The Bookpile, Part 2

With my last blog entry I had said I would post the rest of the books tomorrow. That was on Sunday. Tomorrow can so easily turn into the next day and the day after that. For the most part I was caught up in reading. More on that "tomorrow," though.

These are the last of the books that joined my TBR pile last month. I got them all in one stop at Half-Priced Books. I can teasingly say I put the blame to the person I went book shopping with. My intentions had been to buy merely one book for a friend from a bookstore that sells new books where I knew the book would more likely be in stock.



I enjoyed Christopher Moore's books enough that I want to read more of them. While Fluke was not the book I had in mind to read by him next, the day's book shopping buddy wanted to read it so I got it for both of us. Fluke's subtitle is I Know Why the Caged Whale Sings. It's hard for me to imagine the reference to Toni Morrison's book to be missed, but just in case, she has one called I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. This originally made me wonder if there is a great connection between the two books or if Fluke even makes fun or laughs at the other. All I can say without yet having read it is that it's about marine behavioral biologist studying humpback whales. One day he finds the words "Bite me" carved on one of the poor creature's tails and from there a great question is asked of how it came to be there.

As though I don't have enough vampire books and haven't been reading enough of them lately, La Vida Vampire made it's way to my home. I had never heard of it before coming across it that day. This book is about a two-hundred-plus year old vampire who gives ghost tour guides after being unburied during a Victorian house renovation. She has a lot of problems between being taught about the world so very long ago, that she is blamed for the death of someone from her tour guide, and that someone is looking for her.

I was so excited to find another book by Neil Gaiman. One of my friends I've gone book shopping with had really recommended this one the first time we went book shopping almost a year ago. If anyone has any other book suggestions by this author I would love to hear them. I've previously read Stardust and Coraline by him, both books I loved. Neverwhere is about a man who stops to help an injured girl and ends up being taken to another world, both good and very bad. He seeks to return to London as he knew it.

I have a lot of sisters so when I find books about sisters I sometimes pick them up. I don't usually get them, though I did buy Whistling in the Dark. There are three sisters left alone after their mother is hospitalized and their step-father leaves them. The oldest sister, distracted by her boyfriend, doesn't pay attention to her younger sisters. The next thing you know someone has been molested and someone else murdered. One of the three sisters tries to care for another of them as she worries that the murderer is after her next and wonders who will believe their story.

I've never read anything by Kate DiCamillo and had previously not planned to read any particular books of hers, but The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane seemed like a cute little story. Before I was a cat person and before I had thought I was a dog person, it was rabbits that held my interest. I love the soft, little creatures and have owned two. This book is about a rabbit named Edward who was happy because he was owned by a very nice girl and then one day becomes lost. I wonder if it will be sad and stay away from it for a bit just in case.

I am really confused what the title is for the next book. I think it's a series called Wicked, but that it contains two books inside, Witch and Curse. The pages stop at 361 and begin again to reach 291. There are also two authors but they seem to have written the books together. I basically only bought this two-in-one because I come across it so many times. If I don't like them I can always rip the book in two and put them up on BookMooch. (Kidding!)

San Francisco native and teenager Holly is sent to relatives in Seattle after her parents die in a car accident. She finds things there very strange, though. The sentence that got me to make this purchase most was this: "...Any wish she whispers to her cat seems to come true." A cat person, perhaps. There is something sometimes creepy how one might swear cats actually hear you.

Lastly, after years of silently insisting I would absolutely not read this book, I bought the first Artemis Fowl book. At least after reading it I can actually say if I don't like it or not. Too many people I know have read it for me to not read it and see more of what it's about.

Another Book Pile

My last book pile was on January 10th. Like January one year ago, I did far too much book shopping last month. I think it's caused from trying to avoid getting books when I have birthday and Christmas shopping to do. I put off posting another book pile till as late as possible. By then I had enough books for not one but two piles. I'm tired and want to go to bed early so I'm only going to post one of the book piles tonight.

