizebook came. Tomorrow we have to take action and get it stopped. Beautiful books, but we have a lot of books like it and its to much.

Vitenskapens Univers: Naturens krefter (Power of Nature) by red. Nielsen, Lotte Juul

#117 84 Charing Cross Road NEVER counts. Under ANY circumstances.

Working off some of my Christmas Gift Certificates I got the following in the mail from Chapters today:

Rivals For The Crown by Kathleen Givens
Silent In The Grave by Deanna Raybourn
All The Pretty Girls by J.T. Ellison
14 by J.T. Ellison
Judas Kiss by J.T. Ellison

>120 Booksloth:, Sweet! Guilt-free book shopping! :-) I read it early in 2008 and absolutely loved it, I'm very pleased to have added it to my personal library.

Here's what I got this week.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer - ebay
The Loop by Nicholas Evans
The Divide by Nicholas Evans both from the library

Two packages from Barny Noble were processed through the local main post office today. One of them was delivered:

The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism by George McKenna, an artifact of my being a displaced Yankee.
The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner, fantasizing about happiness.

Robert

Just one today- Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain Fournier.

An Early Review book:
The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa

Despite my goal to buy no more books until I've made room in my shelves, I had a gift card at a book shop and had to buy (full price, no sales):

Conceit, by Mary Novik,
and
Regeneration and Eye in the Door, by Pat Barker. These are the first two books in the Regeneration trilogy. I already own the third (Ghost Road), which won the Booker. I saw part of the movie Regeneration yesterday, and decided I must read the whole series.

I have finally stopped the "Vitenskapens Univers:series", and will not get anymore of those unexpected books in my mail. Beatiful books though.

Midwife of the Blue Ridge by Christine Blevins.

The Sewing Circle: Sappho's Leading Ladies by Axel Madsen

Don't Get Me Started by Kate Clinton

from BetterWorld books.

The local shop was doing The Runaway Jury cheap, so i picked that up today, and yesterday i got Cathy Kelly's Always and Forever free in a magazine

To Catch an Heiress by Julia Quinn

They're trickling in one at a time- today brought Mustn't Grumble: In Search of England and the English.

Received High Stakes by Dick Francis today from BookMooch.

From BookMooch:
Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor

>134 janoorani24:
I really enjoyed High Stakes by Dick Francis. Hope you enjoy it.

I expected these yesterday and yesterday's today. Oh well, the Postal Service and Barny Noble mean well.

The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha translated by Bhikkhu Nanamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi. I am building a set of three. This is two.
The Bhagavadgita in the Mahabharata translated by J.A.B. van Buitenen. This complements a current reading project.

Robert

I received an Early Reviewer copy of The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa in the mail today.

>136 LA12Hernandez:
I am looking forward to reading High Stakes. I was very surprised to discover three of Dick Francis's book that I hadn't read. I've got two more coming from BookMooch.

When Worlds Collide and it's sequel After Worlds Collide.
I didn't like Wylie's writing in Gladiator which I recently read, but I always enjoyed the WWC movie and wanted to see how the books compared.

Today I bought a copy of The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen. A friend had lent this to me and I was going to wait for the paperback before buying it for my library (I usually wait for paperbacks). I saw what the cover of the paperback is going to look like and decided to spring for the hardcover afterall.

kidzdoc...The Housekeeper and the Professor is a good one, I received it a while ago. Frankly I didn't ecpect it to be as good as it was.

too early for mail for me, but I don't think anything is due..I requested a couple of mooches that are both languishing in accepted but are unsent.

The Pact by Jodi Picoult-so far so good!

The Two of Us, The Various Flavours of Coffee, Divisadero. I'm a bad, bad girl.

Isn't it so nice when you come back from a hard day to find books in the mail? Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin and Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner made their merry way to my door yesterday.

Well, how about that! Tis came today :)

More birthday presents!
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Nemi
Nemi: 2

Ooh.. ellevee, let me know what you think of Nemi. I have been eyeing them at the bookstore but wrestling with my conscience about buying more books considering the size of my TBR state.

I had to do something at the Bargain Mart, and while I was there I picked up The Mermaid Chair and The Historian. Then I went to the library and got Fair and Tender Ladies for the Southern Lit Book Club. So while it may be dreary outside and I have missed my yoga class, I'm still happy.

I returned a gift to Border's and brought home New and Selected Poems: Volume One by Mary Oliver

A browse around the library yielded:
Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill
Love & Death: My Journey through the Valley of the Shadow by Forrest Church
Out by Natsuo Kirino
The Widow's Children by Paula Fox
How to Read a Novel by John Sutherland
Wish You Were Here by Stewart O'Nan
Asleep by Banana Yoshimoto
Me Of Little Faith by Lewis Black
The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life by Steve Leveen

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton was waiting at the post office for me today.

Received Devil May Care from my son for Christmas so will be reading that.

Just bought Doreen Virtue's Daily Guidance from Your Angels. A nice way to get a simple clarity on life to start off the New Year.

From BookMooch:
The War of don Emmanuel's Nether Parts by Louis de Bernieres

From Open Letter Series:
Vilnius Poker by Ricardas Gavelis

From the library and got it for a buck (nice hardback too!):
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. Always a lot of buzz around the threads on this one.

Um........remember awhile back when I said that due to the economy, and the fact that I had absolutely no need whatsoever to buy anymore books.....well.......I'm just a bad, bad girl. The postman brought a nice heavy box from bookcloseouts.com today......**trying not to shout YIPPEE!**.....

(Richard, if you want to borrow this first one, you certainly may)

Sleeping With Cats: A Memoir by Marge Piercy
An Absolute Gentleman by R.M. Kinder
My Lobotomy: A Memoir by Howard Dully
True to Form by Elizabeth Berg
The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle
Vector by Robin Cook
I'll Fly Away: Further Testimonies From The Women of York Prison by Wally Lamb
Buried by Mark Billingham
Blues Lessons by Robert Hellenga

I have absolutely got to get more shelving.

>porchsitter, I know this may not be an option for everyone but lacking shelves I use my kitchen cabinets. Does that show I'm a little book crazy or what? My friends go in for a mug or plate and see books. But seriously, I don't need that much plates or cups, I DO need space for my books.

I always wondered what to do with all that wasted room. After all who needs a whole room for a few dishes, a microwave and a hotpot?

I have got to keep out of the forums.. seriously.
If I am not adding books to my wishlist, I am just outright buying them.
BetterWorld makes it mighty easy...

This has got to stop.. seriously..

My kitchen cupboards only have a few cookbooks.
It isn't an option .. I am all filled up with soup and rice and stuff..

up until now i have used the top shelves of my built in shelves in the LR to display family photos. I guess they have to go up on the wall so I can add more books???

