A trio of new releases

I’m usually too cheap to buy new release books but today I went to actual brick and mortar stores and bought three brand new books:

First was the fifth of Australian author Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman novels. It’s called Forbidden Fruit and I anticipate another funny, well-told yarn with more than a dash of social commentary. I know I am not supposed to judge a book by its cover but I do love the look of this series (they’re glossy and colourful and just delicious to look at).

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Next was an autographed copy of Kathryn Fox’s latest novel, Blood Born. Apparently Kathryn was in town last week (who knew?) and stopped by the store to sign a few copies so I just had to buy one.

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Last, but by no means least, was the third and final book in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest which I am going to start reading in the next couple of hours (I am torn between itching to begin and being sad at the thought that the Millennium story will, for me, be over all too soon).

The haul (none of which are hardbacks and two of which were ‘on special’) cost me $71 in Aussie dollars which on today’s exchange rate is equal to about $62US or ₤39 or €42. While I am happy with my new acquisitions, is it any wonder most of the voracious Australian readers I know use overseas websites for a majority of their book shopping?

 

Intervention, Awards and Redesign

I’ve just returned home from a trip to Melbourne (about 900kms to the east of the city I live in). The primary purpose of the trip was to spend time with family I don’t see very often but somehow reading featured heavily in all sorts of ways and I have started to wonder if I need an intervention.

One of the things that made me worry was my visit to Kill City which is a used book shop specialising in crime fiction books. Obviously for someone of my reading preferences it’s a pretty sweet place to visit but it was hardly a necessity. Before the trip I had something like 100 crime fiction books in my dedicated TBR shelves (and another 50 or so non crime related books). So why did I even go to the store? And why on earth did I walk away with all these —>?

What really made me wonder about whether or not I need an intervention was seeing the ‘X days to go’ Dan Brown widget on a website and wondering if I could fix one of those for the 3rd book in the Stieg Larsson millenium trilogy.

My name is Bernadette and I am an addict. Despite a complete absence of need it seems I cannot stop myself from acquiring more reading choices. What about you? Are you more controlled? Do you have any tips on controlling your acquisitive nature? Or should I stop worrying?

I arrived home to discover some delightful blog-related news. Firstly, Danish blogger Dorte from DJ’s Krimiblog awarded me the Kreativ Blogger award. It’s always nice to be recognised by fellow bloggers and I would urge you to visit Dorte’s blog if you haven’t already done so. As well as bilingual reviews the blog features her own short fiction, some author interviews and the fiendish Bait in the Box posts which offer opening lines from a book she is reading and blog readers are urged to leave clues about the book title and author. I am supposed to list 7 of my favourite things as a recipient of the award. So, in no particular order: taking a great photo, walking in the early morning, lying in bed listening to the rain on the roof and knowing I don’t have to get up, scrunching through autumn leaves, sharing a great bottle of wine with friends, singing Billy Bragg songs at the top of my voice and the tingle of anticipation when opening the pages of a book by an author I’ve never read

My second piece of good news was that someone nominated me for the Reviews category in Book Blogger Appreciation Week. When I spent an hour or so going through the BBAW award categories making my own nominations it honestly didn’t occur to me that I might get nominated. So I am very chuffed and very grateful to you. Whoever you are.

And my final piece of blog-y news is that I’ve had a bit of a redesign of the site. You’ll have worked this out if you’re reading this post at the blog but a lot of you read via an RSS reader so you’ll have missed all the excitement. The redesign is partly due to me having some time on my hands today (well technically the time was for things like housework, grocery shopping and other chores but I didn’t fancy any of that) and partly due to my frustrations with some of the limitations of the other wordpress template I was using. This one seems much easier to use and allowed me to use a custom header (which you’ll notice I very creatively added a photo of some books to – you haven’t seen that before on a book blog have you?).

 

Sunday Salon 2009-05-10 – Mother’s Day

As it’s Mother’s Day today (at least in our corner of the world) this week I’m going to say another thanks to my mum for passing on her love of books to me. One of my earliest blog posts was about books as presents and there I highlighted a couple of the books she’s given me over the years. But my bookish memories of my mum don’t stop there.