Where they came from:

PaperBackSwap: Sunshine, Coraline, The Duchess
BookMooch: Go Ask Alice, Dead Until Dark, Careers for Bookworms & Other Literary Types
Borders Marketplace: The Tree Shepherd's Daughter, The Thirteenth Tale, Mistress Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America's First Poet
Gift: The Giver, My Sweet Audrina
Target: Harry, A History

I've already read The Giver and My Sweet Audrina so they're not actually part of my TBR at all. One of my sisters gave me a huge pile of books she either had multiple copies of or that she no longer wanted. I took these two aside and placed the rest on BookMooch and PaperBackSwap.

I've only read The Giver once about six years ago. The details have become fuzzy so I would like to read it again. It's about a twelve year old boy named Jonas who receives training from a man known as The Giver, someone who is the only one who can see everything for what it is, to my understanding. There's a lot more to it but I don't want to give away what details I can remember.

My Sweet Audrina is the only standalone by a ghost writer I used to read a lot of books by but stopped reading more than five years ago. Audrina lives in a strange world competing with her dead older sister, the first Audrina. Through this book she grows up and many mysteries and secrets are revealed, some most very shocking.

My sister who received perhaps seven books in Charlaine Harris's Sookie series from us for Christmas gobbled the books up and has been excitedly telling me how good the books are. I knew about them before she did, but I only managed to get a copy of a single book last month. Many are already aware of the series and recognize it as being what the television show "Trueblood" is based from. It's a vampire series beginning with Dead Until Dark. My sister and I have never seen the show so neither of us will be able to compare them.

Robin McKinley's Sunshine was a book I kept running into on LibraryThing. It's yet another book about vampires. I would look at the book description, close the tab, and some time later another LTer would mention it causing me to look over it once again. Well, I finally gave in. Someone has already asked me what I think of it because they want to know about it to read themselves. My plan is to try to read this one soon to let them know.

I used to work with someone whose other job was for a publisher. She always came into work with advanced reader copies whose covers I would stare at in hopes of being permitted to read the back cover. She sometimes sat her book down directly in front of me and walked away. I was good and didn't touch the books. If they were face up I would just look at it and wonder what kind of story it was. She would then come back and ask why I didn't flip it over to read the back cover yet. One of those many ARCs she had was Stephenie Meyer's The Host which she teasingly asked me if I would like to touch one afternoon. Another was The Tree Shepherd's Daughter. This book is one with a very interesting book cover about a teen who moves from California to Colorado to live with her dad after her mom dies. It's the first in a series of books with fairies in it.

I like some historical fiction and was curious about The Duchess when I saw previews to the movie. However, I never saw it. I got the book thinking that I may read that and then see the movie later on once it's out on DVD.

As a Harry Potter fan I am eager to read Harry, A History, a book I first heard about on LibraryThing. Many people will recognize its title from a book within J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series called Hogwarts, A History. While that's a book I strongly hope will one day be an actual book muggles can read, Harry, A History in the meantime tells the history of Harry as the series built up an alarmingly impressive amount of fans all over the world. These fans, or many of us rather, got to experience the waiting periods and everything that came with them between each of Rowling's book releases. It's a lucky experience many of us have had that introduced us to new people who we connected and became friends with. Goodness, it's something that introduced me to some of the best people I have ever known and come to love.

I took a book quiz last month that told me I was a slight bit of a book snob when it comes to books that are popular and might fall under mainstream fiction. I don't want to read a book because everyone else is reading it. I want to read it because others who enjoy the same books as me or people that I actually know versus strangers enjoyed it. Since I've heard a convincing amount of good feedbacks from it, I decided to get The Thirteenth Tale.

One of my absolute favorite poets is Anne Bradstreet. I did a presentation on her in a college Women's literature class but would still like to learn more about her. I was happy when I came across a book about her online, Mistress Bradstreet though it took me a while to get it. I have a hard time with some nonfiction books but I have an interest in the time period Bradstreet lived in as well. Perhaps after reading this when family members talk about family history I can tell them a little more about the Puritans then they can tell me.