The harvard frame on my bed broke last week, and (I know, I know, no jokes please) until I get a new one - guess what's propping it up? Books! I have a stack of books from my TBR list holding up the one corner - how convenient!

What a great idea! Why didn't I think of that. I have a bed that is 14 inchs off the floor. I could easily put a book tower under my bed to hold books in. You are a genius ktleyed. If I do it right it will look as though it was made that way. Hmmm...

#161 - *blushing* glad I could help inspire you!

Despite my resolve to not buy any more books until the big charity book sale next month, I found myself in the used bookstore picking up Never Let Me Go for the Reading Around the World group here, and The Bell Jar which I've been hunting down for awhile. Then I just had to go to the chain store down the street from there with my $5 coupon which got me Kafka on the Shore for $1.99. Oopsy.

I'm writing all these ideas down for more places to store my books..... although, in essence, any flat surface will work....isn't that what we are all saying here???

And stacks of books can even serve a dual purpose!!! Holding up a bed ~ another great idea!

We readers are a resourceful bunch, I must say... :o)

#142: mckait, thanks for letting me know about The Housekeeper and the Professor, I'll plan to read it this week or next.

I'm glad to know that I'm not alone in using kitchen cupboard space for my books!

#160/161/166 Had you though about getting rid of the bed and just chucking a quilt over a pile of books? And ktleyed - didn't you know this is the one place you weren't going to get knowing laughs about breaking the bed? We just all assumed it was because of the weight of all the books you're reading in there.

This book (The Elegance of the Hedgehog) is absolutely beautiful. Read it as soon as you can!

The Men We Became: My Friendship with John F. Kennedy, Jr. by Robert T. Littell

The Year of Disappearances A Novel by Susan Hubbard

Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead by Saralee Rosenberg

The Lennon Prophecy: A New Examination of the Death Clues of The Beatles by Joseph Niezgoda

The Cross: 38,102 miles. 38 years. 1 mission. by Arthur Blessitt

The Cross, which has no touchstone( ? ) is an ER book from LT, which came as an early galley copy, not a bound paperback.

The Beatles book, from the author..
and the others from here and there.......

Right now i am reading Breaking Dawn.
It is so good.

A BookMooch from Canada:

The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy

From Amazon
Uncorked:The Science of Champagne.

>170 mckait: It's a long story, but my husband and I met 30 years ago as a result of a question about someone with the last name of Niezgoda. How interesting that you have a book by someone of that name.

I brought home the following today from Barnes and Noble:

Irrational Man by William Barrett
The Music of Pythagoras by Kitty Ferguson
A Flaw in the Blood by Stephanie Barron
Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens by Jane Dunn

I also received two Dick Francis books through BookMooch:
Straight and Slay-Ride.

I just received Alice in Exile by Piers Paul Read from a lovely user in the UK who was kind enough to ship overseas. I was ecstatic when that arrived so quickly as I've been meaning to get a copy of this for a while.

I also got Real Boys' Voices by William S. Pollack from another member of Bookmooch and stopped at the library to pick up Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Ahser. You'd think that my growing TBR pile would stop me from getting more books until I make a sizable dent in it...but it appears I just can't help myself sometimes =)

>156 porchsitter55: porchy, one day I must tell you about the man who refused to admit he had a cat and the amusing evening of dawg and mouse that ensued.

I have partied my sainted aunt for her 90th. I have had houseguests non-stop since Wednesday last. I have cooked, cleaned, and primped, socialized, driven from pillar to post, and contended with careless %A(!^s who broke my Christmas ornaments by swaying drunkenly against the tree. I have officially told the frieght company to keep the book and stuff they're trying to hold me up for. AND to make it all worthwhile, I got three new books today:

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Sends Us by Dinaw Mengestu...gorgeous. Read it in one sittting. Love, love, love it! Buy it today.

In the Japanese Garden...spectacular photos of Japanese gardens (what, you were expecting dirty postcards?) that bring me a sense of limitless serenity and refreshment.

The Cost of Counterterrorism by Laura K. Donohue...what real things we in the US and UK lost for the illusion of safety that dictatorship brings.

rest, richard, rest and catch your breath.... whew! what a whirlywig you've been. I'm tired just thinking of all that activity. I'm sorry the freight company has gotten to keep your belongings. You definitely earned the 3 new books. Thanks for the recommendation to The Beautiful Things because I saw that at Borders and was considering getting it.

I saw a new used book store open up on my way to work ... and well, I had to pull over on my way home just for a peek. alas, they were closed and I sniffled pathetically as I walked back to the car. But lo and behold .. I got home to find a friend sipping coffee with my husband, and bearing a gift of The Savage Garden by Mark Mills as an apology for taking more than a year to return my copy of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

I am behind on my new book entries. I got these last week.

From Borders:

Booked to Die by John Dunning
A mystery book for a RL group. Start of the Cliff Janeway series about an ex-cop who is a book lover/collector. He opens a bookstore and bookish crime is all around.

The Kill Artist by Daniel Silva
Another book for my RL mystery group. The start of the Gabriel Allon series. A former Israeli Agent has become an art restorer, but his old job calls ans he is off after a terrorist.

The Story of the Cannibal Woman by Maryse Conde
Another RL book group book (Fiction). It is set in South Africa and deals with a woman whose husband goes out for cigarettes and never comes back. He is murdered and the woman sets up as a clairvoyant to support herself. Turns out she isn't a fake.

From BJs Warehouse

The Tales of Beedle The Bard by J.K. Rowling
Saw this at the store for a small price, it looked like a neat book (physically) and everyone has been talking about it, so I picked it up.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Like her stuff. The title and cover look interesting, and it just came out it paper. Story about a rare book expert, a rare book, and the culture and history of the people whose book it is. Seems to have mysterious artifacts, so it also seems to be one of those historical thrillers, so popular now.

From Barnes & Noble

Lord John and the Hand of Devils by Diana Gabaldon
3rd book in the Lord John series. He is a spin off character from the Outlander series. A gay English Lord who is sympathetic to Jamie and Claire (not in the book) - though if I remember correctly, Jamie may have killed his brother.

Historical fiction set after the Highland Clearances in Scotland, and just before or during the American Revolution.This is called a novel , but appears to be 3 novellas.

Be Near Me by Andrew O'Hagan
Another RL book group book. We picked it because we were intrigued abut the blurb, and couldn't agree what it was trying to say or hint about the book.

About a young man who is a Catholic priest and ends up with a small rural Scottish parish. He has to deal with their insularity, and suspicion of outsiders. He doesn't make it easy by befriending two rebel teens, and an incident and friendship from his past brings him into conflict with the town.

