April Book Haul!

I has books! I has plenty of books! I indulged a bit and these are the results.

For Review

Mythology – Edith Hamilton
Storm Bringers – Philippa Gregory
Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality – Elizabeth Eulberg
Shattered Pillars – Elizabeth Bear
That Time I Joined the Circus – J. J. Howard
A Corner of White – Jaclyn Moriarty
Firebrand – Gillian Phillips
The Summer Prince – Alaya Dawn Johnson

Thanks to Macmillan, Tor, Hachette Canada, Simon & Schustar Canada and Scholastic Canada.

Gifted (thanks Pinky)

The Fox’s Window and Other Stories – Naoko Awa
Alif the  Unseen – G. Willow Wilson

Purchased

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There – Cathrynne M. Valente
Skip Beat 3 in 1, vol 4 – Yoshiki Nakamura
I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops – Hanan al-Shaykh
The Case of the Left-Handed Lady – Nancy Springer

Viva Jacquelina – L. A. Meyer
The Archived – Victoria Schwab
Etiquette and Espionage – Gail Carriger
The Piper’s Son – Melina Marchetta

The Diviners – Libba Bray
The Raven Boys – Maggie Stiefvater
The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom – Christopher Healy

March Wrap Up and Book Haul

Another month is goneee. And I’m one step closer to writing the thesis. Which doesn’t scare me at all. No sirree bob, it does not (I’m lying. It totally does).

This month was rather lacking in books. I had gotten such huge hauls in January and February that I chose to take it easy both with the review copy requesting and with the buying. Next month will be insane, I can tell you that already. It does no good for me to be restrained or go on a book buying ban. Anyway, the books I did get are:

Crown of Thorns, Crown of Embers, Something Strange and Deadly and The Whispering House are from Bookcloseouts.com. Strobe Edge vol 1 is from Book Depository. Rebel Heart and the Literary Terms book is from this thrift store I discovered. The Runaway King is for review from Scholastic Canada (thanks!) and you can expect a review soonish.

Now on to the wrap-up. I have no idea how many books I read this month. (There’s still one day left but I doubt I’ll get anything read today and tomorrow. I’m being good and concentrating on school reading.)

Books Read this Month

1. Little Red Riding Hood – Brothers Grimm (illustrated by Daniel Egneus)
2. Full Blooded – Amanda Carlson
3. Hot Blooded – Amanda Carlson
4. Dark Eyes – William Richter
5. The Language Inside – Holly Thompson
6. Another volumes 1-4 – Yukito Ayatsuji (totally brilliant, this one)
7. Little Bird – Germano Zullo (lovely)
8. House Held Up by Trees – Ted Kooser
9. Red Knit Cap Girl – Naoko Stoop
10. No and Me – Delphine de Vigan
11. Mila 2.0 – Debra Drizer
12. City of a Thousand Dolls – Miriam Forster
13. If You  Hold a Seed – Elly MacKay
14. Geek Girl – Holly Smale
15. Wish – Beth Bracken
16. The Rules – Stacey Kade
17. Impulse – Steven Gould
18. Love and Other Perishable Items – Laura Buzo
19. This is What Happy Looks Like – Jennifer E. Smith
20. Spies and Prejudice – Talia Vance
21. One plus One Equals Blue – M. J. Auch
22. Written in Red – Anne Bishop
23. Pivot Point – Kasie West
24. The Four Corners of Time – David Shapiro
25. Mistborn – Brandon Sanderson
26. The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls – Claire LeGrand
27. Born of Illusion – Teri Brown
28. Another Little Piece – Kate Karyus Quinn
29. Sita’s Ramayana – Samhita Arni
30. Dead and Buried – Kim Harrington
31. Inside, Out & Back Again – Thanhha Lai
32. The Madness Underneath – Maureen Johnson
33. Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets – Evan Roskos
34. Ice Age Cataclysm – David Shapiro
35. The Chronicles of Harris Burdick – Chris Van Allsburg
36. The Devil’s Metal – Karina Halle
37. The Incredible Book Eating Boy – Oliver Jeffers
38. Escape Theory – Margaux Froley

That’s not too bad. I was rather sick for about a week and a half this month. I spent it reading fiercely. I aim to get quite a few number of books read in the next month or so. Let’s hope I can do it. There’ll be some rereads because I’m taking this foundation children’s lit class and the reading list contains books that I have read but need to reread so I can freshen myself up on the narrative. Plus I have a ton of books out from the library and some books I need to read for review. I hope you guys had a good reading month as well.