I apologize for the sloppy and incomplete blog entry. I've been very tired lately and hope to get to sleep soon.

The First Bookpile of '09

Some of these books I actually got last year but I felt there weren't enough of them to post in a photo until two arrived in the mail these last two days. Here is the newest contribution to my TBR pile.



Where they came from:
PaperBackSwap: Shadowland, Bloodsucking Fiends, The Boleyn Inheritance, and The Alchemyst
Bought new: Revelations and The Secret of Lost Things
Gift: Eats, Shoots and Leaves
From 2008: Shadowland, The Boleyn Inheritance, and Eats, Shoots and Leaves

As I try to write a little about each of these books I am finding that I can't really remember why I had any interest in reading Shadowland which is always a bad sign. I am sure whatever the reason was that it had to do with something someone said about the book, though, so Mediator series fan, I hope this book is good! It seems to be about a teenage girl who sees ghosts and is trying a new life after recently moving to my home state of California.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves is subtitled "The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation." Unlike the other books in this pile, it's not in my TBR pile, though I am planning to read it soon and this copy is new to my home. One of my aunts gave it to me happy she could recommend a really good book that she thought I would like. She was right. I love this book! It's hilarious and perfect for anyone either wanting to know a little more about punctuation or who has an issue with all the wrong punctuation they see in the world. That is precisely why the earlier editions actually came with brilliant punctuation marks for the reader to add anywhere they see use for them. I think the previous time I read this book the only flaw I found was that punctuation, I learned, is sometimes different for different countries. This book was originally published in the United Kingdom so I couldn't learn so much about punctuation for the U.S. as the author isn't American, but it's still a very funny book and good read.

I have been sitting anxiously waiting all week for Bloodsucking Fiends to arrive. I've heard friends mention and discuss the vampire series but didn't really get interested in it until I went book shopping with one of them in October. My mistake was in not buying this book that day. I went to another bookstore some time later and accidentally bought book two, You Suck, so I am thrilled to have book one at last. These books are supposed to be very funny. This may be one of the next two books I read.

I was silently laughing when I came across The Secret of Lost Things last weekend. I'd never heard of the book before but the title made me think of The Book of Lost Things and a joke about it's copies always disappearing. I thought perhaps it will reveal the secret as to why or how it happens! Obviously not, but it was a funny thought at the time. I had to pick this book up and learn a little about the story. It's about an eighteen-year-old bibliophile who leaves home for New York bringing only her books with her. She quickly makes herself at home working in a used bookstore. This book is said to be a literary adventure as well as an adventure for this girl trying to make a new home in the world.

I really shouldn't have gotten The Boleyn Inheritance just yet since it's part of a series so I'm hitting myself over the head. It's book three in the chronological order for Philippa Gregory's Tudor series. Many have heard of book two which I think was the author's first published work, The Other Boleyn Girl. I've already read that one but missed book one. The Constant Princess sits in my TBR pile. I'm hoping I will enjoy this series, though. Book two was very good. I enjoyed it much more than The Queen of Subtleties by a different author.

I spent a lot of time just ignoring The Alchemyst but began to hear enough about it and positive feedback that I decided to try the first book in this series out. A lot of people have already heard a little bit about Nicholas Flamel and so may recognize the name. The biggest reason why I recognize it is because of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone which had originally made me so against reading a different book from another series that included him. For those who aren't sure what Flamel is known for, it is for creating the elixir of life, the drink to make one immortal, in a sense. Reading the back of this book's cover, the story is that Nicholas Flamel, born in 1330, did not die in the 1400s as the record shows. They go on the say there isn't a body buried in his grave at all and that he lives still by drinking the elixir of life. While I once snubbed this book, it sounds like it will be very interesting. It's good for booksnobs to consider those ill-seeming books sometimes!