White Corridor by Christopher Fowler
Another RL book group book, for mystery group. It is part of the Peculiar Crimes Unit series. Set in London, it is a classic locked room mystery with a unit member being killed in the morgue. The rest of the staff are away, and the two main detectives are stuck in van in a snowstorm in the Dartmoor countryside. There is a killer loose in the traffic jam, and they also have to detect the morgue murder by cell phone.

Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous
Interesting cover. The story seems to be about the murder of a neighbor in a culturally mixed apartment building in Rome. The story is told as each tenant gives their testimony to the police about what happened. Like a game of cultural telephone.

Firmin by Sam Savage
Saw this on LT as an ER (didn't get it). Then saw it in the bookstore. Love the bitemark on the side. Its a story of a literary rat who wants to interact with humans after eating and reading our books. I am hoping its like the Sheep mystery in Three Bags Full.

Thanks, cameling! It's simply incredible how much a well-placed new book will improve my mood. In the Japanese Garden has serenitized me wonderfully!

Ficus, I read the first Lord John book and was a little taken aback to learn that it was actually a *short story* that Gabaldon finished for an anthology. 65,000 words is a SHORT STORY! The Janeway series has always been a pleasure to read for me. Firmin sounds fun! I will go on the lookout for it.

one Mooch....yesterday

A Traitor to Memory by Elizabeth George

only two more to go!!!!!

Received Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult today. Will double up and start this one, even though I am still reading the Wally Lamb book, I'll Fly Away.......I'm just so hungry for books right now, I think I can handle two at a time. I'm almost halfway through the Lamb book, it's a very fast read.

#181 I'm soooo jealous - I wish I could do that. I can combine a fiction with a non-fiction but that's as far as it goes. The book I'm reading now is quite a heavy one and I have to take a trip away for a couple of days starting tomorrow. Not enough space to pack this one but I won't finish it before I go. Luckily, it's a 'diaries' anthology so I can put it down and take a novel but if it had been fiction I'd have been stuck. (Though I don't really know why I'm so worried about the weight/space issue; I know darn well I'm going to be bringing a new pile back with me - as usual.)

It was a big haul today-
From Angela and BookMooch I received 7 Agatha Christies-
Mrs. McGinty's Dead
Murder at Hazelmoor
Sparkling Cyanide
Endless Night
Double Sin
Spider's Web
Murder International

From Amazon I received-
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard, another book I see a lot of LT'ers like.

I popped into the library to relinquish a few back to them, and got out a couple of books on starting a small business and online selling, and Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman, which I spotted during my VERY quick scan of the shelves (Mum was waiting in the car outside!).

A friend popped by this morning and left When The Dead Cry Out by Hilary Bonner which looks interesting.Later on I visited the library and brought home:Eleven Hours by Paullina Simons, Sun Storm by Asa Larsson, A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons, Out by Natysuo Kirino, The Good Sister by Diana Diamond, and Into The Valley by Rosanne Bittner.I seem to be having trouble posting this - my computer keeps freezing up!

Easter Island from the vine program.. this is not an ARC but an older book.
It looks like a good read. Porchy dear, first of all thanks you for the cat book for richard .. lol.. also, I too, may double up as I am reading one book but I really want to read this one too..so~

I just picked up a copy of "The House of Brick" by Ren Meves. This is a new author but the book has great reviews on Amazon so I decided to give it a try.

I downloaded Patriotism, a novella by Yukio Mishima, and Pinball 1973, the second novel by Haruki Murakami today.

A long, sad story:

I am, among other things, a lexicographer manqué.

My birthday is on October 20. In early October 2008 I got a pitch in the mail for a lovely pair of books from Oxford University Press, The Oxford History of English Lexicography, for $295. I buy most of my new books from BN.com and thought I might get the set for less from them. I checked it out, and they wanted $236. That was a little high, but my birthday was coming up. Then I got a 15% coupon that expired just before my birthday; the books were going to be published at the end of October.

They took my order on line for just over $200 and promised shipment at the end of the month, close enough to my birthday for me. The book started listing a January 27, 2009, publication date. BN sent a notification saying the shipment was delayed 1-5 business days, but my account showed a 30 day delay. At the end of November they made me confirm my interest; I did. At the end of December they said that although they had done everything they could, they couldn't get the book and were canceling the order. The listing for the book still showed a publication date of January 27.

A few days into January wondering whether I should call to complain, I looked at the book listing, and it was shipping within 24 hours!

I called, waited for a long time, and got cut off as soon as a live person answered the telephone. I called back; my telephone told me it took 29 minutes and a few seconds. After long discussion it was agreed to send me the books and credit me an amount equal to the coupon amount. She promised me that it would be shipped USPS.

When I got the confirmation e-mail it was being shipped UPS ground, taking over a week, and was being billed at $236. UPS tracking showed me it would be delivered today, Tuesday, although it never left California. I finally gave up waiting and went out to get something to eat.

There was a package on my front porch when I got back. It looked skinny for two books. I ate my ice cream and then opened the package. There was one volume, volume ii, and the invoice said $236.

I called Ed. He says he will take care of everything. I am losing my enthusiasm for my birthday present to myself.

Robert

richard, I hate B&N online. They are terrible. I get new books damaged..torn etc. This happened 3 times. Don't even think about bargain books online, I had one that ha been wet and muddy at one time.. they said it was a bargain book and that they couldn't do anything about it. ( The store did. There has been more..
but I avoid them at all costs. The closest store has fixed the problems for me, whenever I have gone to them. I lost my temper before Christmas and sent an email asking if they have monkeys packing their books, because once again I had two books NEW with torn dust covers.

They did not respond.

I am so very sorry for your troubles how annoying and disappointing for you .
I hope they fix it...can you contact a store instead?

Received The Cross by Arthur Blessitt as an Early Review book today. It's my first after requesting books for a few months, so I'm pretty excited.

Also got Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson out of the library the other day -- it's audio, read by the author.

>189 Mr.Durick: robert, that is AWFUL! I, like mckait, have no enthusiasm whatever for BN.com. I have no story similar to yours but I have received the correct shipment from BN.com exactly *never* and can't abide that kind of cavalier treatment of a paying customer.

I hope Ed will fix it in record time. Your birthday present to yourself SHOULD be free, since they have mangled the process so many times. I shall so whammy.

Today my mum and I went to our local retail outlet village thingy as part of my plan to overcome my agoraphobia. I was very good, went in shops and looked at things nicely, and even went for hot chocolate in the cafe. At the end to celebrate Mum 'looked the other way' while I bought The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby - signed, possibly first edition hardback, £3.99 - and Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank - also a hardback and a timely replacement for my tatty old paperback, £2.99. I even got a cupcake mug to have something nice to drink while I read them! Bargain...

I picked up the following books last night at Third Place Books:

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird

>193 elliepotten: ellie, bargains at twice the price! Congratulations on taking steps to overcome agoraphobia. Much success!

