Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Recent arrivals and all that jazz

I think this is about 2 weeks' worth of arrivals but I'm not certain because my in/out list has been a continuous one in February. Good news, though. Even though quite a few books came into my house, this month, a lot more walked out.

The stack above:

Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple - from Care. Thanks, Care Bear!
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment by D. E. Stevenson - swap book
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West - swap book
When Tito Loved Clara by Jon Michaud - from Algonquin Books
Something for Nothing by David Anthony - from Algonquin Books
What You See in the Dark by Manual Muñoz - from Algonquin Books
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys - from Philomel via Shelf Awareness (humorous typo: I typed "Between Shades of Graph," at first)
Fire Season by Philip Connors - from Ecco via SA
The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark - from Atria via SA
Wartime Writings: 1943-1949 by Marguerite Duras - swap book

The tote bag hanging behind those books was sent to me by Algonquin Books and it is really nice! In fact, they've sent me some amazing little piles, lately. One that I didn't get around to photographing but which elicited quite a squeal was West of Here by Jonathan Evison. I don't think I've gotten any books at all that don't interest me, lately, from Algonquin. It may take me a while to read them, but I'm glad they arrived, unsolicited or not.

But, oh, how I wish I read faster. This is not a great photo, but here are most of the books I hauled home from the Borders dollar sale:

I'm just going to hope you can click on the image to enlarge it because I don't want to list all those. La-zy.

The final in/out report:

+ 43 books in (eeks)
- 101 books out (yay)
= 58 books out, net

Obviously, I still need to work harder at sending books out the door, but as long as the number
of books out beats the number of books in, I'm happy. That is not necessarily the case for Mr. Bookfool, who would like to see me get rid of half my books. Ouch, ouch!

Fiona is demanding my attention, so I guess I'd better dash. Isabel
has not been particularly energetic, lately, and I think poor Fi is going nuts looking for a playmate. Izzy's going on a car ride, if this continues. She has not, however, lost her curiosity.

Pardon the funky text if it's still whacked up. I don't know what I did wrong, but blogger is giving me fits of angst and I'm just going to leave the text as-is.

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

18 comments:

  1. Between Shades of Gray is fantastic! Those books were a dollar at Borders? Wow!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mrs. Tim of the Regiment is on my TBR too. I read some good reviews of it. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kathy,

    I'm glad to hear that! It does sound like a good one. Nice to have confirmation! Yes, all of those were on sale. I just happened across their dollar sale on a weekday, so I got some fantastic titles. And, then I went back two days later and grabbed a few more. Pretty exciting, no?

    Brittanie,

    That entire Bloomsbury series looks awesome to me. I think I've got 3 more titles. I need to have a Bloomsbury weekend . . . and an Algonquin weekend . . . and a HarperCollins weekend. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Like the text; Times New Roman, as it appears to be, is one of my favorites, although "they" say that fonts which are without the little addendums on each letter are (sans serif) are easier to read. Who knows? All I know is that I could never, ever, in a million years read all that comes in your door. It's hard to get rid of books, too, because the minute you do, someone brings it up and you want to reread it. I've bought The Good Earth and The Catcher in The Rye more times than I can remember. Now I'm keeping my dog-eared copies. Kitty-eared?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bellezza,

    Me, either. But, I'm getting better at getting rid of the books I know I'm not going to read, so hopefully I'll eventually whittle my books down to a number I can read before I croak. LOL I haven't done a lot of repurchasing, thank goodness, although I used to accidentally buy the same book twice, on occasion. That was actually the reason I began keeping track of the books I'd read. At the time, I was a big fan of mysteries and they often have vague titles. Dick Francis' books were the worst. Their titles seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with the content (in most cases -- Dead Cert was an exception), so I started by writing down all the Dick Francis books I knew I'd read and then I decided to keep track of finished books in a calendar and . . . well, my sidebar tells you how long that's been going on. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous9:45 PM

    West of Here is on my must-read list. I can't wait to see what you think of it. It looks like you received a lot of great books too!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Bookmomma,

    I think West of Here is on everyone's wish list, right now. It's gotten some really noisy, very positive buzz. I can't wait to read it. But . . . I'll have to, at least for the moment. I did get a lot of great books! Now, I need to get rid of about 1,000 more.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yes, I am supposed to get rid of a big bunch of my books too... in a dream world... Half would probably be about right. I am very overwhelmed by the idea and am putting it off until we move to a bigger place. My books are in storage at the moment anyway...