More Books

It's been over two months since I posted a bookpile, so here is the latest pile of books that have made their home among my bookshelves.



Bought new: Cancer Vixen, Rebel Angels, Love & Lies, You Suck, The Journal of Curious Letters
Bought used: The Book of Lost Things
BookMooch: Firefly
PaperBackSwap: Dreams Underfoot, Blood and Chocolate, Orxy and Crake, Then He Ate my Boy Entrancers, Beauty
Gifts: Shade, The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Early Reviewers: Mistress of Mellyn

It'll take me a while to get to all of these so I will say a little about some of them now. I've just realized I didn't include the two books I got copies of but have already read. These are Dreams Underfoot and Blood and Chocolate.

The first of these two remains the first book of one of my favorite series, Newford, by Charles de Lint. It's not a novel, however it's full of many short stories and is therefore great at introducing people to Newford, a fantasy series. The author insists there isn't any particular order for this series and says to jump in anywhere. One of my favorites was The Onion Girl, which I strongly recommend to anyone who was sexually abused. It's a book about healing and conquering your fears, or in this book's case, your torturer. Widdershins is likewise great, though should not be read before the previously named book. Another great novel and favorite of mine in the series is Memory and Dream, a book about an artist whose paintings come to life.

Blood and Chocolate is something I haven't read in ages but which was made into a movie not all that long ago. The movie is terrible and a completely different story than the book.

Cancer Vixen is a comic book of a true story about one woman's battle with breast cancer. There was actually a line of nice-smelling beauty products selling alongside this book by the brand C.O. Bigelow beginning in October, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

I'm hesitant to say anything about Rebel Angels since I'm currently reading it. However, I've been reading it since the start of November, so this will tell you it does not hold my interest. Book one in the series was far better. Book two took one idea from book one and went off on it, wandering away from my mind's interest.

Love & Lies is a follow up of a character I read about in another book which she'd been a side character in. It's about a girl with a passion for writing and a goal to write a novel within a one year time span.

I wasn't doing my homework when I picked up You Suck. The series came highly recommended to me by friends and so I checked all through it in search of some type of book order. Finding none, I bought this one...and then found out in the car on the way home that it's actually book two. (Book one hadn't been in stock, or else I would have known upon seeing it's title. I had forgotten what it was.)

The Journal of Curious Letters is another book that came as highly recommended to me. Some say it's a great book to read for those that are fans of the Harry Potter series and are in search of something to read. I'm eager to read it but think it will have to wait till after the holidays.

Beware should you find yourself wanting to read The Book of Lost Things. It may only be found among the lost things. I lost it the very day I purchased it and found it a month later. Others have very similar stories, so I dare say it comes with a curse for those who get their copy from a library. It does sound like a very good book, however. My best advise is not check it out and, if you are going to borrow it, only borrow it from a very good friend. Also, read it quickly so as it will not do a disappearing act during your reading.

I've only read the first four books from the Georgia Nicholson series but purchased book six despite not yet reading book five. I did this for my thirteen-year-old sister who has taken a great interest in the series. She loves humor and so this is perfect for her. I likewise find them humorous, love the English phrases, and they are perfect quick reads to finish in a couple of hours. She has learned what the phrase 'boy entrancers' mean from me since I was quick to make sure she didn't get any ill ideas from it, and one day I heard our mother shouting, "You played with my fake eyelashes?!" I knocked on my sister's door and discreetly told her she was wanted for messing with someone else's boy entrancers. I found the whole thing very amusing.

I've heard some great things about some of Robin McKinley's books. Sadly, my first experience with one of her books was a bad one. I think it was Spindle's End that I had purchased and opened the book to the first page to begin reading when I found every other sentence to contain parenthesis around it. I couldn't read like that. I tried anyways, scanned some pages in advance, and soon gave up. All the pages were the same. Hopefully Beauty will be much different. I believe it's one of two books I've heard to be the author's best. I'm going to try to give her works another shot. Beauty is the retelling of the fairytale Beauty and the Beast.