I'm getting ready for another big library sale tomorrow (come snow or high water I'll be there :-)

Right now I'm reading "Fractured" by Karin Slaughter and almost through. It's good.

I also have checked out from the library:
Just Breathe by Susan Wiggs
The Condition by Jennifer Haigh
The Darker Side by Cody McFadyen

whats up yall im reading new moon usaguys like the twilight saga

whats up yall im reading new moon usaguys like the twilight saga

Hi spaz, the Twilight books have been roundly praised around the world! I am not a convert, I fear, because vampires that *don't* have sex are just bloodsucking fiends (a Christopher Moore book you should think about reading).

I started The Illuminator by Brenda Vantrease last night. It's the story of John Wycliffe's rescue of the Bible from the clutches of the repressive, corrupt Catholic Church by translating same into English for the first time. I don't think the prose is anything special. I do like the story so will give it a full Pearl-Rule read to see if there is something more to it than I have seen so far.

>195 richardderus: richardderus - thank you! Not only that, but I had to go back again this afternoon because I realised they'd overcharged me on the Anne Frank... My book addiction is a good incentive to make myself go out places!

And definitely loving the Twilight books over here in England - all four books are back in the Top 10 this week (independent bookshops AND overall). I've read the first two but reading something else now so I don't get through them too fast!

I received The solitaire mystery by Jostein Gaarder today. Should be a good read, as I also like Sophie's world.

Good for you, ellie!! We're rooting for ya!

I loved The Diary of a Young Girl. I first read it as a kid after seeing the original movie. It was heart-wrenching. I can still see that little girls face in my mind. I should replace my old tattered copy as well ~ yes, I still have my original copy from Scholastic Services!!! It's held together with tape!

>201 boekenwijs: - have you read Through a Glass, Darkly? It's much easier to read than Sophie's World but so very, very sad...

>202 porchsitter55: porchy, good gracious! Scholastic Book Services! They did a book called Sarah Crewe which was that Hodgson Burnett book (The Secret Garden?) abridged, that I got from my older sister.

How many books I got from them over the years....

I got a mooch!!! Yippee!!

Good People by Marcus Sakey.

"Good People is about bad people doing worse things; it is gleefully dread-filled, mercilessly tense, and moves with the speed of something fired from a sawed-off. Based on his first three novels, one can't help but feel that Marcus Sakey is exactly the electric jolt American crime fiction needs." ~ Dennis Lehane

Went to Borders to use a 30% off coupon and got The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers, The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia by Laura Miller, The Private Patient by P. D. James, Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens, and The Chicago Manual of Style. Phew!

The only one not on my list was The City of Dreaming Books, but it looked sooo good.

>205 porchsitter55: porchy- Nice catch! I read his first novel The Blade Itself and really enjoyed it. I've heard great things about his latest, please let us know!
A friend lent me a copy of The Hour I first Believed by Wally Lamb. How cool is that? I hope to start it very soon!

msf59 ~ I read The Blade Itself also! He's a good writer. I'm looking forward to reading this next one.

I'm so jealous ~ I can't wait to read the new Wally Lamb....but I'm trying to hold out for the paperback. **sniff** I have plenty to hold me until then. Actually I am reading I'll Fly Away which was edited by Wally L. right now....it's interesting.

Building a series:

The Mahabharata: 4. The Book of Virata, 5. The Book of the Effort translated by J.A.B. Van Buitenen

By mail from BN.com, an order that went right. I still don't have a confirmation about the mess up above.

Robert

My co-worker lent me a copy of Edgar Sawtelle. I swore that I would not read that book, but here it is. She is convinced that I will like it. All the hype about that book put me off, but I will see how it goes. It will just be passing through my home, though. It has to wait a while as I have a book or really a small stack that need to be read and reviewed...

208-> I'm jealous.... I wishlisted the Wally Lamb book... I had to put a hold on all of my book buying because we just moved and my hubby said no more books for a while....(only after he had to move all the boxes of them)

He's an avid reader too, but much prefers the library so he doesn't have to keep the books when he's done. I just prefer to have them heaped up around me... I think I have about 500 in my TBR pile now... it's only gotten worse since I started mooching.. I've still mooched a few the last week or so (can he really say anything about free books??? come on) and can't wait for them to get here.

richarddearus-->> I really thought I was the last hold out on the Twilight series. I have never been able to read anything with vampires in it... not b/c of it scaring me, but because I have never cared for the movies or books. I absolutely refused to read the series... until it was given me by a friend and I was threatened with bodily harm if I didn't read it. I'm almost through with the first book and have not been able to put it down. We'll see how the second book goes, but I still don't see myself indulging in any other books with a vampire theme.

I just got a completely unexpected ARC of Christopher Meeks' first novel, The Brightest Moon of the Century. Hopefully it lives up to his short stories in Months and Seasons.

Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone via BookMooch. I've mooched The Woman in White too, but I'm still waiting for that one. I have lost track of how many years I have been getting round to reading Wilkie Collins, but it's probably about 14.

one BookMooch:

In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner by elizabeth george.....only one more to go....and this completist geek will be happy!!!

concerning Vampire Lit......i'll stick with Anne Rice for contemporaries...her vamps are neurotic and self-centered as all hell...but at least they are not puling teens (sorry TWILIGHT fans)...for Classic Vamps....Carmilla is truly odd....and Dracula???? love that dapper, bloodsucking Count...no?

;-p

2 mooches in today:

Growing in Grace by Bob George
and
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Two for me also-
From B&N
Evil Spirits: The Life of Oliver Reed
and from Amazon
The Mysterious Benedict Society

Received an ARC Joker One: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership and Brotherhood by Donovan Campbell. Sounds interesting, and perhaps I can learn something from him about how to lead a team and build loyalty in them.

Also received When Gods Die by C.S. Harris, another Sebastian St Cyr mystery that I am willing to put aside all books I'm currently reading in favor of sinking my teeth into.

Library called - I brought home Essential Rumi for the bingo game thing and Plum Spooky - one of the first copies in the system, too!

These will supersede my other books or maybe I'll just read them at the same time - a chapter here, a chapter there!

The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne from PBS.

Popped into Borders and came out with Savouring Italy but I'm going to give it to my mom as a present

More agoraphobia-fighting today - this time I went into town to meet Mum after her morning volunteering at one of the charity shops. It's a very small town and made up mostly of chemists, food shops and charity shops, so while I waited for her to finish up I hit three of the latter and came out with Dostoyevsky's The Idiot (65p, bargain!), a nearly-new hardback of Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller (£1.50), an untouched film tie-in copy of Atonement by Ian McEwan (£1.50), and a good clean copy of Lawrence's Women in Love (£1.25). I'd turned a REALLY bad Monday around into a good week and I thought I deserved a few treats in celebration!