New On My Shelves (aka Stacking the Shelves) for the Month of February!

So you see, the truth is, I wasn’t going to buy any books. No seriously, I wasn’t. After ALA, I thought I had more than enough, I mean, I DO have more than enough and my reading pile is growing into a magnificent tower. But as I am sure fellow bibliophiles will agree, one cannot help getting books when one is in the presence of it. Or in front of it. Or if there is a mention of it. And there’s a sale. Or you are having a bad day. Some people shoe shop. I buy books. When I’m stressed, when I’m happy, when I’m unhappy. Face it, any reason is good reason. And I have a knack for getting books cheap. So here are some new additions to my shelves (or reading pile).

For Review

So the gracious and lovely Michele Lang approached me about hosting a giveaway on my BM. So I immediately jumped at the chance and when she offered to send me her books to review, I jumped again. I do a lot of jumping. She signed them too! Thank you! Lady Lazarus, the first one in the trilogy, is amazing so far. The first sentence?

“I damned my soul in the summer of 1939.”

And that sentence sold me. If you want a chance to win a set of the trilogy, check back on the 8th of March to see the blog post and see how you may enter the giveaway.

These are all from Hachette Canada. Summer releases or um, April and May releases.

This is What Happy Looks Like – Jennifer E. Smith

Now I haven’t read her first novel but I was entirely sold by the synopsis. I’m not much of a romance reader  (which is surprising considering my thesis but oh well) but this sounds like fun and fluffy and one cannot have too much fluff – well, maybe one can but whatever. I will read this and hope it will be good.

The Lucy Variations – Sara Zarr

So remember that book, The Sea of Tranquility that I have on preorder after I read it from Net Galley and gushed about? Well it’s okay if you don’t. You see, I have a thing for prodigies. Mainly because I am not one. I find reading about them to be so fascinating. Especially because their lives tend to be so messed up. I haven’t read anything by Zarr before but reviews of her other books have been good.

The Originals by Cat Patrick

The funny thing is I am not especially a fan of Patrick. I think her premises are awesome but so far, the last two of her books have failed to live up to that awesomeness. But somehow, even though I’m not a big fan, I have managed to read everything she has written. Hm. Hopefully she’ll pleasantly surprise me with this one.

These were sent to me by the awesome David Shapiro whom I met at ALA Midwinter Conference. They look amazing and I cannot wait to sink me teeth into them. Thanks David!

Impulse – Steven Gould

This is the dude who wrote Jumper and it is, I believe, the third installment in the trilogy. I’m excited to read it! Thanks Alexis from Tor!

Farseed – Pamela Sargent

This one is the second installment in the Seed Trilogy. I reviewed the first one. I found it a refreshing change from all the spaceship/loose sci-fi YA novels out there. Hopefully this one is just as pleasing. This one was sent by Alexis as well.

Story’s End – Marissa Burt

I read StoryBound and I quite liked it. So I requested this one and Shannon from Harper Collins Canada was nice enough to send me an ARC. Thanks Shannon. Review will be up nearer its release date.

So there was this book blogger event (where we shmooshed around a tiny table at the Starbucks in Chapters Metrotown) and the wonderful ladies from Raincoast Books plied up us with books and won our favor. Thank you Melissa and Megan! All of them excepting City of a Thousand Dolls which Kaitlin picked up for me from ALA (Thank you!) and Faerieground: Wish – Beth Bracken which was sent to me by Capstone. It’s a gorgeous book with breathtaking illustrations and I will read it fairly soon.

Purchased

As I said before, I went to this event organized by the Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable and they had managed to get Oliver Jeffers to speak at the event. There, I saw these two books, I grabbed these two books and had them both signed. His signatures are awesome as they are usually accompanied by a drawing.

Cool huh?

