I did say there was going to be a part 2 for yet more new (at least new to me) books. Since the weather was bad over my break I didn't get to go to the bookstore after the holidays as I usually do. Since I didn't go to the bookstore I didn't get to pick out any new calendars for 2010. Choosing calendars is serious business. These are the pictures you have to look at for the whole year and hope you won't be bored by them. I won't share all my choices (I ordered online and hoped for the best since I couldn't see the pictures), but I thought I would share this one, as this is where I wish I was right now.
It's a sad state of affairs when you have to worry about avoiding frostbite on your way to work in the morning. Our temperatures at the moment are the coldest they've been in ten years. This morning the wind chill temperature was something like -39 degrees. Since I wait for buses and do a little walking I really did have to worry about making sure fingers, toes and nose (and everything else) was covered appropriately. I know we are not the only place to have lots and lots and lots of snow and now cold, but boy am I already tired of winter. If anyone has it in their power...please send sunshine and temperatures over freezing.
Look what I have in my hot little hands. I don't usually do this, but I asked the publisher if I could have a review copy of the newest Maisie Dobbs mystery by Jacqueline Winspear, The Mapping of Love and Death. They kindly sent one out to me and I received it just a couple of days ago. As soon as I finish Charles Todd's A Duty to the Dead (which I'm really liking) I'll start Maisie's new mystery, which will hopefully be this weekend on both counts. As a little teaser the blurb reads "In the latest mystery Maisie Dobbs must unravel a case of wartime love and death--an investigation that leads her to a long-hidden affair between a young cartographer and a mysterious nurse."
The rest of the books include a couple more review copies, a mooch, and a few other recent purchases. A few recommendations for Elizabeth Chadwick's Shadows and Strongholds was all I needed to order the book. I'm enjoying her William Marshal novel. Shadows and Strongholds is set slightly earlier and again has a royal setting. I thought Ali Shaw's The Girl with the Glass Feet sounded intriguing. It seems to be part fable, part fairy tale and part romance. Has anyone read it? I know it's been out in the UK for a while. I feel quite pleased to have mooched Catherine Shaw's The Library Paradox, which is in near pristine condition. It's set at the tail end of the Victorian period and concerns London's Hassidic community. Gil McNeil's The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club was a complete impulse buy at the supermarket (where I always look at the books but never buy any of them). I don't knit and I've never read a 'knitting novel', but what drew me in was the setting "a sleepy seaside town" in Kent, England (am guessing it's Kent as that's where the author is from--is Kent along the coast?--Must look that up). It looks like a very nice comfort sort of read, which is always good to have on hand (and Ruth Rendell even gave it a thumbs up!). And last but not least is Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog (that I have heard so many wonderful things about). At the time I ordered it, it was 50% off on Amazon, so I had to get it.
I wish I could say these have all satiated my desire for new books, but I've been doing some serious online browsing, so I wouldn't be surprised if I did a little shopping this weekend. As long as I have gift cards to cover my purchases I refuse to feel guilty! (And even if I don't, I still don't think I'll feel too guilty). How's that for being bad? Besides it helps keep my mind off the snow and cold.