From the wonderful folks at Amazon I received the following The Piano Teacher by Janice K. Lee; The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker and Sing then Home by Stephanie Kallos

Well yesterday I went to the library and checked the books for sale. I bought 4 books. I only have 2 in front of me right now. Here are those two:

Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich

Next by Michael Crichton

Robin's Bookstore, Philadelphia's oldest independent bookstore, is unfortunately closing after 73 years. The store is having a 50% off sale from now until January 31st. I stopped there this afternoon and picked up a dozen books:

London: Architecture & Design by Sabina Marreiros and Jurgen Forster
Miles from Nowhere by Nami Mun
Toward the African Revolution: Political Essays by Frantz Fanon
China Boy by Gus Lee
Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays by Chinua Achebe
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
The Road to Home: My Life and Times by Vartan Gregorian
Leo Africanus by Amin Maalouf
Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong
Dear Darkness: Poems by Kevin Young

Robin's Bookstore was my favorite Philadelphia bookstore, and other than the Joseph Fox Bookshop on Rittenhouse Square, I have no knowledge of good independent bookstores in Philadelphia. Are there any current or former Philadelphians out there?

My mother just gave me a first edition copy of the The Blacks: A Clown Show by Jean Genet.

Got a mooch today... Three Junes... Still reading Twilight so I'll have to add this to the stacks..

Finally, The Third Policeman by Flann 0' Brien came from B&N. Looking forward to this one.

Receivd a bookmooch today: South: The Endurance Expedition by Earnest Shackleton.

Received my Early Reviewer copy Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man but I have too much else on my plate and the library has another In Transit for me Mounting Fears, which may or may not be at the library as I write this. I hope it waits till Tuesday so I can finish what I have started already!

Oh, I left off two books from the dozen I bought earlier today:

Mi Revalueshanary Fren by Linton Kwesi Johnson
Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade, edited by Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady

Okay, I don't know how this happened. I think bookcloseouts.com felt sorry for me and mailed me these books, because they love me. :o)

or............

I may have ordered them, but I'm not sure. I suffer from short term memory loss.

(But come on, now....buy one get one free, how the heck could I resist??)

Good Family Terry Gamble
Female Trouble Antonya Nelson
Always the Sun Neil Cross
Who I Was Supposed To Be Susan Perabo
The Broken Places Susan Perabo
Head Case Dennis Cass
The Great Indoors Sabine Durrant
Good Things Mia King
Bodies Jed Mercurio
The Curing Season Leslie Wells
His Mother's Son Cal Emmons
Genealogy Maud Casey
Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes Patricia Highsmith
Found In The Street Patricia Highsmith
Betrayal Clare Francis

wwweeeeeee!

Time for that trip to Menards for additional shelving.

I got home from a loooong wait on a freezing platform with no shelter to speak of to find that a certain Thingamabrarian called cameling had sent me a prezzie!

The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol in one of those lovely Everyman's Library editions. Thanks! It's PERFECT for a coooooooold winters' night and a Scotch.

While in the city for my RL book circle, I sidled in to a large bookstore (the Strand) and got several books:

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery--most of the way finished during the platform-stranding and subsequent train ride home, adding to the chorus of praise and urging all to rush out an buy a copy immediately!
Monsieur by Lawrence Durrell--Provence, Christmas and the Devil. Well, who could resist?
a replacement copy of The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin, the first mystery in a series set in 1830s Constantinople with a eunuch as the sleuth. I have the second one, The Snake Stone, still unread. Loved the first, so will now re-read.

I'm coming down with a cold, so I think I will curl up with a book and a hot rum this evening. Received the following from Chapter's today, Carved In Bone by Jefferson Bass, In The Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming, An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor, Walk By Faith by Rosanne Bittner, and The Dead Place by Rebecca Drake.

i've been busy; got nine books for nine euro yesterday, they are
death in venice by Thomas Mann,
in a country of mothers, Music for torching, Jack & the end of Alice all by A. M. Homes,
the uninvited by Geling Yan,
the strings are false by Louis MacNeice,
Lock 14 by Georges Simenon and
old school by Tobias Wolff

and then from charity shops today i picked up...
Yeats is Dead by various irish writers,
The feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa,
Self by Yann Martel
the buddha of suburbia by hanif kureishi
and
Transmission by Hari Kunzru.

well, i'm set until monday when a BIG amazon package should arrive.

I just found the other two books I added the other day they are listed below:

Skipping Christmas by John Grisham
Just Desserts by Barbara Bretton

Now Kidzdoc I live near Philly and I don't know of any independent bookstores around the area either. I will ask around and see if anyone knows of any.

Received my final 2008 bookcloseouts.com order today:

Voices from Silence
Love in a Torn Land
No Ordinary Time
A Crime so Monstrous
My Name Is Light
The American Home Front: 1941-1942 by Alistair Cooke
Bitter Fruit
Ancestor Stones
Coal Black Horse

and as if that weren't enough, I hit B&N and got the following:

Someone Knows My Name
Brother I'm Dying

A BookMooch from Portugal:
On the Eve by Ivan Turgenev

From AudioToGo:
Cold Service by Robert B. Parker

From Bookmooch:
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. This is my first by this author. I've heard such good things about him!

Well, my long, sad story is resolving itself, however quirky the process may be. I heard nothing back from Barny Noble, but, going out for my walk this afternoon, I stumbled across a box from him on my front porch. I looked inside and it was both volumes of The Oxford History of English Lexicography. I put it inside and went for my walk.

I'm going to have to find out whether they want the one volume they already sent me back. I'm going to have to see whether my credit card account gets credited the discount I'm supposed to get. They sent it UPS 2ND DAY AIR rather than by mail, but it did get here promptly.

Now I can celebrate my birthday.

mckait and richard, thank you for your kind thoughts.

Robert

A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs came home from the library today to be read for one of my book clubs.

I'd just like to point out that none of this was my fault. I just spent a couple of days in London where a good LT friend (you know who you are!) showed me around some of his favourite 2nd-hand book shops. Then he held a gun to my head (I may have imagined that bit) and MADE me buy:

Fire Wife by Tinling Choong
Up a Tree in the Park at Night With a Hedgehog by P Robert Smith (well, who could resist a title like that?)
The Birthday Party
The Nether World
Love In a Blue Time
Corpsing
The Mysteries of Glass
Eating Naked
The Legend of Redenta Tiria
The Two Deaths of Senora Puccini
Lands of Glass by Alessandro Baricco
The Heron
The Dolphin People
and Ocean Sea.

Doctor Who, The Story of Martha was a much-appreciated gift. And then I got home to find that The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and Revolutionary Road had both appeared while I was away.

booksloth--of course it wasn't your fault--its never our fault when we go into a bookstore and inadvertently have books jumping into our homes w/o warning. :)

I've gotten The Mammoth Book of Sorcerers' Tales edited by Mike Ashley and The Blood Spilt by Åsa Larsson.

