What Books Came Into Your Home Today? - JUNE 2008

Are your bookcases bulging? Are you using stacks of books for end tables? Do you sneak your new purchases in the back door? You're in the right place here!

Tell us what you bought or mooched or received today!

OK, it's official. June is going to be a 'for every book that comes in two have to go out' month. I just pulled 18 books for trading material. So my limit for books coming home with me tomorrow is 9. If I exceed that I have promised myself I will chop off one of my pinky fingers with a hatchet. If I don't stay tough with myself, I have calculated that I'll have to move onto the back porch on Aug. 17th because that's when my cubic volume of living space will all be taken up by books.

Well, that sounds a bit extreme! Please don't chop off a pinky.

Well, most of my books are currently in storage, which only makes it more tempting to buy more. Which might explain why I picked up four today, even though I really wasn't planning to.

House of Leaves - I had been hoping to get a used copy for ages.
Development as Freedom - I had been meaning to read this for ages, and since my local library doesn't have a copy.
America (The Book) - C'mon, who can pass up Jon Stewart?
Shadowland - Been meaning to check out Straub for a while, and it was on my library's $1 cart.

America was banned in some places. Apparently, the thought of putting Supreme Court justices on naked bodies doesn't appeal to everyone...

Hm, the Supreme Court making a really poor 2000 election decision doesn't appeal to everyone either.

#4 , what a coincidence to see Development as Freedom being mentioned here of all days. after almost 8 years since i bought my copy (yes, soon as it was published) and reading it on and off without actually finishing the entire book leaving it in a state of semi-abandonment for the last 4 years (shame on me), i happened to pick it up again this morning hoping to get through the end this time! it was a random pick among my non-technical economics books, but thought it rather timely -- i was wondering how his framework holds out, placed in the context of today's oil and food crisis in an even more integrated global economy.

would be great if u can share your thoughts on the book...

I downloaded Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth from LibriVox today. (It can be found here.)

hmm. Time travellers wife by Audrey Niffengger. it is a good read so far but a little weak on plot.

I cannot believe it's June already...

#2VisibleGhost: I'm with you on the "two gotta go out for each one that comes in." I don't have a back porch to move to, so I'll just have to throw a blankie over some books. Seriously, though... spare the pinkie... :-D

knsani I've got The Time Traveler's Wife on my TBR pile... I hope it gets better.

I'll be choosing my shortlist based on rank on the BookMooch wishlist, I think... it'll guarantee clearing them out.

The Unitarians were having a yard sale yesterday and they always seem to have the best books, right up there with the Episcopalians. I found Three by Tey, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Nothin' But Good Times Ahead, The Muqaddimah, Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, The Decameron and Halloween Party.

Also, Living Language German complete with the books and tapes for $1.

Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson

I have read positive and negative reviews. But I don't care much what reviewers say -- I would read just about anything Denis Johnson wrote. Come to think of it, I have.

#7 - deebee, I'd be happy to share my thoughts on it. I wasn't sure when I was going to get to it, but I'll start it when I finish the book I'm currently on.

And on a site note, I've downloaded Mathew Lewis' The Monk from babblebooks.com.

#12, scrivners lot: Tree of Smoke's the best thing Johnson's ever written, and if you're any kind of a fan of his, it should only blow you away, just like it did me.

Added to the pile today:

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
My Revolutions by Hari Kunzru
Quantum of Solace by Ian Fleming (a Penguin Modern classic containing the complete James Bond short stories)

Beginner's Irish
Shadow Magic by Cheyenne McCray
The Wizard of London
Danger's Kiss
White Night
Missing Joseph

For my daughter, I bought, New Moon by Stephanie Meyer as she has plowed through Twilight and wants to get them all read before the 4th book comes out.

I had bought 2 books for my mum for mother's day which she has already read and now returned to me for me to read. My mum is a big Jane Austen fan, so I got,

Confessions of a Jane Austen addict by Laurie Viera Rigler and
Me and Mr Darcy by Alexandria Potter

She took them on vacation with her, and one of the other women traveling with her asked if she would like them, my mum asked her if she reads Austen, the woman answered no, so my mum flatly told her, then they are not for you.

Today I got Under the Skin after reading all the recommendations here on LT. I also got Slammerkin because I just love reading about sluts in history, don't ask me why. I had both of these from the library but I know I won't have time to read all fifteen books I checked out. My library only gives me three weeks and one renewal, and I can only renew if no one else wants it. I end up buying many books after reading just a chapter or two from the library book.

I did a not too bright thing today: I decided to see how many books I've bought in the past four months... an average of 9,5 books a month! *gasp*

But since we'll be on vacation this month, I have good hopes I will get a lot of reading done and not much buying.

From PBS: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

I brought home advanced readers from work....The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff and Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian... can't wait to get started.

I got an ARC of J. Scott Savage's Water Keep, the first book in his Farworld series.

BookMooch book arrived: Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow

In from the bookstore:

Jane Fairfax by Joan Aiken
An Assembly Such as This by Pamela Aidan
North by Northanger by Carrie Bebris (off the bargain table!)
Austenland by Shannon Hale (anyone else sensing a theme here?)
Peony in Love by Lisa See (autographed by the author)
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

From Bookcloseouts:
The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier
The Autobiography of Henry VIII by Margaret George
The Book of Small by Emily Carr

And from Bolens, my favorite indie:
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

I borrowed the two McKinley books last year and loved them and the new trade paperback editions are very nice.

Now I'm going to return a pile of books to the library that I haven't even read yet in a last ditch effort to actually read some of the books I've actually bought.

From amazon.com:

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan
Winterbirth by Brian Ruckley
The Android's Dream by John Scalzi
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie
The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie
The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie

Mooched:

Promise Me by Harlan Coben
The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

I'm not supposed to buy more books, but I am utterly powerless against the "bargain books" tables...

The Language of God by Francis Collins
The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

And a box set of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, which WILL NOT be lent out to be lost in the void of books lent and never returned. Ever again.

Another BookMooch: Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

Three books today, all from different places:
Revolt of the Eaglets by Jean Plaidy from BookMooch
Gardens of Water by Alan Drew from a LiterateHousewife via her blog
The Big Eddy Club by David Rose from Literary Ventures Fund

From upthread, I loved The Time Traveler's Wife. I can see how it might take some time to get into it, and to be able to sort out the various timelines, but it is worth the effort.