Shade does not sound like any other other vampire story I have ever read. It's an adult fiction (versus young adult fiction) mystery book. I'm very curious how it will turn out.

Mistress of Mellyn is part romance, part mystery, part gothic, and part fiction. It's said to be good for those who really enjoyed books such as Jane Eyre and Rebecca, the first of which I've read a few times and is one of my favorites. I've as of yet to read or purchase the other.

My TBR pile is currently 151 books, though one of these is a book I am currently reading and borrowing from someone else.

Books and More Books

I have books coming out of my ears, or I would, but they're a bit large for my ears. I could walk with a pile of them on my head but I suppose they would all fall down rather quickly. What I mean to say is that I simply have too many. They are everywhere and cover so much of my space, and yet I love them so much and can't part with many of them. My TBR pile has grown to 137 books as of today. I realized it had been a while since I posted a picture of recent books I've received or bought and found there was a big list of them. These are books that are newly in my possession as of September 25th.



I think it would be wise to decrease the amount of these that I purchase new. Lucky enough two had a coupon, one was thirty percent off, and another was completely purchased with Borders Bucks, a system I don't quite understand.



Where They Came From
Early Reviewers: A Friend at Midnight
Book Mooch: Elsewhere, Castle in the Air, and One for Sorrow, Two for Joy.
Paper Back Swap: Outside Beauty, East, Queen of Camelot, and Od Magic.
Bought used: Tantalize
Bought new: Untamed, The Neverending Story, plus four from a book shopping trip with a friend from LibraryThing: Winter's Tale, The Name of the Wind, The Titan's Curse, and Brisingr.

I hope it will be soon that I will have my new bookshelf. Not only would each book at last have a home but I could finally organize them once more at last, something that has been driving me mad with so little book space available at the moment.

Bookshopping

I haven't really mooched or paperbackswapped much lately. Nothing from my wishlist is turning up. I have things I would add to my inventory to give away except I'd rather not add them since both sites are providing to be fruitless, if I've worded that correctly. A Great and Terrible Beauty is from BookMooch, however.

I bought the book and kit on writing the weekend before this last. My weekend plans had been ruined and I went out of the house several hours before work on a spur of the moment. I took a bus to an area near the closest bookstore just as I used to do regularly where I spent a lot of time simply walking around. Neighbors always get upset at me for not accepting a car drive from them, but I greatly enjoy walking and it clears my mind. I spent a good deal of time exploring the changes made in the bookstore before making a book selection for something to help me with WritoNano when I found the kit. I want to try it out before I write about it. After the bookstore, I walked some more before taking another bus near where I work, where I read stuck my nose in a book while sitting on a quiet bench for a few hours.

I last went to a bookstore yesterday intending to only purchase one book, The Dragon Heir. I'm getting angrier and angrier at my nearest bookstore, a Borders. They removed a book I put on hold a mere half a day after I had placed it on hold. Did I want to wait while they searched their stock room for a copy? Certainly not! I was on my way to work.

For yet another book, I thought I requested one two weeks ago. A bookseller helped me and printed out a paper for me, telling me it would probably be in within the week and to expect their call. I thought it funny since their other location near me considers it a requirement to have a requested book in within the week or the book is free. However, I thanked him and left. Not a word from them. I have wondered if the book was merely reserved. Either way, I found the book in the Barnes and Noble bookstore across the street only minutes after I'd 'requested' it at the first bookstore, so I was fast impatient. I gave up on them and purchased the book somewhere else yesterday. I'm rather unhappy since the bookstore I have so much trouble with is the one I planned to apply to where I could hopefully work over the holidays.