A mooch of The Wedding Officer arrived today, and I also managed to pick up A Civil Contract, Friday's Child and Cranford at a charity shop. That's two old favourites to re-read (the Georgette Heyers) and two new books to read for the first time.

(Two steps closer to a complete set of Heyers, too. Only about five more to go.)

you Porchy my sweet friend are an evil enabler.

BOGO???!!!

sheesh! there is no way to resist that.

Richardear... I am awaiting my copy of Hedgehog.. thanks to you.

An ARC of Walter Mosley's upcoming THE LONG FALL...a Coup! a Coup! that...

oh and mckait we are all Enablers here...evil or otherwise....LOL!!!

;-p

"........hi, my name is Porchy, and I am a biblioholic"............

I had The Safety of Objects delivered bright and early this morning.

I'm just glad my son isn't coming in with a crateful of books for a while - he's living at home right now, but I have rediscovered the library and new books from fave authors are all coming out at the same time!! Can't keep up with that and still try and get books off my own shelves.

I am alternating between Essential Rumi and Abhorsen and hope to get back to Passing of the Armies next week. I only have 8 more on my 50 Challenge to go and then I start a 100 plus the 999. Are there any other Challenges I can get into?

2 mooches in this morning:

Forty Words for Sorrow by Giles Blunt
and
The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes

Two impulse Amazon buys both books of letters.

The Mitfords - letters between six sisters - ed Charlotte Mosley

The Spy in the bookshop - John Saumarez Smith ED - (the follow up book of letters to The Bookshop at 10 Curzon Street)

I am working my way through the book bags. This latest batch I also got last week.

From Barnes & Noble:

Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich
A book in the Between the Numbers, Stephanie Plum series. This one looks like it is set around St. Patrick's Day, and involves Stephanie in Atlantic City, a leprechaun, the mysterious Diesel, mob money, and Grandma.

The Vampire Agent by Patricia Rosemoor and Marc Padletti
2nd book in the Annals of Alchemy and Blood series.
SF/Horror about agents who are tracking and trying to eradicate vampires.

The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen
A RL book group book.
It is set in the Pacific Northwest and is the story of a town that quarantines itself during the great Flu epidemic during WWI. A sick soldier appears outside the town seeking help.

Bone Rattler by Eliot Pattison
a book set in Colonial America follows a group of Scottish convicts being shipped to the US. One ends up in New York, on a Lord's estate. Deals with the old world, new world, Indians, and the French & Indian war.

Love his Tibetan mystery series, hope this is as good.

Tracing the Shadow by Sara Ash
fantasy about competing kingdoms, war, religion, and revenge. First book in the Alchymist's Legacy series.

A Sword From Red Ice by J.V. Jones
The 3rd book in the Sword of Shadows series.
Epic Fantasy about good vs evil, fate of nations. Sigh .. I thought this would be the end, but there are going to be 2 more.

From BJs Warehouse

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Story of wacky people who live in a Paris apartment building. Saw a lot of talk about it on LT, and saw it at BJs, so I picked it up.

The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
Historical fiction about Florence, and the Mughal capital in the East. Says it is also magical realism. Set during the Renaissance.

From Building 19 - who knew they had books. The one in my town is 1/15.

Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fuller
A history/travel story with the author writing about the real life exploits and consequences of a white soldier ("K") who fought in many of the modern wars in Africa for white supremacy. They travel back to the various battle sites.

Odysseus: A Life by Charles Rowan Beye
an imaginary history/biography about Odysseus from the Trojan War. Using the written text of his life and adventures to construct a picture of who he was as a man.

From Book Mooch

The Day Diana Died by Christopher Andersen
About the death of Diana, and all the issues that make people think her death was something more than an accident.

I just have one more bag from the other night left to do.

I made a quick run into the city (NYC) this afternoon. From Book Culture I bought the following:

The Lemoine Affair, a novella by Marcel Proust
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald, as a small present for my father
A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar: "The greatest novel ever written about Istanbul", according to Orhan Pamuk
The Pillar of Salt by Albert Memmi: "A semi-autobiographical novel about a young boy growing up in French colonized Tunisia. To gain access to privileged French society, he must reject his many identities -- Jew, Arab, and African. But, on the eve of World War II, he is forced to come to terms with his loyalties and his past." (Recommended by avaland.)
Amerika: The Missing Person by Franz Kafka
The Interrogation by Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio: his first novel, which has recently been reissued
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: the new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, which several of us 75ers will be reading this year
The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama by Gwen Ifill

And, from Strand Bookstore I bought:

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Preventive Management of Children with Congenital Anomalies and Syndromes by Golder N. Wilson and W. Carl Cooley

From the library:
Continuous Cables by Melissa Leapman
Hungry Girl by Lisa Lillien
Rotten Reviews by Bill Henderson
Old Filth by Jane Gardam
Fear and Trembling by Amelie Nothomb
Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf

There is no doubt that LT has nearly completely changed/influenced the books that capture my interest.

Richard - so glad you are enjoying The Elegance of the Hedgehog so far!

A book for my sewing room today: 101 Fabulous Fat-Quarter Bags with M'Liss Rae Hawley by M'Liss Rae Hawley.

I am reading the Johnstown Flood 1889

#255

LT has broadened my horizons a bit , too. Great and terrible thing. $$$$

Yes it is good and bad at the same time. I love broadening my horizons too.

My horizons get any broader, I'm gonna need Omar the Tent-Maker to make my clothes.

The local used bookstore is closing. I am SERIOUSLY bummed. He has to move his stock in 3 weeks!! Poor guy. He has no online presence or I'd ask all of y'all to order from him and help him clear out. My cash-only trip there today netted:

The Winter of our Discontent by John Steinbeck for the RL book circle.

One Writer's Beginnings
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty--seeing a pattern here?

Stranger in a Strange Land
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein--hardcovers. Irresistable.

The Beebo Brinker Chronicles by Ann Bannon--a distinguished part of queer culture *chuckle* no really, 50s pulp novels about lesbians. My lesbian grandmas had them lying around. How completely clueless my mother was...she simply refused to know that these two women who lived together for 62 years were, shall we say, intime. Despite the fact they were completely open about it! I knew, forevermore, from tinyhood up!

I need to find a used bookstore near me... Well I went to Borders today to use my coupon. I found some books on sale that I would probably never have looked at on the shelf. I also found a new book I want to read I just had my mind on what I wanted to buy so I passed on it this trip. Hopefully I will remember the name of it next time I am in there. Here is what I picked up today:

Until Forever by Johanna Lindsey (fave romance writer now I just need to start reading the ones I have of hers.)