I also jsut finished The 19th Wife which I got from the ER program here. LOVED IT. Working on my review now.

New books this week:
Bangkok 8 by John Burdett
Voodoo River by Robert Crais

#6 teelgee - I think too many people forget that Bush stole the election in 2000 in FL, and possibly in 2004 in OH. But, I know this is not a political thread....

#9 knsani - I loved The Time Traveler's Wife. Hope it gets better for you.

#26 seitherin - Ah, ha! First time with Agatha Christie or a fan?

Today I finished a trashy vampire book (left unnamed to protect my image as a serious reader) and went to K-Mart at lunch to have SOMETHING TO READ during the rest of lunchtime (talk about a biblioemergency!) and bought a trashy thriller by Anne Stuart called Fire and Ice. Okay, so I'm not always a serious reader.....

Bonanza from the library today:

Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen (audio)

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship by Alice Munro (stories)

A Municipal Mother (for research, about America's first policewoman)

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan -- really looking forward to this one.

I also got a gift download from audible.com of Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

Getting ready for recuperation from carpal tunnel surgery tomorrow, have my stacks of books and audio handy!

Just arrived from an online seller:

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Eighth Annual Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

YAY!! Happiness!! =D

Via BookMooch this past Monday I received Sexy by Joyce Carol Oates.

Yesterday via Amazon I recieved Feast of Fools by Rachel Caine and Into this World We're Thrown by Mark Kendrick.

Today I think I'll probably receive the other part of my Amazon shipment of Yurara volume 5 since it was supposedly shipped before the one I got yesterday.

Yay! *doin' the HaPpY DaNCe!* I got six books in the mail today! It was like Christmas
:-D

Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos
Two for the Dough and Three to Get Deadly, both by Janet Evanovich
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
Dispatch by Bentley Little

and

Voice of Our Shadow by Jonathan Carroll (all Carroll's books are out of print, according to my Waldenbooks store. I saw something today that says he's got a new one coming out in October... I'll have to look into that...)

You know, I'm going to blame this thread for the fact that I'm trying to justify going to the bookstore and buying four new hardcovers I can't afford and really don't need, just because I want to post something here.

Also, I really do need those books.

ellevee, I always need books no matter how broke I am! I want 2 more hardcovers and I'm trying to justify buying them and how I will get the cash!

# 36 & 37
ellevee and momom248 - No kidding. Maybe we could have an intervention thread. For instance, right now I need someone to tell me that really, I DON'T NEED and CAN'T AFFORD to run out and buy The Letters of Noel Coward. Even if it is 34% off at Amazon. And LouisBranning says it is good. My stipend only goes so far. I do need to eat, too, this month.

#37 & 38

Normally I would run out and buy my books, but living at home for economic reasons and being unemployed does not kindly dispose my reading disinclined mother to me lugging home more literature.

I'm going to make a thread about convincing yourself you don't need a book. What should it be called?

I downloaded an MP3 of Jean Lorrain's Viviane this morning from Librivox. I seem to be the only one who has it in any format, which may be why the touchstone isn't working.

36-37 AMEN

and I did post a thread called afraid of bookstores.. but nobody came..lol

I received David Ebershoff's Pasadena today.

I enjoyed the ER book I read by him, The 19th Wife, so much that I went out and mooched this right away.

mckait, what group did you post in?

#38, jfetting: Wow, 34% off on the Noel Coward and you haven't bought it yet??

I brought home A Thousand Splendid Suns from the library today.

#42 I'm glad someone else liked the 19th wife! My favorite ARC so far.

Well, so much for self control. Went to Borders today and bought The Book Of Lost Things, A Dirty Job, and When You Are Engulfed In Flames in exchange for babysitting for my little brother. I feel like I'm back in high school, but yay books!

#43
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=37839

#44 LouisBranning - that's not helping!

#48

Hey, I'm doing good. I've taken out 119 books and brought back 23. Plus I still have $93 in credit on a Hastings card, $89 in credit at one used store and $72 at another one. And I've still got all my digits. I'm too tired to post all the good stuff I've brought home.

My mooched copies arrived today:

Atonement by Ian McEwan
The 6th Lamentation by William Brodrick
Sushi for Beginners by Marian Keyes

Yay, from bookmooch via the Netherlands today:

The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell (no idea if I'll like this - anyone?)
Middlesex
and Gellhorn: a Twentieth Century Life about Martha Gellhorn.

And then a trip to Parsons, one of my favourite bookshops, for no good reason, but I found Against the Flow by Samuel Brittan and had to buy it...it was on special and is a beautiful hardback! Any other Financial Times readers on here? It looks really interesting. (touchstone not working).

#52, cmt: Durrell's Alexandria Quartet is one of my all-time favorite things. The brilliant Justine tell the very mysterious story from one angle, followed by Balthazar which develops it all a step further, and it's retold yet again in Mountolive, but from a much clearer prespective, and Clea is the dazzling finale to Durrell's masterpiece. I've read them all twice over the years, and just reread Justine again about 2 years ago.

#52 cmt: I loved Middlesex; it's on my top 5 list.

Today I got from BookMooch:
White Noise by Don DeLillo
The Collection by Bentley Little, which are his short stories.

and from PaperBackSwap:
The Freedom Writers Diary

The bookfairy came by yesterday and swatted me on the --ah-- head. I got three books from independent booksellers through Amazon:

My New Mac by Wallace Wang
The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said by Robert Byrne
Book Lust by Nancy Pearl

How could I forget! I got two books the day before yesterday:
When China Ruled the Seas by Louise Levathes
The Ruby Programming Book by David Flanagan and Yukihiro Matsumoro

I won't list the books from the library because I have to give them back.

#46 - I posted a pretty glowing review of The 19th Wife - might be the best book I've read so far this year.

Two free books showed up yesterday for reviewing: The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex by Pagan Kennedy and The Aviary Gate by Katie Hickman. Best thing? They were ARCs, so FREE! Love that.

#38 - I think buying the Noel Coward book while it's on sale is a prudent move, financially. After all, who wants to pay full price?

Yesterday I bought When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris and went to his reading at his first stop on his current book tour. It was amazing!

He was on The Daily Show last night talking about When You Are Engulfed in Flames and how he went to Japan for three months to stop smoking. I may have to run out and buy it myself.

Varielle--Yeah, he mentioned going on the Daily Show the day before. I'll have to read the essay about going to Japan and his rationale behind that one--because everyone smokes there!