These four I purchased from BookDepository because for some unknown reason, the prices were low. Like really low. I got the YA ones for 11 dollars or so and Ever After for $18 (the retail place is 28 so I consider it cheap). Plus it was my birthday this month and well…I felt entitled to spoil myself.

Won/Gifted

I won Scarlet in a giveaway by the awesome Lucy from The Reading Date and The Best of Lewis Carroll comes to me from my friend Rossi for my birthday. Thank you ladies!

New On My Shelves for the Month of January

So this was sort of an epic month where books are concerned. Between my shopping at bookcloseouts during boxing week and ala, my shelves overflowed. Here are the books I purchased and actually received in my mailbox.

The Horologican – Mark Forsyth (for review)

Thank you Penguin Canada and Scholastic Canada for these three review copies.

New On My Shelves for the Month of December

January promises to be epic because I went a bit crazy at Bookcloseouts during Boxing Day but January was rather…slow. I didn’t get many books but the ones I did get were kind of amazing so the trade off was good.

For Review:
Shadowland – Kate Brian (Thanks Hachette Canada)
The Archived – Victoria Schwab (See above)
One + One = Blue – M. J. Auch (Thanks Raincoast Canada)

Wide Open – Deoborah Coates (Bookcloseouts)
Son of a Witch – Gregory Maguire (Bookcloseouts)
So Silver Bright – Lisa Mantchev (Bookcloseouts)

The Kneebone Boy – Ellen Potter  (Bookcloseouts)
The Bell at Sealey Head – Patricia McKillip (Bookcloseouts)
The Bards of Bone Plain – Patricia McKillip (Bookcloseouts)

The Seeker – Isobelle Carmody (Bookcloseouts)
River Road – Suzanne Johnson (For review, thanks Tor.)

Magic for Beginners – Kelly Link (Book Depository)
The Darkest Minds – Alexandra Bracken (For review, thanks Hachette Canada.)
The Thief – Megan Whalen Turner (Book Depository)

————————————-

I made some bookmarks for this bake sale we are doing to raise funds for the Maurice Sendak Symposium we are organizing. I had a lot of fun making them and I thought I’d share some pictures.

Book Haul aka New on my Shelves for the Month of November!

I didn’t go too crazy this month though I was really tempted to! I held strong but I did get some really awesome books that I shall show you.

So I am taking a creative class this year along with the Masters in Fine Arts students – writing for children – and our professor is an accomplished picture book/children’s book writer. On the last day of class, she surprised us by gifting us with a copy of her book! And then she signed it for those who wanted and I wanted, very much! I love the title, it’s very colourful and Sasha is a wonderful character. So yay for gifts and picture books!

Both these titles are for review from Little Brown. I have read and reviewed Eternally Yours and you can find it on the blog because I’m too lazy to go looking for it but I’m in the process of reading Days of Blood and Starlight! I like it with some reservations so far – the reservations mostly have to do with all the tension! But Zuze and Mik are back and I love them both so!

Thanks Michelle from Simon and Schuster Canada for The Almost Truth by Eileen Cook. I have read it and written a review and you should see it on the blog sometime next week. Local author you guys! As for Paper Valentine, I requested the title from Penguin Canada and they provided it so graciously. Thank you so much! I love Brenna Yovanoff’s writing style. Lyrical prose-ly goodness. Yum.

These two titles are both from Strange Chemistry, the YA imprint of Angry Robot and both are 2013 debut novels. I am ridiculously excited for both of them! Thank you Angry Robot for these ARCs. I should have the reviews up on the blog nearer to their release dates.

