Book shopping and reading plans

What do you do when you find out about a major book sale? You take advantage of it. On my first trip to that book shop I came away with a bunch of books. The second time I got a smaller bunch but even then, I found some titles that made me happy; The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is one book I look forward to reading, and I’ve already started on the new Anne Rice’s series, The Songs of The Seraphim – sadly, 57 pages into Angel Time, the first book, and my mind already wanders to other novels. Have I been spoiled by my recent Victorian read where drama lurks in every corner and mysteries abound? I find my patience is running out and long conversations stretching over a seemingly interminable number of pages make me want to speed read. That being said, I’m not giving up.

Yesterday was our monthly bookcrossing get-together and I came away with two books. One was I Am The Messenger, by Markus Zusak , a novel I was reading about only a few days ago on Jen’s blog and even though she didn’t seem to like it all that much, I was curious to see what it was all about; the other is called The Best American Travel Writing 2000 which is a collection of short stories from various corners of the world, from Russia and China to France and Uganda, to name just a few.

There are also these two (big!) books I keep telling myself I should read because I need to return them to a friend. I actually started on The Widow for One Year but it just didn’t click with my mood so I put it aside and went on to read something else. Maybe I’ll give the other one a go first. The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao sounds more interesting.

Right now I’m working on a review for Shadow Show, a collection of short stories inspired by Ray Bradbury, which should be up sometimes this week (I hope).

What are your reading plans for this week and do you have any books you can’t wait to read? Or maybe you’re familiar with some of the titles you see here…opinions and recommendations are always welcome.

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14 Responses to Book shopping and reading plans

  1. Jenners says:

    Oooh…what a great haul. I’ll be very curious to see what you think of I Am The Messenger!! I hope you like it more than I did!

    • Delia says:

      If it wasn’t for your review I probably wouldn’t have given this one a second glance but I like mystery and this one seems to have a fair amount. I still want to read his more famous novel, The Book Thief, but until then I thought it wouldn’t hurt to get a peek at his writing style.
      And yes, great haul, which means I should take a break from book buying for a while. 🙂

  2. Vishy says:

    Wonderful acquisitions, Delia! ‘The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake’ is a beautiful title! It looks like it might be wonderful tea-time reading 🙂 Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it. I didn’t know that Anne Rice has come out with a new series. Hope you are enjoying reading it. Will look forward to your review of it. One of my friends is a big Diana Gabaldon fan. I haven’t read any of her works though. The Ancient Egypt mythology books sounds quite fascinating! I have read one Egyptian mythology book a long time back called ‘Tales of Ancient Egypt’ by Roger Lancelyn Green, written for younger readers. I liked it very much at that time. I haven’t read Iain Pears’ ‘Stone’s Fall’, but I have read another book of his called ‘An Instance of the Fingerpost’, which is one of my alltime favourite novels. Hope you enjoy this book of his. The travel writing book edited by Bill Bryson sounds quite fascinating! I am a big fan of Bill Bryson.

    Enjoy your new acquisitions! Happy Reading!

    • Delia says:

      If there’s food involved, I’m in. 🙂 In fact, I must have heard about all these books or authors somewhere, they’re not completely new to me. Never tried any Diana Gabaldon books but historical fiction is high on my list so I was curious. Also “An Instance of the Fingerpost” is the one I actually hoped for but since it wasn’t available at the sale, I got what was. The Anne Rice book just got better and I hope it continues that way. I’d like to read both novels in the series before I write a review – they are under 300 pages so it shouldn’t take that long.
      You seem to be familiar with quite a few of the books I got this time. 🙂

  3. Caroline says:

    You did it again. 🙂
    You were lucky, some great finds here. I see a Dickens in December candidate.
    I just read a short story by Aimee Bender which was most intriguing. I’m looking firward to hearing what you think of her novel.
    I’m also interested in the Anne Rice books.

    • Delia says:

      I did! Even went back a third time but there was nothing that caught my eye. The sale ends in a couple of weeks so I could definitely go back to take a look. 🙂 The Dickens book was bought with that particular purpose in mind. Too bad I didn’t find more of his novels and boy, is that a chunkster!
      I’m glad to see you’re familiar with Aimee Bender’s work. Now I’m even more motivated to read it as soon as possible.
      I’ll let you know about the new Anne Rice series.

  4. M-----l says:

    I just checked my Books Finished shelves and found eleven books by Iain Pears. I think that might be all of his fiction. Stone’s Throw is probably my favorite of those. Here’s a quote from a now-deleted post that I wrote about it back in 2009:

    …the book turned out to be one of the best-written historical mysteries I’ve ever read. As soon as I finished it, I turned back to page one and started over.

    Yes, I’m quoting myself.

  5. Nice! I love book sales 🙂 I see you have another Marcus Zusak book there, so even if you can’t find The Book Thief, maybe it’s OK!

    • Delia says:

      That was what I thought, too, even though I’ve heard The Book Thief is so much better. But first we start with what we have. 🙂 I’m going to get my hands on that book, eventually.

  6. Athira says:

    Those are some awesome books you bagged! I have the Aimee Bender book on my shelf – I need to remind myself to read it soon. Hope you enjoy your books.

    • Delia says:

      Hi Aths,
      The Aimee Bender book is one I look forward to reading, hopefully I’ll get to it in the next few weeks. Maybe we can read it at the same time and exchange opinions. 🙂

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