More incoming books - ooooooops

What can I say, it's been a bad week!  Lovely Royal Wedding aside, it's been very much like every other Last Week of the Holidays we've had so far.  Whirlwinds of destructive children, screaming toddlers, rude adults, disappointed 'this used to be a charity shop' customers...  Mugs clanking, gifts dropping to the floor, books misplaced, mud tramped through, doors banging, people falling down steps - all the things that can bring this dream job crashing back down into retail hell!  My stepdad's been ill with his second bout of flu in a month, my sister's gone back to university, and we've just been hanging in there waiting for the kids to go back to school, the adults to go back to work, and therefore for us to get a bit of a a breather before the tourist season really gets underway for another summer.

And what better way to cheer myself up?  Why yes, I'm not averse to funny television, DVD box sets and copious amounts of naughty food (choc chip muffin, anyone?), but as always, books go a looooong way towards putting a smile back on my face!

I'm not sure if all of these arrived this week, actually, but they're at the top of my 'to be catalogued' pile so I'll mention them anyway!  First up, an order from Amazon Marketplace, Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce and Culture by Taylor Clark.  The name pretty much explains it I think - it's about the rise of Starbucks and modern coffee culture.  Some of the other books on the Starbucks phenomenon are more business-oriented, I think, but I'm hoping that this one will be broader in focus, since it's more the social side I'm interested in...

I also got my first Random Acts of Kindness book this week, from over at ComaCalm's Corner.  A big thank you for my shiny new copy of Maggie Stiefvater's Lament, which I narrowly missed out on in a big book swapping frenzy with Jess (Jess Hearts Books) and Rachel (In the Library of LadyViolet) last year and have been wondering about ever since...  Rachel managed to grab Jess's copy and recently reviewed it with glowing praise, so it shot straight up the ol' wishlist again!

I got two books from Random House Children's books in the post, which is always quite exciting since I'm never quite sure what they're going to be until I open them!  This week was the new fantasy novel The Emerald Atlas: The Books of Beginning by John Stephens, and the deliciously dark-sounding Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton.  I can't wait to get stuck into those!

And last but by no means least, during our fortnightly trip to a local charity shop to pick up their recently-deshelved books, Mum relented and let me look at their current stock as well, yippee!  I bought The Legacy by Katherine Webb, just because it sounded quite good when it was featured on the TV Book Club, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, which has been generally hovering on my radar as 'a book I'd quite like to try at some point'.  At £2.50 the pair, I didn't have to think twice!  In the bags we brought away I also found Don't Lean Out of the Window!: A European Misadventure, the first book by Stewart Ferris and Paul Bassett, the shamelessly immature pair of young men who wrote Don't Mention the War!  The review for that one's in the archive from a month or two ago.  It was never going to qualify for great travel literature, but it was fun so I don't mind giving their debut a shot!

Oh yeah, and I also bought BEING HUMAN Series 1-3 on DVD this week.  Aidan Turner's gorgeous, Russell Tovey has a nice bottom, and it's very dramatic and great fun by turn!  Mum watched it all and kept telling me how great the latest episodes had been, but I only saw series 1 and the first couple of episodes of season 2, so I've got plenty to catch up on.  Hooray!

Alright, come on, 'fess up - what's arrived on your bookshelves this week?