I haven’t yet read the first one in the series by Kendare Blake (it is a duology, right?) but I know I’m going to love it. Well, I hope I’m going to love it as I have already purchased it and it is not languishing on my bookshelf waiting for me to give it another look. The Summer of the Ubume by Natsuhiko Kyogoku has been on my Japanese-Lit radar for a long while so when I saw it on the shelves at the library sale, I snatched it up. It’s about an exorcist who doesn’t really believe in ghosts but does believe in the power of exorcism. It sounds really intriguing and is apparently the first in a series with the main character having a leading role in about nine other books. I’m not sure whether the rest have been translated but I guess I’ll read this one and then figure it out. The Shadow Princess is the third one in the In the Feast of Roses and The Twentieth Wife trilogy by Indu Sundaresan. If you love rich detail and history, especially the Moghul empire, you should totally give these a go. The first two books concern the father of the emperor who build the Taj Mahal and his love Mehrunissa, the Empress who ruled from behind the veil. It’s just so epically gorgeous. This book deals with the children of Shah Jahan, the dude who built the Taj Mahal and from what I gleaned from reviews, is an epic tale that shows how the monument shadowed the lives of those living near it. Sounds good to me!

So my Teng read Tom Jones by Henry Fielding for a class she did this past term and she was quite incensed when I told her that I hadn’t read the book despite being a Fielding fan. When I saw this on the library book sale cart, I snatched it up because hey! Now that I have it, I can make movements towards reading it. Eventually. It’ll take me a long time but I will read it. Ekaterina Sedia has written a lot of books and I haven’t read any of them. The House of Discarded Dreams sounds so intriguing that I had to grab it when I saw it. I had checked it out a while ago but had had to return it before I could read it so getting myself a copy, albeit a used one, was a lucky strike for me. It has a Zimbabwean protagonist dealing with fantastical stuff and I can’t wait to read it. Steinbeck’s The Pearl I got because I haven’t yet read anything by the man and I felt I should…maybe. Soon. Someday?

Anyway, this is it for my book haul. What did you guys get?

New On My Shelves for the Month of October

There is a lot. Bear with me.

For Review

• Casual Vacancy – J. K. Rowling
• Venom – Fiona Paul
• Ironskin – Tina Connelly
• Dark Star – Bethany Frenette
• Undead – Kirsty McKay

• Beta – Rachel Cohn
• Magisterium – Jeff Hirsch
• The Dark Unwinding – Sharon Cameron

Thank you Hachette Canada, Scholastic Canada Penguin Canada and Tor/Forge

Gifted

• Half the Sky – Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (Thanks Rossi)
• A Walk on the Tundra – Rebecca Hainnu and Anna Ziegler (Thanks Vancouver Children’s Lit. Roundtable)

Purchased

(Signed)

• Seraphina – Rachel Hartman (met her at Word on the Street)
• This Dark Endeavour – Kenneth Oppel (met him at Roundtable event)

Sales etc

- The Ghost Child – Sonya Hartnett
- Midsummer Night – Freda Warrington
- Among Others – Jo Walton

• The Animals in that Country – Margaret Atwood
• Never Hit a Jellyfish with a Spade – Guy Browning
• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie – Alan Bradley
• A Sending of Dragons – Jane Yolen
• Camille – Alexandre Dumas
• Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D. H. Lawrence
• Lord of the Flies – William Golding

• The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas – John Boyne
• The Amber Spyglass – Phillip Pullman
• Words under the Words – Naomi Shihad Nye
• The Memory Keeper’s Daughter – Kim Edwards
• The Painted Veil – W. Somerset Maugham

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie
• Godmother – Carolyn Turgeon
• The Cinnamon Peeler – Michael Ondaatje
• Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures – Vincent Lam
• Tales from Firozsha Baag – Rohinton Mistry
• Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch

1. Going Bovine – Libba Bray
2. Elsewhere – Gabrielle Zevin
3. A Curse as Dark As Gold – Elizabeth C. Bunce
4. Frankenstein – Mary Shelle
5. The Year of Secret Assignments – Jaclyn Moriarty
6. To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf

• The Black Book – Orhan Pamuk
• Gudrun – Alma Johanna Koenig
• Brightly Woven – Alexandra Bracken
• Fairy Tales of Ludwig Bechstein
• One-Time Dog Market at Buda and Other Hungarian Folk Tales
• Peter and the Shadow Thieves – Dave Barry

• The Last Hero – Rick Riordan
• The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie – Jaclyn Moriarty
• The Ghosts of Ashbury High – Jaclyn Moriarty
• The Wishing Ring – Erich Holle
• Thief Eyes – Jenni Lee Simner
• The Princess Bride – William Goldman

• Room – Emma Donoghue
• Read Aloud Myths and Legends – Various
• Dreams of Joy – Lisa See

Phew! What was your haul?