My mom won't buy me books so i go to the library 2-3 times a week. I love the library, since i'm a fast reader theres no point in buying books if they just go on a shelf.

Granted the library doesn't have every book:(

Yesterday I bought Quantum Wellness. Not the type of book I normally buy, but I didn't feel like waiting my turn at the library seeing that they haven't got their copy yet and there are already 9 people in line for it.

From BookMooch:
Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
The Inheritance by Louisa May Alcott

Early Reviewer:
The Genizah of Shepher by Tamar Yellin

#57 OMG I am so jealous! I want to see David Sedaris read! And be his best friend... and borrow some money from him for more books.

#63 ellevee: Not to sound to cranky (that's for the other thread), but I actually like David Sedaris *less* after having went to one of his readings. He read from his 'new' book at the time, which was clearly a manuscript in progress, because he would stop to make notes at the places where people laughed and such. I payed to watch him perform, but to help him edit his next book! I was displeased. But, his books are still funny.

I just got The Decameron in the mail today from BookMooch. I'm looking forward to reading it, hopefully before Christmas. My TBR pile has collapse, and I've got to hire a rescue crew and try and rebuild it. That, or just leave the shelf all falling over and pathetic looking. *must read faster*

I got Eats, Shoots and Leaves today via BookMooch. I've been thinking about reading this book for a long time, and I finally decided to mooch it based on LiterateHousewife's recommendation.

I love Amazon.

Shakespeare's Landlord by Charlaine Harris
Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
On Account of Conspicuous Women by Dawn Shamp

A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton

Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark

The Atlantis Blueprint: Unlocking the Ancient Mysteries of a Long-Lost Civilization ... by Colin Wilson

my mooch-i-licious list for today

Blood and Smoke by Stephen King from Audiotogo

I got Period Piece by Gwen Raverat from PBS. One more for the TBR pile, which, as always, grows at an alarming rate.

Used my borders coupon to buy Rumors by Anna Godbersen and also got Madame Bovary while I was there.

I ordered four books from Archipelago Books, "a not-for-profit literary press dedicated to promoting cross-cultural exchange through international literature in translation":

1. My Body and I by Rene Crevel
2. Three Generations by Yom Sang-seop
3. Mandarins by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
4. Autonauts of the Cosmoroute by Julio Cortazar

Library Sale Rack:

Beloved-Toni Morrison

Mossflower-Brain Jacques

The Green Berets-Robin Moore

Mr. And Mrs. Cugat-Isabel Scott Rorick

The Ultimate Dracula-Collected Works

The Wolf's Hour-Robert R. McCammon

The Sisterhood-Florence Stenvenson

The Last Vampire-Whitley Streiber

#63 Ellevee--you should check out what cities he'll be going to on the book tour. He is such a gracious author (check out my description of my experience on the "me talk pretty" group messageboard. (I don't know how to add links here. If anyone knows, I'd appreciate the tutorial!)

#64 Scaifea--that's too bad about your experience. He read for over an hour and arrived 1 1/2 hours early to start signing books. He chatted with each fan he met. B&N said he was their only author to do so.

Oh, man. It's employee appreciation week at work, so I get an extra discount. Went a little crazy, and it's only the first day! I brought home...

New Moon (the only one I bought that I've already read)
The Once and Future King
Elantris
A Clash of Kings
A Feast for Crows
A Storm of Swords
Kushiel's Dart
The Valley of Horses
The Mammoth Hunters

I've been on an epic novel kick lately, apparently, hehe.

Away by Amy Bloom

Ah, library book sales. Is there any other way that I can feel so supportive of my community while indulging a questionable compulsion? (Is there? That would be neat.)

Harvest Home
Tales of the Mysterious and Macabre by Algernon Blackwood
Best Supernatural Stories of H.P. Lovecraft

(And tomorrow I'm probably going back for the 1/2 off sale.)

I am at the National Conference for Media Reform where a few book-signings have been scheduled. I just had a great conversation with Deepa Fernandes and now have a signed copy of Targeted: Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration. I expect to pick up a few more books before the conference ends; Bill Moyers is signing tomorrow morning!

Today my husband was home from work and caught two packages for me. "It's like Christmas." If he only knew! Ministry of Special Cases I read last summer and really wanted to own to read again. Stoner was recommended by so many here on LT that I had to find out why. I recently realized, thanks to LT, that after years of teaching Lord of the Flies that I did not own a copy. Of course I had to rectify that.

>78 sisaruus: at first I thought you said Bill Moyers is singing tomorrow... I didn't know he was a singer! LOL. Sounds like a great conference. I adore B.Moyers and the work he's doing.

From Amazon (for the nursery library):
Just So Stories
The Courage of Sarah Noble

From my garage sale expedition:
My First Book of Tractors (also for the nursery)
The Year of Magical Thinking (for me!)

From PBS I got The Color Purple by Alice Walker

I also got two ARCs today:

I, Robot by Howard Smith I plan to read Asimov's I Robot first

Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi, which I don't even remember requesting.

From BOMC2 I got The Last Colony by John Scalzi. It will be my next read after finishing with Book Lust.

The Once and Future King is a mnay times read favorite of mine...

From Bookmooch The River of Doubt, Restoration and The Good Soldier. From B&N Zhou Enlai The Last Perfect Revolutionary.

Well, I've decided from now on that if I want a book enough to buy it, I want it enough to buy in hardcover. This has actually been quite helpful, because it means that my last trip to the bookstore only yielded two purchases: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and The Sandman: Endless Nights, both in beautiful hardcovers.

From the library
Fixing Climate by Broeker & Kunzig
The end of the World as we knew itRobert Goolrick
The West's Last chance Tony Blankley
FUBAR: America's right wing nightmare Seder & Sherrill
The hero's Walk Anita Badami
The Doctor's daughter Hilma Wolitzer
Undue Influence Anita Brookner
The lay of the land Richard Ford

Don Quixote U.S.A.--Richard Powell
A freebie.

#82 thekoolaidmom - me too! It just showed up today and I don't remember requesting it. I checked through my posts and didn't see anything to jog my memory about requesting it somewhere. I'm glad there's somebody else in the same boat!

#86, I too have been buying more hardcovers these days. I started when I realized that I could buy used hardcovers on Amazon for cheaper than paperbacks, often even used paperbacks.

