Tagged: new books

Travelling (Again)

Well folks, I’m off travelling again!  I know, I know: I’m barely home for two weeks and I’m hopping a plane again.  No, this time I’m not going to Costa Rica.  I’m back in Ottawa again for a week.

Once again I’ve scheduled enough reviews, articles and guest posters to fill up the time I’ll be gone.  Thanks to both Savindi from The Streetlight Reader and Margaret from Steam Trains and Ghosts, I only had to schedule five posts in advance.  The quality of content will not be affected and I’m taking my laptop along to respond to your comments once or twice a day.  However, I’m going to be very busy so please don’t be offended if I don’t respond right away.  I’m not ignoring you.

Also: expect a new books post.  I just can’t resist the siren song that calls forth from every book store I pass when I travel.

Look What Just Arrived! (#6)

Carrie Pictures 2012 279People seem to think (and I don’t know where they got this idea from) that I like books.  That’s why I got a lot of books for Christmas.  So here they are:

  • The Path of the Fallen by Dan O’Brien
  • The First Man of Rome by Colleen McCullough
  • The Riddle by Alison Croggon
  • The Skystone by Jack Whyte
  • City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare
  • The City by David Moody
  • The Return Man by V. M. Zito

Actually, the first one, The Path of the Fallen is not a Christmas present so much as a pleasant Christmas Eve surprise from the author who sent me his book to review.  Dan O’Brien’s book will be a workout for my wrists because it is 600 pages and is a surprisingly heavy book.

Aside from City of Fallen Angels, all of the books I received are ones I’ve never read.  Yesterday I finished The Return Man (expect a review soon!) and last night, or early in the morning depending on how you count I finished The City by David Moody.  I want to finish some of the books I received last time and the time before that (and the time before the time before that) before I start on any other new ones, which means I’ll be reading and reviewing popular fiction like Game of Thrones and 1984.

So, my fellow book lovers, what did you get for Christmas?

Look What Just Arrived! (#3.5)

I hadn’t intended on buying 5 more books, but for whatever reason I decided to go birthday shopping for my friend in a book store.  That was how I blew my entire month’s book budget.  Anyway, here are the books I bought:

  • The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
  • Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
  • The Kingdom of Gods by N.K. Jemisin
  • Delirium by Lauren Oliver
  • Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston

Wondrous Strange is what I originally bought for my friend’s birthday present, but then my shopping kept going.  Delirium by Lauren Oliver is a book that didn’t really sound appealing to me before I read an excerpt online and liked what I saw.  The same was true of The Clan of the Cave Bear, but I’m skeptical about how that one will turn out.  The Kingdom of Gods by N. K. Jemisin is a book I’ve been looking at for a while, but never found it in my small local bookstore.  And yes, after following John Scalzi’s blog for 3 years I finally got around to buying one of his books.  If his blog is anything to judge his writing by, I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy Old Man’s War.

Look What Just Arrived! (#2)

Well, it’s been a few weeks since I did my first post about my new books, so here’s some of the latest books I’ve bought for myself and been sent by authors.

3/8 of these books were sent to me by authors: The Secret War, The End of Infinity and FireSeed One.  I’ve read the two by Matt Myklusch already, but FireSeed One is definitely high up on my reading list.  Don’t you just love the cover?

4/8 of these books I purchased today from the ever-expanding ‘Almost New’ (aka ‘Gently Used’) section of my local bookstore.  I’ve heard excellent things about Simon Scarrow’s The Legion and The Song of Troy by the famous Colleen McCullough and I really don’t know which one to read first.  As for Wilbur Smith’s The Quest, I might as well finish the series I started.  The accuracy is questionable to say the least, but Smith’s writing style is pretty addictive.  As for The King’s Daughter, it’s set in my third-favourite time period: Tudor England.  And it’s about a woman working to overthrow the infamous Bloody Mary in order for Elizabeth to take the throne.  Personally, I’d like to hear Mary’s side of the story, but I guess I won’t this time.

Only one out of eight of these books is actually new and I purchased it after hearing good things from a friend of mine as well as reading an excerpt on Amazon.  I’ve already started it and so far, so good.  The premise of Starcrossed is stereotypical, so it will be interesting to see what Josephine Angelini does with it.

So what are you guys reading?  Found anything good lately?

Look What Just Arrived!

Guess what?  As a book reviewer, I have to read a lot of books.  Pictured below is the batch of books that I’m reading or about to read, not counting the 4 ebooks I need to read as well.

So what are you reading right now?