Maybe A Little Amok

I actually made two trips to the library, since I had found some stuff for my brother and I wanted to hand them over when he came down to play games Wednesday night.

We played Smash-Up, and amazingly -- I won! My hand was Vampire Aliens, which worked well together and allowed me to put many power-up markers on my cards, which kept me happy until I unexpectedly won. It was very pleasant, and I hope I wasn't too bad a sport. I'm glad you asked.

Back to the library. I saw a few books I've been meaning to read on the QuickPick section, so they fell into my bag, and then I went to the hold shelf to pick up the Cybils finalists I had ordered. I'm now working through YA SF, which my older son tends to enjoy, so I wanted mostly paper books, not e-copies, as they are easier for us to share.

My complete loot was:
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The Walls Around Us, Nova Ren Suma. Cybils YA SF finalist.

The Six, Mark Alpert. Another Cybils finalist.

Bone Gap, Laura Ruby. Another Cybils finalist.

Slasher Girls and Monster Boys, ed. April Tulcholke. Final finalist.

Hamster Princess, Ursula Vernon. Our next Tuesday book club pick, as a light change of pace.

Mr Holmes (movie). Our video selection for next Tuesday, to finish up the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes book.

Magic Shifts, Ilona Andrews. The next Kate Daniels book, which I've been eyeing for months now.

Devoted in Death, J.D. Robb. The next Eve Dallas book, for some light if grim reading.

I've currently got 28 things out from the library.  I'd like to keep that number under thirty; it includes the stockpiled Cybils and Library Quest books, as well as a handful for the rest of the family. It's still a bit higher than a sustainable pace, though.

I'll go look at the Library Loot which is at The Captive Reader this week to see what everyone else is getting.  (Hmm, new one not up yet) Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. 

Library Questing

Here I document any progress I make in my Quest to read a book from every shelf in my local library.

Hild by Nicola Griffith. I think I bought this book as a Christmas present for my nephew, but he left it behind so I let my son read it and then I stuffed it in my TBR stack. But I knew I wanted to read it because of reviews and other things I've read about the author and because the subject sounded fascinating. So when I saw it on the shelf of the audio books at the library I grabbed it, thinking I'd read it on the trip to Utah over Christmas.

Except it's a rich and enthralling story that didn't really lend itself to listening while surrounded by teenagers who don't like my books. So I didn't even start it until late January (I had to reloot it to finish it). And some parts got intense enough that I couldn't listen during complicated driving situations, or because I'm an emotional wimp who can't always handle harrowing information through my ears. But it was a lovely, lush read that I recommend to everyone.  Hild is a smart girl who carves out a place for herself in Britain as Christianity takes hold, told in an authentic way that may not be accurate (what do I know?) but never smacks of anachronism. Beautiful and well worth reading anyway you can; the audio voice charmed me and easily differentiated between all the different characters.

Unnatural Causes by P.D. James will be next. I think it's only 8 discs.

I'm still reading Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld, but I'm not really enjoying it and don't really care what happens to the characters. So after pushing ahead a few pages I let myself skip onto Anne Tyler's A Spool of Blue Thread which I hope I'll enjoy more. I know Anne Tyler writes well, and also this seems to be set in Maryland!