The book I purchased alongside The Dragon Heir was the tenth anniversary edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I hadn't expected to see it in stores. It was both supposedly not yet released as well as sold out in nearly every location near me according to Borders' website. It was a bit pricey but I put my coupon toward it. I'd thought nothing would be special about it save for the cover, but when I opened it I discovered the secret amazing wonder that was kept secret: Mary GrandePre had also made a full page illustration on one of the first pages inside the book of Hagrid taking the first years across the lake to Hogwarts. There's also an illustration by Rowling of Snape with a quote opposite. She says she drew it in 1992 or '93 and that it is how she always envisioned Snape to look like, though he looks a bit like Count Dracula because of his cloak. I would like to post photos of these illustrations, but the recent events surrounding Stephenie Meyer's unpublished and early internet-exposed book makes me feel more cautious about doing so.

These are the bookplates I pruchased yesterday. If for some odd reason you are unfamiliar with the title of painting from van Gogh's work on this bookplate, it is called Starry Night. This is one of the paintings I studied in the last art class I took two years ago.

More Bookshopping

For the second time this week, I left a bookstore with a small pile of books last night. I also left with one preordered book from the store and received one in the mail today from PaperBackSwap. I greatly enjoyed being able to simply explore the bookstore at my own pace verses being rushed to quickly grab specific books I'd come for before leaving. Also, I was pleased to see the bookstore removed their YA books from the children's section to extend the genres further. That was a major bonus. The store looks beautiful and the store associates were very kind.



To Be Read pile: 129 books

Current, Past, and Upcoming Reads

I finally manage to have a day off from work and instead of reading, what am I doing? I'm online catching up on LibraryThing, except the site is temporarily down. While that's happening, I thought I might write about the pile of books I'm currently making my way through.

First off, I have some books to write about that I'm rather late on. I've read an advanced reader's copy (ARC) of Jane Elliott's The Little Prisoner. Weeks have gone by and still I have nothing written about it here. I'm going to go ahead and say that like the author of that book, I lived an abused life as well, (though luckily my experience was rather different in some ways,) so it's a little hard to write about. I'm going to try to pull myself through writing something nice up for it soon. I would simply write a complete free write save for the fact that it is an ARC, and I'm expected to provide a review for it.

Another book I've read that I still need to post about here is Cinda Williams Chima's The Warrior Heir. I will have that submited either today or tomorrow. I finished reading it last week but have been working a lot lately. If it weren't for public transportation, I probably wouldn't be able to sqeeze any reading in for five days of each week.

Current read: P.C. and Kristen Cast's Betrayed, book two in the House of Night series. I'm halfway through and hope to finish today. I'm going to pick up another book today, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring but it will be a slow read for a book discussion.

I have a pile of books I'm working my way through right now for some new book releases this fall. I'm not reading nearly as fast as I'd like to be so I'm behind schedule, but so long as I get to them, I'm happy. I'm someone who really enjoys series. When I have my own books, that's what I'd like them to be. There are some series that I own multiple books from despite the fact that I have and had as of yet to read the first book in the series to. Because of that and the new book releases (always very exciting), I'm tackling these now. These series are Cinda Williams Chima's The Heir, P.C. and daughter Kristen Cast's House of Night, Cornelia Funke's Inkworld, Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle, and Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy.

I'm going on a bookshopping trip for the second time this week tomorrow, but my plan is to read Eragon next. Sadly, I'm going to be starting the book having seen the movie first, but with luck it won't do too much damage since it's been some time since I've seen it now, and because of course the book will be much better!

My last bookshopping trip was on Saturday. Half Price Books had a twenty percent off sale. The location nearest me is rather small, so I left with merely six books.

The Book Plan, or There and Back Again (I Hope Not!)