Today I got A Bend in the River, because I promised myself I would after not being able to finish the library book in time, and An Artist of the Floating World, because so many people on LT have been talking about it.

I browsed in 10,000 (100,000?) books at Chicago's Printers Row Book Fair today, but came home with just two: Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott and Taft by Ann Patchett.

Oh, plus Issue 22 of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern AND a year's subscription. How did I not know about this -- a literary journal where each issue is presented in a format more original than the last? Issue 22 looks like a regular book but, inside, is actually three separate perfect-bound booklets, each attached (by magnets hidden in the spines) to the outer rigid cover.

The mailman delivered John Scalzi's The Last Colony. It was a quick and enjoyable read, the last of trilogy of very good science fiction stories.

From the Unitarian Church's Yard Sale:
For Me - This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff, Summer People by Brian Groh, and Carpe Demon by Julie Kenner. For the little Guy: Five Little Monkeys and Miffy at the Gallery.

From PBS:
Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss

A big box of half price books came in the mail today from the Scientific American Book Club.

Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang by Neil Turok and Paul J. Steinhart
Irreligion by John Allen Paulos
Guesstimation by Lawrence Weinstein and John A. Adam
How Mathematicians Think by William Byers
Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness editted by Philip David Zelazo, Morris Moscovitch, and Evan Thompson
Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer
How Round is Your Circle? by John Bryant and Chris Sangwin
Impossible? Surprising Solutions to Counterintuitive Conundrums by Julian Havil
Best of the Brain from Scientific American edited by Floyd E. Bloom, M.D.
The Poincare Conjecture by Donal O'Shea
Why Choose this Book by Read Montague
The Wraparound Universe by Jean-Pierre Luminet
The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker

I want to read them all tonight, but I know that I may never get around to some of them.

Robert

Everything seems to show up at once:
i, Robot by Howard S. Smith
The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh by David Damrosch
Another Thing to Fall by Laura Lippman
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Went to Borders to buy Father's Day gifts and left with some books for myself. Didn't need anything but couldn't help myself.

The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
The Last Summer of You & Me by Ann Brashares
What Came Before He Shot Her by Elizabeth George

Had to kill time today waiting for new eye glasses to be made, so of course I headed to the nearby B&N (where I had a coupon). Got The Cellist of Sarajevo which I'd been eyeing for a week because I just finished Pretty Birds.

The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian, I read it and loved it. I like all of his books. I am waiting till it is a paperback to get Skeletons at the Feast, and can hardly stand the wait. Have you read others of his?

I like The Double Bind too. However, I liked Midwives more. I've also read Transister Radio. They were enjoyable. I think you'd like them if you liked The Double Bind.

This is my weekend of book coupons. Went to Borders today and picked up Year of Wonders because it's much recommended here and because I loved March, and So Brave, Young and Handsome because I loved Peace Like a River and hope this one is as good.

I brought home Gods Behaving Badly from the library today.

Let's see... So far this month (and waiting for me at my summer home) are

The Lost Duke of Wyndham by Julia Quinn
Beware a Scot's Revenge by Sabrina Jeffries
Princess Ben by Catherine Murdock
Real Murders by Charlaine Harris
The Julius House by Charlaine Harris
A Bone to Pick by Charlaine Harris
Three Bedrooms, One Corpse by Charlaine Harris
The Killing of Worlds by Scott Westerfeld
Valor's Trial by Tanya Huff
A Feast of Fools by Rachel Caine
Quicksand by Iris Johansen
Blue Smoke and Murder by Elizabeth Lowell
Kushiel's Mercy by Jacqueline Carey
A Distant Magic by Mary Jo Putney
Dragon's Keep by Janet Lee Carey

Those should keep me busy in June!!

#102 kmartin802
I thought Princess Ben looked interesting; I'd like to know what you think of it!

Have gotten this week:

"Porto Bella Gold" by A.D. Howden Smith (the idea of a preqal to Stevenson's Treasure Island writen 50 odd years later is just to tempting to pass up)
The Bedford Incident by Mark Rascovich
Under Enemy Colors by S. Thomas Russell
Captain Bligh and Mister Christian by Richard Hough
Also two audiobooks for the car from Tantor media;
The Gods of Mars and the Warlaord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

I had a Barnes and Noble coupon and a Borders coupon in my pocket so I headed to town after church.

I couldn't find a full price book at Borders that I was willing to give them money for, so I got a thirty per cent discount on a DVD of Handel's Giulio Cesare with the marvelous Danielle Deniese in the Cleopatra role. I also got The Atlas of Atlases for $2.97.

Over at Barny Noble's I used my coupon on Bizarre Buildings and also got:

The Adventures of Tintin, volume 1
Tintin and the Secret of Literature
Why Buildings Stand Up
Why Buildings Fall Down and
A New Kind of Science

I'll probably get into the Tintin right away.

Robert

BookMooch copy of An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

Over the weekend, I picked up:

Someone Comes to Town Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow
Hell to Pay by George Pelecanos
Every Dead Thing by John Connolly
Whispering Nickel Idols by Glen Cook
Goblin War by Jim C. Hines
Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks
Odds Against by Dick Francis

And for the sentimental favorite shelf:

Silverthorn by Ramond E. Fiest
A Darkness at Sethanon by Raymond E. Fiest

In from the library:
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever

An aside - the touchstones for Bowles and Cheever work, but not Austen's?? Really?

jfetting: TS worked for my Austen... dunno why your's didn't...

From BookMooch today:

The Summoning by Bentley Little Very creepy cover!!
The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand I will NOT be sharing this one! :-))
The Cell by Stephen King I just finished Lisey's Story Saturday, and am ready to read this!
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx saw the movie, didn't know it was a book, too... sad story.

BookMooch was good to me today and I received five books in the mail:

One Wish by Linda Lael Miller
The Bone Doll's Twin by Lynn Flewelling
Enemy Mind by Maggie Shayne
and
The Seduction of an Unknown Lady by Samantha James

I got three books in the mail today, all snagged by me or someone else from ER
My Father's Paradise (my May snag)
Love Marriage (swapping books w/ fyrefly98)
Victor Kugler (borrowing from Kegsoccer)

From Half-Price clearance -
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy and The Known World by Edward P. Jones

From the library -
Fugitive Denim by Rachel Snyder and
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

From PBS I received three Julie Garwood books in the mail:

Rebellious Desire
The Prize
Saving Grace

From BookMooch: The Zahir by Paulo Coelho

Received a new ER book Between Here and April by Deborah Copaken Kogan.

