Soooo, guess who's been a-liberrying again? No, that's not a dirty sex word you just haven't heard about yet. (Mum actually told me off for keep calling it a liberry - but it sounds so much TASTIER than 'library', doesn't it?) I had to make some tough decisions about what to keep and what to take back, but it had to be done because The Big Library is an absolute treasure trove compared to The Little Local One and I don't get over there that often! I took back two that I only just checked out, and a couple of others, but since most of them came from The Little Local One anyway I reckoned I could just pick them back up again at this end when I take my next couple back! I haz a PLAN, peoples!
I have to say, I'm really getting back into this liberrying thing. I mean, in some ways it's BAD because I'm always prioritising liberry books over the thousand or so unread books on my OWN shelves. But in other ways it's GOOD because I'm Supporting My Liberry and taking a chance on new authors and Exploring New Stuff, and I actually have a sort-of mental deadline to get them read by, AND even if I reserve stuff (which I haven't needed to do yet) it means getting a book for the tiny tiny price of 80p instead of buying it.
Soooo, my current complete library haul of 16 now stands like this:
2. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists - Gideon Defoe
4. Allen Ginsberg: Beat Poet - Barry Miles
7. Half Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan
8. Rant - Chuck Palahniuk
9. A big Penguin volume of the Collected Poems of Allen Ginsberg
10. Tattoos and Tequila - Vince Neil
11. Hospital Babylon - Imogen Edwards-Jones and Anon.
12. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
13. There Is No Dog - Meg Rosoff
14. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
15. V for Vendetta - Alan Moore
16. Tomorrow, When the War Began - John Marsden
I'm well chuffed because I think I'm the first person to get the shiny new copy of Hell's Angels (a cute little Penguin Essentials edition, I LOVE IT!), and only the second to get hold of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Lucky, lucky girl, I bet they won't see the library shelves very much. I also *cough* sneaked to Waterstones *cough* (What? Mum wasn't ready yet and I had LOADS of time!) and bought Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (because I took the other one back to the library already, to make room for MORE BOOKS!) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson (because that's what I was looking for at the other bookshop last week!). And I found St. Elmo's Fire in a charity shop en route back to the car park for a miniscule £1.99, so I came home happy! Especially because I bought cookies from the petrol station too. Mmmm, cookies...
Sooooo, I finished Annexed BEFORE we went to the library yesterday morning, but when I'd finally stopped sobbing I realised I couldn't possibly do the book justice without having it in front of me when I reviewed it, so I kept it for now. That'll be COMING SOON. And I started The Silent Land when we got home from shopping/house viewing and to my surprise, was actually halfway through it by the time I went to bed. I'm glad it survived the Library Book Massacre yesterday morning, because it's been a really absorbing read so far!
I might get that review of Annexed done today, since it's basically given rain, rain and more rain, with a side helping of hail, thunderbolts and lightning (very very frightening, Galileo) - though part of me thinks it would the PERFECT time to get stuck into my book while there's no one around. Someone brought a load of books already, though since she was very friendly we didn't mind the Lack Of A Book Bringing Appointment too much, even though she is obviously MAD for thinking, "Hey, a torrential downpour! What a perfect opportunity to carry some boxes of books into town!." PLUS Mum left me to it so I managed to squirrel away The Last of the Mohicans and The Bonfire of the Vanities under the counter already. It's a sickness, it really is. People think books are so benign, but they're just as capable of creating a vicious circle as alcohol, say. Or sharks.
OK, onwards and upwards! I am on a READING ROLL! I'll leave you with this, which my sister just sent me and which took me a minute to, y'know, get, but when I did, O HOW WE LAUGHED!
The library always sucks me in. I'm out of control when I go in. Even if I go in with a set list of books I want to check out, I always come out with 1 or 2 (or 3 or 4) books that I did not anticipate getting!!!
ReplyDeleteMe too! It usually balances up quite nicely - for every book I CAN'T find even though it's apparently on the shelf, there's another that pops up nearby/on a display/on a shelf end that makes me go "Oooh, oooh, oooooooooh! I've heard of that! It sounds awesome and look, the cover's so PRETTY!" And away we go. :)
ReplyDeleteOoooh, I felt guilty just getting two books out of the library yesterday. We got a lovely shiny new one a few years ago and that was me just paying it a visit. So pretty!
ReplyDeleteLoved the photo.