It's always difficult to have a book plan and follow through, but since late January I've been keeping to my plan: I've not bought any books.(1A)

Every week without fail I receive a book coupon through e-mail from Borders. (2A) I click the link to see the coupon and stare at it a bit. (2B) I then close it and get rid of the e-mail. (2C) Sometimes I give a friend the link so someone will be using the coupon, and it makes it a little easier for me to not use it. At the same time a guilt comes with that knowing it's like making this someone else's problem, and I decide to not link the coupon knowing their book spending habits are sometimes worse than mine had been. (2D)

Sometimes I get coupons from Barnes & Nobles and think, If I don't use this coupon, they won't send me anymore, so I have to use it. It's more difficult to get rid of these ones, and I click the link, read the two week away use-by date, and print it. Ugh. I usually misplace the coupon somewhere on my other desk after this, and since I hardly look there, I'm likely to forget it. Other times it stays in my mind saying use me! and I silently scream No, you can't make me! Sometimes I link these coupons to a friend, too. (3A)

I haven't been counting the cost of sending books out from BookMooch to others though I get books in exchange for it. It's very little to pay, people don't mooch from me much, and it's not that often that a book from my wishlist turns up in the system. (4A) I have limited my mooching from others to only from my country in order to save points, however. (I will always send out of country mooches - the extra points pays for the extra cost of first class air mail, in my opinion. (4B))

I walk through Target all the time. Sometimes I'm too early to work and browse there to waste time. I head to the stationary and office supply section, I go to the purse section, ... I (5A) go to the book section. I rush past the YA books (5B) then quickly walk down another book aisle (5C) before fleeing from the book section.

Sometimes I get bored or feel like something's missing and then I take a moment to think Oh yeah, it used to be normal for me to go in bookstores all the time. I think I should go to one so I can feel more restful and happy. Then I remember: my plan doesn't allow for books - I wouldn't get to buy any. (6A)

From the start I thought it would be an impossible book plan and thought I should reward myself every month. I have been good and if I keep being good I should still get to read, right? So I thought, What if I buy just one book a month? Well, I knew there would be the problem of what if I bought a book, and then gave in and ruined my plan with another! I decided this wouldn't do. I considered getting one book after each month that I stick to the plan. As I thought about it, I thought the price of one book if a hardcover is more steep than what I wanted to consider, but one measley used book? I changed my mind to $10 at a used bookstore after every month of non-book spending. (7A)

February is up, and I haven't gone to a bookstore yet. Turns out, my wallet can't afford it. Oh, well. In the meantime, I am continuing to not buy any books. (8A)

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1A. I warn you if you read any further and are not a devoted book person, you're likely to think I am either crazy or that this is incredibly funny. Read on or no.

2A. Do the others matter? I think not!

2B. Which really means I keep it on the screen for up to two-in-a-half hours while using another tab. Every so often I open the tab with the coupon briefly, then go back to my other open tab.

2C. When I saw get rid of it, I mean put it in a file in my e-mail account. I put the coupon safely away in it's file before exiting the coupon tab. Who would ever delete a book coupon when it's still good? Keep this in mind because the term 'get rid of it' (re: book coupon) will come up again.

2D. January was bad. Bad, bad.

3A. I'm so sorry!

4A. The thought of even considering not getting books from BookMooch was too much to bear. I couldn't - no, I wouldn't not use it.

4B. This is bad. I should not send them out of country right now, right? But only three people have mooched from out of my country. / I would love the points! / Who'd mooch from me if I listed 'only to my country'? That's just mean. (No, I didn't mean that! I just feel more friendly by accepting mooches no matter where the moocher is from.)

5A. Darn it!

5B. Stop and glance at every book carefully checking for any I want, then rush away as quickly as possible.

5C. Though slow enough that I can see which books they have that I want ... and a week or two ago nearly fell because I picked up some books, read their backcovers, look at their prices, held them and debated, and almost fell by nearly getting a book or two by Phillipa Gregory.

6A. I'm not even going to begin thinking that I could just go and not get any. Who would stand a chance of not buying any books then? I would be setting myself up.

7A. Has this begun to sound defeating of the purpse to you yet?

8A. My BookMooch points have gotten awfully low - only one point left! ... I really, really want to read - urgh, *makes self not type any longer*.