ARC from Bloomsbury - The Aviary Gate by Katie Hickman.
The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman by Nancy Marie Brown for bookclub

Received in the mail from a mysterious friend (who I'm sure hangs out at LT): In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Withcraft Crisis of 1692. (Thanks, again!)

I got no new books today, and may not for a while, but I got four new bookcases. Everything looks so neat! Life is beautiful. If you are in the market, as I know you all are, Staples has their house brand shelves half price at the moment. Go, go, go!

From Bookmooch Every Book Its Reader. From Amazon Dolphins Under My Bed a recommendation from LT readers, bought as a birthday gift for my boss who wants to retire to spend her days diving and hanging out with dolphins and sea turtles.

From Bookmooch Jonathan Livingston Seagull

From Shelf Awareness, an ARC called White Mary (no touchstones for it, yet.)

From BookMooch: The House by Bentley Little

Another 4 in the mail today.

1 ARC that I forgot I requested:
Zoe's Tale

3 from BookMooch from a generous LTer:
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
The Wednesday Sisters
Farewell My Queen

In from the library;
Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
1984 by George Orwell
Saturday by Ian McEwan

Picked up Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time at my local library today.

Mooched Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg.

The Distinguished Guest by Sue Miller

I received in the mail today from Amazon 1000 Places to See Before you Die.

from a generous fellow LT'er, Danse Macabre by Stephen King. :-D Thankya!

I went to Barnes & Noble to pick up a gift for a friend and nearly made it out the door before spotting In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant on the bargain table.

Two BookMooch books arrived via the USPS:

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott

Two books from BookMooch (thanks scaifea!) - The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, and three plays by Sophocles.

And 2 more accidental books from Parsons: the Trojan War by Barry Strauss (wrong touchstone coming up) and The Berlin Wall by Frederick Taylor (argh, another wrong touchstone...).

Home from yet another trip to the library with;

How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James
The Invisible Wall by Harry Bernstein

I picked up two books on lunch. Both had been on my wishlist for a while.

* Chretien de Troyes' Arthurian Romances

* Judge Sewall's Apology: The Salem Witch Trials and the Forming of an American Conscience, by Richard Francis

Just recieved The Sceptred Isle Club and The Blood of the Covenantby Brent Monaham from E-bay

Mooched The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima. Fascinating bio of the famous
Japanese writer who planned his own death via hara-kiri.

I received The Penelopiad today from PBS in the mail, as well as a lot of travel books from Amazon such as

1000 Places to See Before You Die: USA and Canada, Scenic Highways and Byways and The Most Scenic Drives in America.

Just got an ER copy of Loose Girl and brought home Time After Time which I am borrowing from a friend.

I received and ARC of White Mary by Kira Salak.

From BookMooch today:

Little, Big by John Crowley I've been dying to read this... it's an LT inspired book.
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama Say what you will, I really like Obama, and plan to vote for him. :-p

and from PBS:
Bentley Little's Dominion creepy creepy!

From bookmooch today:
The Indian Lawyer by James Welch
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller (on recommendation of an LTer)
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman

Also got an ARC:
The White Mary: A Novel by Kira Salak

Earlier this week, I got new bookshelves and I had to consolidate and even weed out some. I took a whole crate to Half Price Books and got a whopping $14. Of course, I turned right around and bought: A Hero of Our Time, Fingersmith, and Vernon God Little. Now I have to figure out what to do with them as all my new shelves are completely full!

You will LOVE Ex Libris.

Among others, I have been selecting and buying the new VINTAGE CLASSIC books from Random House.

The first was Don Quixote: a new translation -highly revered- by Edith Grossman. Looking forward to tucking into that because I am currently reading Umberto Eco's The Island of The Day Before, and Don Quioxte is one of the first great fantastical modern novels. I'm a Terry Gilliam fan and have been meaning to buy the novel as soon as I heard he was to film it.

Crime & Punishment: another new translation and forward.

The Sea, The Sea: Iris Murdoch's classic.

I haven't read any of these authors and am just venturing into Classics. I can't wait to start reading them.

Teelgee, I'm hoping so. I can't remember anything specific I've heard about it, but I've definitely heard good things.

The Zookeeper's Wife - picked up from the library.

I want to by all the books of Alexander McCall Smith. I came home with two new books. I found out I had bought them earlier, but with other covers.
Back to the bookstore. They had three books sales for the price of two. I had all the McCall Smith they had so I came home with: Three books for the two I gave the bookstore back.

Sepulchre, by Kate Mosse
Alexandria Link, by Steve Berry and
The Ghost, by Robert Harris

Today I picked up Interview with the Vampire, Wuthering Heights and Black Dahlia.

Today I bought:
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Clay by Michael Chabon
Dragon And The George by Gordon R. Dickson
Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne by David Starkey
Days of the French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert
Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books by Aaron Lansky
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Warrior Queens by Antonia Fraser
The Sandman: The Doll's House by Neil Gaiman
Quidditch Through the Ages by J.K. Rowling

I liberated lots of good stuff from Goodwill:

My Ishmael
Mary Reilly
Prodigal Summer
The History of Love
When the Emperor Was Divine
Amy and Isabelle
The Matriarch

Today I got two books:

from BM- Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas
and from PBS- The Ingnored by Bentley Little.

Dark Sister by Graham Joyce

Not In Kansas Anymore: A Curious Tale of
How Magic Is Transforming America by Christine Wicker

Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane

While I Was Gone by Sue Miller

On the Run by Iris Johansen
Final Target by Iris Johansen

On the Street Where You Live: A Novel by Mary Higgins Clark
I Heard That Song Before: A Novel by Mary Higgins Clark

some mooched some 2nd had purchases

149: teelgee

Enjoyed Prodigal Summer a lot.. Loved My Ishmael!

The postman came while I was gone and left a fair-size package. It had four books from Edward R. Hamilton:

The Golden Lotus by Bret Norton
The Book of Snobs by William Makepeace Thackeray
The Collected What If? by Robert Cowley
Defining the World by Henry Hitchings

edited to put in the book I left out

>149 teelgee:
teelgee, I love When the Emperor Was Divine. I just reviewed it on my blog, actually.