    Looks like a lot of good books there, though! Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Kailana,

    It's exceptionally hard to get rid of something you can easily call your personal passion. But, I've gotta do it. I'm just not going to live long enough to read all of the books in my house!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Big DE Stevenson fan here. Let us know how you like Mrs. Tim. I can't find it here.

    ReplyDelete
  11. You got a Persephone! wahoo!!! (And that is FUNSHINE-the-CareBear...)
    Wordy Shipmates was a hoot.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Lots of great stuff there in those piles, and I really love that tote bag! I know what you mean about the husband wanting you to get rid of books. Mine is happy with what we have here, but is sort of putting his foot down over new arrivals.So it's Kindle or nothing for me, I am afraid!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Good for you! That's a heck of an exodus--101 books! I'm excited that you now have a copy of The Wordy Shipmates. We might need to do a buddy read of it one of these days. It's been on my shelves far too long.

    ReplyDelete
  14. These are the Algonquin books I received, too. I'm currently reading West of Here and enjoying it. Different, engrossing.

    I love my book bag...perfect for the library.

    But just look at your Borders haul! We don't have a Borders here, or I'd be there.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hahaha..."West of Here" is on my wish list too! Anyway, I really loved "Telex From Cuba" and I think you will get a kick out of "The Know-It-All"...I didn't know about the other AJ Jacobs book (but I do now!) You got a seriously good haul there.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Carolyn,

    I got my copy from Paperback Swap. It took just under a year to acquire a copy, but hopefully it'll be worth the wait. They seemed to have a lot of older Mrs. Tim books.

    Care, or rather FUNSHINE CARE BEAR,

    That's an awfully long name. I think I'll stick with Care. :) I got Wordy Shipmates because of you. If I did blame points, you could strut around saying, "I earned a blame point! I earned a blame point!"

    Zibilee,

    My husband is fairly patient with me because he's almost never here. Weekends can suck, when he goes on a "You need to get rid of --" rampage. Amazon will get more of my money when they lower ebook prices. Till then, I'm focusing on the freebies and the occasional under-$5 urgent read.

    Andi,

    Thanks. And, there are two more bags of books to get rid of in the car! I could only stand to send husband with 3 bags, so we'll do the next 2, soon. I'd love to buddy read Wordy Shipmates with you!

    Jenclair,

    I love Algonquin books. It's nice of them to send out those little parcels. Now, to find the time to read them. As to Borders -- I looked at the map showing the stores that were staying and going and I was kind of stunned that there weren't any in northern Louisiana. There are two in Nola that are closing. We just have the one and it's roughly 60-65 miles from us, but definitely worth the drive.

    Kookie,

    Of course it is. You read everything. :) Yay, glad you liked Telex from Cuba and The Know-it-All. I didn't know A. J. Jacobs had another one, either (I still haven't managed to acquire The Year of Living Biblically) but it was there and now I know.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Great net result!!! And some excellent looking books. I've given away close to 200 books in my move so am also pretty proud of myself :) heh

    ReplyDelete
  18. Amy,

    I'm not surprised. You're obviously made of awesome. :) 25 more went out my door, this week. Woot!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting my blog! I use comment moderation because apparently my blog is a spam magnet. Don't worry. If you're not a robot, your comment will eventually show up and I will respond, with a few exceptions. If a comment smacks of advertising, contains a dubious link or is offensive, it will be deleted. I love to hear from real people! I'm a really chatty gal and I love your comments!