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (son is reading for school so I bought myself a copy since he has to return his in June)

Watership Down by Richard Adams (another one my son read for school)

The Cloud of Unknowing by Thomas H. Cook

In the Valley of the Shadow: An Elegy to Lancaster County by Randy-Michael Testa

Call me Hope by Gretchen Olson

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

Now I am off to finish reading and then to start a new one. Hopefully....

# 261 - I need to find a used bookstore near me.

----------

Have you thought to look in charity shops and general 2nd hand stores? I do well in those places, and their prices are rock bottom. Do you have a Value Village nearby? I'm always amazed at what I can find there.

Coming into the weekend I had two book coupons and a bunch of errands around town.

Yesterday, I tried to park at the Borders near me, but there were no spaces (it meant I didn't get to Verizon yessterday, too) so I went to the big Borders in town. I didn't find anything that motivated me to spend money.

I went on to the big Barny Noble's a few blocks away and found:

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver: It has been talked about so avidly and widely in these groups that I became convinced that I need to read it.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith: I've been meaning to read this book since my sixth grade teacher mentioned it a very long time ago. It has also been getting good word-of-mouth around these groups. It was within a couple of shelves of Shriver's book. This one, I hope, got the coupon.
The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde: In the humor group, and just about every other group, people talk well about Fforde. Browsing I wasn't willing to buy him at the standard discount but thought the remainder table might be a reduced risk; there he was at the remainder table by the checkout. I have not yet had similar luck with Haruki Murakami.

So today I still had the Borders coupon and still had to talk with Verizon, so after church and Costco, I found parking and left the cheese in the car. Verizon fixed my problem. Back at Borders I found a bunch of boxes of clearance items; I had seen such a pile of boxes in town yesterday and wasted my time on them, so I wasn't sure I should pry into these. I did, however, and found:

The Magnesium Factor by Mildred Seelig: A neurologist a year or two ago said that I needed to take lots of magnesium; she was credible so I've been doing that. Meanwhile I wanted to know more about the matter. Edward R. Hamilton offered this book once upon a time but refunded the purchase price when it was not in stock. I was sure I was going to have to pay full price for it. Hooray.
Good News by Edward Abbey: If I could have been Edward Abbey, I would would have been Edward Abbey.

I still had to spend the coupon; I bought a hardcover that I could have waited for in paperback. I hope to read it before it comes out in paper, and I hope never to see it on the remainder table:

The Triumph of Music by Tim Blanning: What can I say? It is one of the most important subjects.

I have several books that I am reading and a magazine I want to get through, and I want to read the magnesium book and the music book tonight. Otherwise I'm being patient.

Robert

Despite just having had a massive gas bill through and feeling very skint (bloody recession) AND despite having had a royally rubbish night feeling ill last night, I had an appointment to keep in town today and just HAPPENED to drift into one of the charity shops. Well, two, but I hit one last week and there was nothing new of note. In the other one I found a rather nice little Penguin edition of The Great Gatsby and JUST managed to restrain myself from buying a pristine hardback of The Lollipop Shoes by Joanne Harris. I already have it in paperback but it looked so tempting, sitting there on the shelf all glossy and shiny...

It sounds to me as if you deserved that 'Gatsby', if not the Lollipop Shoes as well. There are certain situations that cry out for books - a stinking great gas bill is one of them. Comfort reading.

Haha, yes. Someone after my own heart. I do find myself making so many excuses - 'oh, I've not spent much at all this week - now I can buy a book!' vs. 'well, I've spent this much already, one book won't hurt'... then there's 'it's been an awful week - better buy a book' vs 'God, this week's been amazing! You know what would make it really perfect...?' You get the idea.

elliepotten, I think you should go back for the Lollipop Shoes. I would like to think that I am not the only one replacing perfectly good paperbacks with even better hardbacks.

Get thee behind me Satan! Maybe I'll accidentally fall through the door if I go to town again on Thursday... That said, there are two or three more charity shops that I didn't even go in today, so maybe I should try those first, in case there are even more books I want just waiting for me to escape Mum long enough to squirrel them away in a shopping bag? ;-)

In the mail today the last part of an order came: Hear No Evil by Georgie Hale and True Confessions by Rachel Gibson. I don't know anything about these two books, they were the ones on sale for four dollars each so I thought I would give them a try.

Three literary clubs, all more than 100 years in being, met together and talked books and exchanged books. I was almost last in choosing in the book exchange, but got a good one,Best Stories from New Writers. I like having short stories ready for bedtime reading.

rdurick is a committed book shopper. I have read many of his posts~ any bargain he gets he deserves..

Thank you.

Robert

My husband and I spent a weekend away for a babymoon up in a bucolic little area of Wisconsin. While there, he noticed a bookstore listed in the local guide and asked if I'd like to go (already so well trained!). It was a very cute little shop with quotes on reading and writing handwritten on sheets of paper and pasted on the ends of the bookshelves. They had a deal that you could take one of their ARCs for free with every $25 you spent (an interesting way to get rid of extras when you're not supposed to sell them). We ended up with three full price books:

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend b Reimund Kvideland

And two not-so-new ARCs of books I wouldn't have otherwise picked up:
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Shakespeare: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd

From Barnes and Noble:

Shakespeare Wrote For Money by Nick Hornby
People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck
and The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss (because I liked the cover art).

I received Madame Du Barry: The Wages of Beauty from B&N today.

From AudioToGo:
Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson

From BookMooch:
California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker

Children of the Night by Dan Simmons

I look forward to this one.

>276 hemlokgang:: hemlokgang- I was a big fan of California Girl. I read it a couple years ago. Enjoy!
From a library sale:
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. I have not read any of his fiction in quite awhile. I'm due.
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. Sad to say, I don't think I have read this revered author. Never to late!

Maimonides: The Exceptional Mind by Israel Drazin--an Early Reviewers giftie I wasn't expecting!

It took the mailman several long rings to get me to the door and away from the inaugural festivities!

Maimonides is always worth reading about. I've read a life and works; I have on hand a life and times that I am looking forward to. I have The Guide for the Perplexed here and wonder whether I will ever read it.

I have been reading The Mahabharata with considerable enthusiasm. I found that for Rs200 I could pick up The Penguin Companion to the Mahabharata in India. Not being there I ordered it from New York through Abebooks; it came today.

It looks weaker than I might have hoped but still useful.

Robert

PS the touchstone is red; here's the link to the companion:

http://www.librarything.com/work/7635672/book/40736137

Last week my Uncle gave me The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan. Today, from a fellow LibraryThinger, When We Were Romans by Matthew Kneale, and Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life by Kathleen Norris.