>152 mckait: mckait: I've read both of these before. Prodigal Summer is for a book group; I did not like it when I read it the first time even though I love all of Kingsolver's other books; this one just didn't do it for me. I'm hoping a second read will change my view.

My Ishmael and Ishmael are two of my alltime favorites; I've spotted this copy for the last few months and finally decided I needed to have it on my bookshelf. I plan to read both of them again consecutively in the not too distant future.

Devourer - I've heard great things about Emperor from lots of people, so I'm looking forward to it greatly! Reading it next month for an Orange Prize group read. I'll go peek at your blog again!

Stopped after dinner at Half Price Books looking for a book for someone else. I didn't find it so instead I came home with Barbara Kingsolver's Pigs in Heaven and Victorian Bennett's Portrait of an Unknown Woman.

Picked up The Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubus III at Costco today. Resisted buying more, though sorely tempted.

I'm new to this thread. What is BookMooch? Is it a book site? Info requested, please.

Hello, I'm Rachel and I'm a bookaholic. (I can hear you all now, saying, "Hello, Rachel.") It's time that we bookaholics received the societal recognition that other addicts have gotten. I too have bulging bookcases (even squeezed into my clothes closets and bathroom) and a limited budget. I too have "squandered" money on my hopeless addiction that should have gone to my credit card bill. I too have convinced my children that a new book was even more fun than a Bratz doll, so I could sneak into the little darlings' rooms later for a quick, clandestine read-through.

I've tried all the self-help strategies, but I am powerless in the face of my addiction. Just yesterday, while prowling Goodwill for summer clothing, I came across an entire wall of used books. And, gasp, my good intentions went right out the window. Before I could stop myself I had acquired two Elizabeth Peters, a Robert B. Parker, some illustrated science books (all in hardback, for a mere 99 cents each) and an armful of paperbacks (just 59 cents a piece). I am weak, I know. Even my local library is too much of a temptation (curse the Friends of the Library on-site bookstores and their 50% off sales!).

My local library has installed automatic check-out machines -- but I've been accused of overloading the machine's memory. What, I ask you, what is a mere 22 books a week to an automatic check-out? Surely modern computer science should be able to handle more books per person than that!

I bow my head in shameful submission. My department chair (I teach history at a charter high school) has threatened me with dire punishments if I bring one more box of books into my classroom, but I doubt if even job sanctions can help me cure my hopeless addiction.

You'll have to excuse me now. The cat is complaining that there's no room for her on the dining room table, so I'll have to try to shelve those new books I just bought.

Goodwill rocks. Welcome to LT and WAYRN! You're among friends - we are your tribe.

ROFLMAOPMP!!!!!! Rachel, you are hilarious, and I'm with you on most of that! my daughter doesn't by the Book over Bratz idea 22 books a week is nothing! We used to drag home between 20 to 30 books every few days, of course they were mostly kids books.

When my youngest was in Head Start, they had a book buck program: One BookBuck per book read. The BB were redeemed at the two book fairs they held. Mags saved hers up until the end of the school year, and had enough to buy one of each of the close to a hundred titles!

By the way, BookMooch is a book swap site where you list books your willing to mail and get points for it, then you use those points to request a book from another member. It is, in fact, ALL BookMooch's fault that my Mt. TBR had a bookslide the other day. Apparently the shelf has a weight limit...

I had a Borders coupon. I thought about New Sustainable Homes, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Revelation, and any of several volumes of the Oxford History of the United States, but ended up with:

The Religious Case Against Belief by James P. Carse

From the buy one get one half off table I got:

How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman and
New England White by Stephen L. Carter.

When I got home, I found the mailman had delivered, from AbeBooks:

A Saturday Life by Radclyffe Hall

and from Barny Noble's:

I Don't Believe in Atheists by Chris Hedges
A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
The Three Crowns by Stuart A. Cohen
An Infinity of Little Hours by Nancy Klein Maguire
A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander

Book greed! I still have about 90 books on my incomplete wish list.

Robert

#160 rdurick - I LOVED A Thread of Grace and hope you like it too. Just make sure you read something light and fluffy after it.

#158 - Lt is great, and so is bookmooch. But be warned, hours of your life are about to evaporate. There's a very friendly bookmooching group here that you could come over to to get a feel for it. I love the picture on your profile page!

Welcome Rachel! As teelgee said, we ARE your tribe!
I agree also that you are hilarious, and I am glad you found your way here...
by now I assume that you have found
BookMooch and have joined?

161: rdurick Re: Mary Doria Russell She is has never written a bad book. Read The Sparrow and fall in love.. with a book, I promise!

#52 cmt, I read the Gellhorn - fascinating! I'm completely intrigued by her, and am sucking up everything about her I can find.

#158 Rachel: I just finished a book called Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction by Tom Raabe and I laughed aloud through the whole thing. I highly recommend it. For all of us.

Even though we don't have the room.... or the money....I got the following

From the local B & N:
Treasure Island
Oliver Twist
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

(They were having a great sale)

#2--VisibleGhost
Hahahahaha! We moved to our current house because our last one wasn't big enough for all our books! Of course, at that time my husband hadn't started his love affair with teen books, and we really didn't have many books at all, comparatively speaking...
;-)

My latest ARC showed up - White Mary by Kira Salak.

#20--koolaidmom
Have you read Neverwhere yet? One of my favorites from last year's "Real Magic" readings! It has so much stayed with me!

#39--ellevee
Do you not have a good public library at hand? They can be lifesavers! And you don't have to deal with the "oh, no! My house is too small!" issue.

:-)

#77--CarlosMcRey

Oooo--is this Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon? Have you read it yet?? You are in for a treat! Let us know...

I went tagsaling...um, sorry, bit of a regional term, isn't it? I went garage saling the other day and bought three books:

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace

So the number of books I own and haven't read grows as I finish the books that must be returned to the library and request more...but I'll never be without good reading material!

#169 annatapl: No, I haven't read Neverwhere yet, but it's on my shortlist. I'm looking forward to reading it, and it reminds me of Mieville's Un Lun Dun by the descriptions, anyway. Both occur in an alternate, parrallel London.

welcome Rachel! As was said above you are definitely among friends-- we are all like you! That's why we are here!

I picked up two books that have been on on of my TBR lists for years now from the used bookstore.

Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver
A House for Mr. Biswas, V.S. Naipaul

Progress report- 186 books have left my abode this month and 68 have arrived. Pats self on back.

Racheal, you are so going to fit in here.

