Yep. It's that time again. Time for my library's semiannual used book sale! I got some good ones tonight.
To begin with, I got two books off my TBR list -
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, and
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.
In the past I have complained about the complete absence of books by Murakami and issues of
McSweeney's at these sales. Not this time! I got a copy of Murakami's
IQ84. Yes, it was withdrawn from my library, meaning that no one in my zip code wanted to read it, but I can take the jacket off, tear out the bar code page, and pretend that it is just like new. And I need to come to terms with the fact that I should send Dave Eggers more money and buy
McSweeney's, because those are clearly *never* going to show up at this sale.
I got a few books by authors who I have liked before. Specifically, I got
The Zero by
Jess Walters, which I had never even heard of before;
A Secret Kept by
Tatiana DeRosnay, which I can hardly wait to start;
Super Sad True Love Story by
Gary Shteyngart; and
The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by
Melanie Benjamin.
GoodReads thinks that I'll like
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, so I grabbed that one when I saw it. I also got a "Not for Sale Advanced Reader's Edition" of
The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker, which people on GoodReads are constantly talking about.
In the spirit of judging a book by its cover, I got
The Electrical Field by Kerri Sakamoto. Doesn't that one have an awesome cover? It's hard to tell from this picture, but the flowers are glossy, and the black and white photo behind them is matte.
Electrical Field is apparently the story of Japanese Canadians during World War II. There's one WWII Civilian Story that I haven't read yet.
Finally (and worth the wait) I got a hard cover copy of
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Somehow, I have never even seen a hard cover copy of this book before, and it's my very favorite. A while back I met JSF, and
he signed my son's copy of
Extremely Loud. I have an unsigned paperback, but I'm happy to have the hard cover too.
And now, I'm off to read . . . By the way, but totally off topic, my son says that he had a dream last night that I was a famous author. Isn't that a great dream? I love it. Now to get him thinking of being an author himself . . .
Listening to: OK.
I broke down. AM radio was driving me crazy, and FM radio was in constant repeat mode. I'm listening to
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet by David Mitchell
. I have holds on
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt in both audio and paper form at the library, but haven't gotten either one. Since I already own
Autumns on paper, I figured that if I get
Wolves on audio, I'll stop listening, and just read
Autumns. If I get the paper version of
Wolves, I'll keep listening to
Autumns. Whatever.
Still Reading:
The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz
Wow! Fantastic haul and that cover is gorgeous, you'll have to update on the story. Tell the Wolves I'm Home was one of my favorite books from last year, I hope the version change helps you read it because it's really gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear about Wolves! I'm going to have to get through it in a about a week if I hope to be ready to discuss it at my book group, so I'm hoping its a page turner. Also, I meant to mention on your blog - I listened to What is the What on audio book, and it was really great. The narrator was awesome.
Delete