So many good books to read! I'm thankful for a job where it's quiet enough I can get lots of reading done! Last night I finished Between a Rock and a Hard Place and am starting Bitter Sweets tonight.

From two different, but equally wonderful, LTer's: Their Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns and Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Armin

Out in the foodshop and found a book for my cousins birthday. I bought a copy for myself too.
Den hvite liljen (Den vita liljen) by Nemert, Elisabeth. Historic novel from Italy.

My last bag of books:

From Borders:

Graveyard Eyes by David Chacko
Set in modern day Istanbul, Turkey. Start of a mystery series that follows police inspector Onur Levent . I am reading it now, and enjoying it. Very good sense of place, much better than the other series set here.

From Barnes & Noble:

The Glass Books of The Dream Eaters, Volume One by Gordon Dahlquist
A SF/F Steampunk type of book. Apparently the HC was over 700 pages and in the US they have split it into 2 trade paperback books. Volume two is supposed to be out next month I think.

The next 2 were inspired by Tag Watch on LT

Brief Gaudy Hour by Margaret Campbell Barnes
and The Concubine by Norah Lofts

both are historical fiction, and older works recently republished. They are about Anne Boleyn, the second doomed wife of Henry VIII, and mother of Elizabeth I.

I have read My Lady of Cleves by Barnes, in the original publication (it was my mother's ) and enjoyed it.

I also read and enjoyed Silver Nutmeg by Norah Lofts, another oldie from Mom, about the Spice Islands in the Dutch West Indies, and a rebellion against the European settlers.

Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
For a RL book group. Can't say I am thrilled, didn't like the movie. Seemed to be about ethnic self-indulgence: loud, drunk, violent.

#285 Clear your mind of all those thoughts - Zorba is actually a great book once you get into it.

And my ER copy of The Hidden by Tobias Hill arived today - just to give some hope to everyone else who is waiting for it.

Another day, another town, another set of inviting charity shops full of cheap books... Actually I was quite restrained - Crazy as Chocolate by Elisabeth Hyde - which sounded quite good and I know The Abortionist's Daughter is still in my TBR pile. And Addition by Toni Jordan, which I fancied reading, but with the mixed reviews didn't want to buy it new at full price.

Okay...I feel guilty...the Salvation Armani had a sale and I bought 5 books for $3. That is simply too cheap for hardcovers. So I made the other $2 a donation.

And it's STILL cheap for 5 hardcovers in good condition.

The Tricking of Freya from vine.

You know, seeing how many books we've managed to amass between us in less than a month, it suddenly becomes clear who's buoying up the entire world's book business and quietly keeping those cynics and (worse?) electronic reader things in their places. Long live LibraryThingers!

I need to go to our Goodwill store to see what books they have there.

I agree elliepotten!!!

From Bookmooch (where I'm not getting much activity lately, talk about a stand-still!!)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Yes, I have not got to this yet! Now that I do, where will I fit it in. Oh, boy!

From BookMooch:
The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner
Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin

From Audible:
Touchstone by Laurie R. King
Bones by Jonathan Kellerman
The Turn of the Screw by henry James
Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell
The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham

Earlier post by me bereft of titles, foolish old man.

Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra--India fascinates me.

The Mission Song by John le Carré--Catholic missionary's bastard raised in secret becomes shady figure. Good stuff, I wager.

The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks--brothers with a secret legacy protected by a wowman who tries to avoid her destiny. Sounded like a nice switcheroo from the usual gender roles.

Timeline by Michael Crichton--29 cents. Hardcover. Why the hell not.

The Mascot: Unraveling the Mystery of My Jewish Father's Nazi Boyhood by Mark Kurzem--small Jewish boy survives Nazi pogrom and actually WWII by becoming the personal mascot of a Nazi regiment. NON-fiction, if you can imagine. Too weird to pass up, even at 99 cents.

Yesterday I made the mistake of wandering into a secondhand bookstore and somehow ended up leaving with two new books! I bought People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks and Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult. Neither of them is a recent release, I know, but I've never read them! I'm halfway through People of the Book and am really enjoying it. It's strangely compelling, despite the fact that its main topics aren't usually of interest to me (Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, Judaism).

oh do let me know about The Traveler RD... I have looked at that one many times. I await your verdict.

I enjoyed Timeline. Not great literature, but fun, interesting and I am glad I read it.

> 294: richard- I read Sacred Games about two years ago. It was a good book, Chandra is a promising writer but it also had it's imperfections, over-length was my main concern. A good editor would have came in handy. He is an author to watch and I hope you enjoy it!

People of Librarything, now that we're all friends and bibliophiles united you can stop calling me 'elliepotten' and just stick with Ellie. Kind of like when you're at school and you don't want the teachers using your full name all the time because it sounds weird...

Anyway, since Monday I've bought books on three days out of four, and today it was back to the ORIGINAL town (my nearest one) and into the remaining charity shops that I didn't hit last time, bar one because I got sidetracked trying on T-shirts. I bought Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain from the Red Cross, and a new-looking if slightly shelf-worn copy of The River King by Alice Hoffman from Help the Aged. Mum did give me 'The Look' a couple of times, but I prevailed! Ahahahaha!

Got a very much belated birthday gift in the mail yesterday - 2-at-a-Time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oakes.

Last night I finally received the copy of Black Sun Silver Moon Volume 2 I ordered the day after Christmas online. I was beginning to think it would never get here!

Also planning on taking a run to the bookstore up the street and picking up my special order for Lords of Misrule by Rachel Caine.

>296 mckait: mckait, from a 20pp dip last night, The Traveler is 75% likely to survive the Pearl Rule. Greatness it possesseth not. A cool idea, it gots in spades.

>297 msf59: msf, Sacred Games also got a dip last night. It is a good sign that I kept mentally editing the book to get some words out. It means I like what the author's saying enough to engage that hard. I give it 70% likelihood of surviving the Pearl Rule.

>298 elliepotten: Ellie, ooo! First names and everything! ;-)

Now you're not allowing mum's stink eye to affect your book-buying! You ARE Helping the Aged and the Red Cross, after all!

PS--since this is post #301, I figured it was time for a new thread...so it's over here for your use and delectation.

From Audible:
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
The Hour I First Believed: A Novel by Wally Lamb

In addition to my forgoing post (300) I additionally received a couple via BookMooch, Steal the Dragon by Patricia Briggs and Lord of Fire by Gaelen Foley.

A People's Guide to Active Back Care and Should I Have Spinal Surgery, both published by my pet charity BackCare. Not the most fun reading I ever get but a book's a book all the same, eh?

ellie--I agree we are all keeping the economy going w/ our book purchases. I am astonished to say I have purchased since November like 25 books (bad Momom).

Richard--I have Sacred Games in my TBR pile-will be interested in your thoughts when finished.

Psst! Yoo hoo! We're over here now!