#174. I really enjoyed Prodigal Summer.

VisibleGhost, you sound like me. I took about 60 books to Half Price Books so that everything would fit into my new bookshelves. Since then, I have found a way to cram in three more and I have the following that I do not have any idea where to put them:
A Thread of Grace, Free Food for Millionaires, and The Boat. Hmm, I do have one more free wall - this looks like it might be a continuing problem.

I have "discovered" the beauty of our downtown library and also discovered a few Thomas B Costain books there.
I brought home The Conquering Family and The Three Edwards. They are fascinating. Of course I want to own everything for myself, so the hunt is on for these.

On a foolishly misguided meander through a B and N B and M I came away with The Official Red Book: a Guide Book of United States Coins 2009.

Robert

Yay! I got Fight Club and Short History of Tractors in the Ukrainian from BookMooch today, and Bentley Little's The Revelation from PBS.

That's one thing nice about Mondays. Since there's no mail on Sunday, I've had to wait the extra day to get my presents! Build up the suspense, see :-D

While on a little holiday this past weekend, I found a delightful bookshop in Comox, BC called Blue Heron Books. I had to support such a great local business, so bought Mercy Among Children, by David Adams Richards and The Cruel Stars at Night, by Kjell Eriksson, both of which come highly recommended.

I was trolling the grocery store for eggs the other day and I picked up a copy of The English Patient for $3.00. Not too shabby.

I got two: one that showed up Saturday and one today:
The New Yorkers by Cathleen Schine
Rules for Saying Goodbye by Katherine Taylor

I was in Disneyland this weekend and kept asking myself all these questions about the history of the park and Walt Disney himself so I picked up a copy of Walt Disney An American Original by Bob Thomas to see if I can learn a little bit more about the happiest place on Earth.

#7 - I finished Development as Freedom which I was pretty impressed with. I'm trying to get my thoughts together enough to write a good review.

#170 - That's the one. It's always exciting to pick up something obscure at a book sale. This'll be my fiirst exposure to Thomas Tryon.

#184
Carlos--I don't think he wrote another quite like Harvest Home Have fun!

Anna, I'd read elsewhere that The Other is supposed to be pretty good as well, though that one may be even harder to find. I think those may be the only horror works he wrote.

A wrong one... I mooched Mother of Pearl, and received Songs in Ordinary Time which I have read. I emailed the sender.......betcha someone else got Mother of Pearl.. lol

Between Bookmooch and Ebay I got Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Two Years before the Mast and Saints Preserve Us! Everything You Need to Know About Every Saint You'll Ever Need.

Yesterday from BookMooch I received Tea with the Black Dragon. From a Mangatude trade I received X/1999: Prelude and from an Amazon merchant I recieved the manga Gorgeous Carat Volume 1.

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague
the Book Thief
The Empress: A Novel
Neverwhere
Genizah at the House of Sepher

Ooh, wzrdry, I'm excited for you, I loved Year of Wonders.

I got Queen Margot by Alexandre Dumas today, but after the 2.5 months I've spent listening to The Three Musketeers, I'm a bit hesitant to read it.

I was very underwhelmed by Year of Wonders. Everyone in my family had read it and raved about it and when I finally picked it up I was kind of "meh" about the whole thing.

wzrdry2003: I am jealous... I've had The Book Thief of my Wishlist forever now!

Lucky! :-p

I have just started to read "The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom", the Von Igelfeldt triology, by Alexander McCal Smith.

A little retail therapy this month resulted in the following from Amazon:

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Letters of Noel Coward by Noel Coward

My friend had to bring me this package from work since I'm home recuperating for a few days, and she said "wow that's heavy. How many did you get?" and I said "four" and she said "wait, did you finish all those books you got at the book fair already?" and I said "no. why?"

She said "why did you buy books when you already have books you haven't read?"

Good question!

#195 - that reminds me of a conversation I had with my son today. We were at the bookstore because the power was out at home. I was browsing pretty much all over the store and told him to go look for something if he wanted. He said he was fine, he already had something to read. What is that?! How can someone's mind work that way?

I already had something to read, but that didn't stop me from coming home with Half of a Yellow Sun, read and loved last summer, and Shame.

Bad Rachel, bad Rachel, very bad Rachel. Both my daughters and my son were home this weekend (probably one of the last times we'll all be together before my youngest heads off to law school), and the girls wanted to go the Goodwill Bookstore today (it's a Goodwill devoted only to books). Despite my very own Jiminy Cricket sitting on my shoulder and shouting, "You have enough books!" I accompanied them. One overflowing box of books later I'm wondering if I can squeeze one more bookcase into the dining room -- the garage is already full of books. ("Cars? We don't need no stinkin' cars! We got books!")

However, I got some treasures for my classroom library and some children's classics I've been yearning for in hard cover. Plus a copy of Louisa May Alcott's Rose in Bloom and Jack in Jill -- neither of which I've read before. I got turned on to Alcott and her "blood and thunders" back in the late 70s, and that led me, rather late, to Little Women. I enjoy both kinds of her books -- both her "pap for children", as she rather contemptuously put it, and her vivid tales of lovers wronged and fatal revenge.

As far as my TBR pile -- I need to finish Guns, Germs, and Steel and Jared Diamond's other work, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed as well as Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews by James Carroll. I confess I'm having trouble with Guns, Germs, and Steel -- is it just me or does Diamond specialize in circular reasoning? On the other hand, Constantine's Sword is a terrific book; but so painful for me, as a Jew, to read that I have to take a number of breaks from it. Otherwise I begin to relive my people's suffering all over again.

Far more impressive than my TBR pile is my TBV pile. That stands for To Be Viewed -- I have about 50 DVDs on U.S. history I have to watch and create viewing guides for this summer. And frankly, I'd rather read (though my students enjoy the occasional DVD presentation as an alternative to texts and lectures). That chore still awaits. . .and I'll get to it just as soon as I can force myself to stay away from my bookshelves! Somewhere around the 1st of Never, I fear.

Summer is flying by all too quickly for me.

Happy reading.

Nothing!

I'm starting to have withdrawals.

198> Isn't it awful? I've bought about 33 books so far this month; I have 10 on order from Barney Noble's; and I have 21 on order from Edward R. Hamilton. But I'm twisting my own arm not to print out the Borders 30% off coupon or order a discounted set of books from Oxford University Press on exploration.