SA State Library Institute Building

When I started school I could already read and by the end of the first school term I had read all the set books for that year and the next two. My mum still talks about being called into the school and being begged by the nuns to find a way to get me some more books because I’d read everything they had. From that point on my mum and I started our weekly tradition of a visit to the local Institute Library on Saturday mornings.

Here in Australia (and the UK too but I don’t know about other places) before free public libraries there were private ones run by Mechanics’ Institutes (also known as Working Mens’ Institutes). These organisations were created to provide education and lectures to working men and many, including our local one, ran a library that books could be borrowed from for a small annual fee. I don’t think there are any Institutes still functioning in my state but in Melbourne the Mechanics’ Institute of Victioria (with its library The Athenaeum) has been going strong since 1839.

Through my mum and the local Institute I was introduced to the seemingly never-ending offerings from Enid Blyton, The Bobbsey Twins, Trixie Beldon, Nancy Drew and many others. As you can see my preference for crime fiction started early. I also read my first ‘adult’ (as in not writte for kids not as in full of nude people) books thanks to the Institute and can still remember how wonderful and grown up I felt when my mum announced I was ready for Edgar Allan Poe.

Eventually of course I could go to the library on my own and I loved having my independence but mum and I have continued to talk about the books we read. When I lived in another state or was overseas mum’s care packages would always contain books and chocolate. Today we swap books, give each other recommendations and we always watch the First Tuesday Book Club (either in the same house or we sit in our respective homes and talk on the phone while watching). We usually end up arguing (either with each other or the television) but in a good, comforting way.

In some way or another lots of my best memories involve my mum, a book or both together and so for that, and the million other reasons I haven’t articulated here, I hope mum has a good day today. She’s always loved finger food (appetizers) more than main meals (entreés) and now, at 81, she says she’s earned the right to eat what she likes. So for today’s lunch I’ve made a swag of her favourite finger food and we’re not having a main meal at all. And at some point we’ll start talking about books without even realising it.

 

Can you have too much of a good thing?

I’ve got two books on the go at the moment and coincidentally am experiencing the same problem with both: they’re too long although neither is a bad book.

I’m about half way through Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer which runs to 12 CDs (just over 14 hours). It follows the plight of Mickey Haller, a 40-something defence lawyer in Los Angeles. There’s a big case where Mickey is defending a rich person who’s been accused  of assaulting a woman and there are a lot of other cases along the way. I’m quite engaged by Mickey and the big case has just gotten to a crucial point which I am very curious to see resolved. But, and it’s a big but, the thing is dragging like a wet weekend. I can’t believe the amount of detail included (long descriptions of meals eaten and every item of clothing someone is wearing etc).

I’m about a third of the way through the print version of Stephen Booth’s Blood on the Tongue. This one weighs in at 632 pages. The third in a series featuring DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry who operate in England’s Peak District. A Canadian woman wants the local war-time crash of her grandfather’s plane to be re-investigated 57 years after the incident occurred and an unidentified man has been found in the snow. Both cases are at least mildly interesting and Ben Cooper is a character who has the potential to be someone I would like. But, and again it’s a big but, this one is dragging even more slowly. I’m at page 184 and I’d only need the fingers of one hand to count the important plot developments. But I can tell you what everyone’s wearing and describe in some detail the shops in the high street of the local town.

It’s not a length issue precisely, I recently listened to Child 44 which was also 14+hours long and I loved it so much I’d have been happy for it to go on longer. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed both the Stieg Larsson books that have been translated to English so far and they were nearly as long as Booth’s. It’s more an issue of the lack of a red pen during the editing process.

Normally I don’t have a problem stopping a book if I’m not enjoying it but in both these cases I’m quite interested in the stories.

I’m just not sure I’m interested enough to slog through the minutiae both have incorporated, especially with so many titles giving me come hither looks from my TBR shelves.

Sigh.