Well you know what they say: Aieeeeeeeeeeee!

Robert

We're a little strapped for money, so no matter what my English teachers say, it's a little hard procuring large amounts of books. (We just moved to the relative countryside and I have no idea where I can find used or otherwise inexpensive books out here!) I did manage to bring home tons of books from the library this week, though, and even managed to snag two for my very own:

Sons and Lovers, D.H. Lawrence
A really nice hardcover copy of Mrs. Dalloway

Oh I've gone and done it again.

From Goodwill:
The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan for a group read;
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn - I've been watching for this one and really didn't expect I'd find it there!
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey - had my eye out for this there for a long time!
Heart Songs and Other Stories by Annie Proulx
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian by Marina Lewycka - delighted to spot this one!

and from Powell's, for two group reads:
The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham
The Girls by Lori Lansens

and from the library:
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell, which I started tonight and am loving

and from a friend, far away:
From Stone Orchard by Timothy Findley

Feeling lucky!

teelgee - I just (a couple of hours ago) finished Ella Minnow Pea. It was wonderful!

#195, jfetting: I knew the Noel Coward would finally get to you, hope you find it as irresistible as I did.

>198 alaskabookworm:: alaskabookworm - I know what you mean. After buying three bags of books at a library sale in the beginning of May, I made a promise to myself not to buy any more books until I had read at least 5 or 10 off my TBR pile. All I know is that my wishlist is growing exponentially, and I almost gave in to a measly 20% off coupon for Borders. I think if I can get through June, my reward will be a little Amazon shopping spree!

I made myself a deal: if the VISA balance was less than $1,500, I could put in an Amazon order. Alas, it was $1,900+. I've been trying to get library-copies of newer books I've been wanting to read, but I can hardly stand it. Perhaps the Salvation Army or SPCA today? I think I must. Though I am happy for everyone to bring home "treasures", it pains me to have nothing to contribute.

Alaskabookworm -- go for the deals at the charity book shop (Salvation Army, Value Village, whatever you have). Or find a library sale. I love the thrill of finding great books for cheap. Buying books is great, but not worth going into debt for!

alaska, do you need a hug? ((X))

I went to Waldenbooks today, and Jan, my bookshop keeper -the best in the universe, IMHO- asked if I needed help. I said, "Yes, help me resist temptation!" She said no. NO! can you believe it? no... That's why she's the best, see?

Anyway... I went in to just to check prices on tarot cards, and they didn't have any I wanted, so I ended buying an acceptable deck and book box set, The Illustrated Book of Tarot

I did manage to escape before the BOGO half off rack and torture shelf got me. I will be back for them, though... Interpreter of Maladies and Dreams of My Father were begging, pleading even, for me to adopt them. It broke my heart to leave them there... unloved and alone... :''C

I went to Target to get batteries and wandered past the book section. *sigh*

I came away with The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir, and If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where's My Prince? by Melissa Kantor. The latter looks like a cute YA read.

Not a thing showed up in my mailbox today *sniff* just mail..boring old mail.

I have 6 books mooched.. and nothing. Oh well. I will send out 6 more on friday and then gather up more points and mooch more books and ...

Plus I have a B&N order in, and it will come soon. Thank the goddess for gift cards!

thekoolaidmom,

I can't believe you walked right past Dreams from my Father and Interpreter of Maladies and were so heartless as to not take them home! Such fantastic books so cruelly discarded...

Swordmage came from Random House as May's ER selection.

DevourerOfBooks: I promised them I would come back on the first... they cried, I cried, but I've got 6 mooches, two of which are internat'l, and I just couldn't afford postage, groceries, and books. My 15-year-old seems to think she needs to eat three or four... or five... times a day. :-D

Well, I did it. Crammed 30 minutes at the SPCA Thriftstore before the kids' swimming lessons. The take:

The Invaders Plan by L. Ron Hubbard
Flux by Orson Scott Card
Mr. Wilson's War by John Dos Passos
The Garden by Elsie V. Aidinoff
The Journey of Desire by John Eldredge
Siberian Dreams by Irina Pantaeva
Portrait of T.E. Lawrence by Vyvyan Richards
Freaky Green Eyes by Joyce Carol Oates
Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Louise Engdahl
Spindle's End by Robin McKinley
Finn's Going by Tom Kelly
Lonely Crusader: The Life of Florence Nightengale by Cecil Woodham-Smith
Blue River by Ethan Canin
Bonaparte in Egypt by J. Christopher Herold
Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie
The Years of Rice and Salt (ARC) by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
Rocannon's World by Ursula K. LeGuin
Mossflower by Brian Jacques
Caesar by Colleen McCullough
Year Before Last by Kay Boyle
My Next Bride by Kay Boyle (anyone know who the hell Kay Boyle is?)
The Nuclear Age by Tim O'Brien
Lucid Stars by Andrea Barrett

and for the kids:
Four of Suzy Kline's Horrible Harry series
The Voyage of the Frog by Gary Paulsen
Dial-a-Ghost by Eva Ibbotson
and
Mare in the Meadow by Ben M. Baglio

I am finally sated. For the moment. Anyone have a light?

>212 thekoolaidmom: - eh, who needs groceries.

I just recently got two copies of What the bleep do we know?!, one for a friend of mine and one for me.

I met Kaye Boyle. She was a visiting Writer when I was a student at BGSU in the late 1980's. At that time, Kay was in her 80's. Very fragile, but feisty. In the 1920's she had lived in Paris & ran around with Hemingway, Gertrude Stein et.al. & her books were in that "modernist" style that we associate w/Hemingway. Actually I think her short stories are really good, but I was never able to finish (or get very far into) any of her novels. At BGSU, she only associated with the Grad. students. (I was a Junior).

If you're counting suitcases as home enough, I bought Carolly Erickson's The First Elizabeth at Elliott Bay Books a week ago (or thereabouts), and Barbara G. Walker's A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns at a yarn store on Bainbridge Island the other day. (They won't actually get home until I do on Monday.)

Trhough Bookmooch there was waiting for me after my holiday:

Jennifer Government by Max Barry
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
2001: a space odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
and Beyond the blue event horizon by Frederik Pohl

For a long time I wasn't sure if I wanted to live in a library or just turn my home into a library. I've decided on the later and haven't looked back since. I would say that I buy books (Edward R. Hamilton) but, really, I collect them, or maybe, more accurately, they collect me.