New On My Shelves: I Got Books and Then Some

Purchased

• Wildwood Dancing – Juliet Marillier
• The Fitzbornes in Exile – Michelle Cooper
• The Fool’s Girl – Celia Rees
• The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman
• The Thief Lord – Cornelia Funke
• Peter in Scarlet – Geraldine McCaughrean
• Possession – A. S. Byatt (Free! Thanks Jessie!)

• Complete Fairy Tales – The Brothers Grimm
• What I Talk About When I’m Running – Haruki Murakami
• Underground – Haruki Murakami
• The Magicians of Caprona – Diana Wynne Jones
• The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place – E. L. Konigsburg
• The Live of Christopher Chant – Diana Wynne Jones
• Witch Week – Diana Wynne Jones
• The Homeward Bounders – Diana Wynne Jones

For Review

• Venom – Fiona Paul
• Black City – Elizabeth Richards
• Scarlet – Marissa Meyer
• Mira’s Diary – Marissa Moss
• Through Indigo’s Eyes – Tara Taylor
• Broken – A. C. Rought

• Adaptation – Malinda Lo
• Iron Hearted Violet – Kelly Barnhill

Thanks to Raincoast Books, Hachette Books Canada, Strange Chemistry and Penguin Canada for the review copies!

What’s new on your shelves?

New On my Shelves for the Month of August

The promised book haul post.

For Review

• Wonders of the Invisible World – Patricia A. McKillip
  Thank you, Tachyon, for this one. I love McKillip and I recently love short stories so I can’t wait to read this one.
• In a Fix – Linda Grimes
  I will have Linda over for an interview soon. Look out for it. And the review for In a Fix will be up nearer it’s release date.
• Falling Kingdoms – Morgan Rhodes
  Thanks Penguin Canada for this one. I can’t wait to dive into this one.
• The House of Silk – Anthony Horowitz
  A continuance of the Sherlock Holmes series. Thanks Hachette Canada.

Purchased

• Cinder – Marissa Meyer
  I found this on sale at Chapters for only $5.99. Yay.
• Jasmyn – Alex Bell
  Review will be up sooner or later. Found it on Abebooks.com.
• Throne of Glass – Sarah J. Maas
  A big meh. Review will be up later.
• Ariel – Sylvia Plath
  Contains some of my favourite poems by her.
• Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman – Haruki Murakami
  I think I need only one more title by him before I have all the books of his that I need to read. I should, you know, start reading them.
• Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair – Pablo Neruda
  I have been reading lots of Neruda lately and had been wanting this book for a while now so I went ahead and spent about $6 on it.

That’s all for me! I hope your mailboxes flourish in September as well!

New On My Shelves for The Month of July

July was a relatively slow month for me but I did fold and get some books I had been wanting for a while.

For Review

Cold Fury – T. M. Goeglein

From Penguin Canada. (Thank you!) This is on my 2012 Debut Novels list (if you’ll look in the pages above, you’ll see I have a page dedicated to the debuts alone, check it out) and the story seems fast paced and contains a badass protagonist – the kind I love. The reviews haven’t been all that encouraging however but I still want to make my own decision…and there’s a pretty hardback copy with which to do so. Expect a review on it soonish.

Sapphire Blue – Kerstin Gier

Thanks Raincoast Canada! This is the second one in the Ruby Red Trilogy and I realllly liked the first one. It was all sorts of awesome and if you haven’t tried it out yet, I do recommend it. Time travel, an intriguing heroine with an even more intriguing family, a mysterious love interest and fah! Awesomeness.

Purchased

Tiger Moon – Antonia Michaelis

I actually checked this out from the library but I didn’t want to speed read it as I usually have to do with my library acquisitions. I want to linger over it, savour it, read a bit at a time so I snagged a used copy of Abe Books.

Looking for Alaska – John Green

I don’t know when I’m going to get to this but hey, at least I have it now. Right? Watch me collect all his work now.

Skip Beat vole 7-8-9 in one – Yoshiki Nakamura

So this manga is over 25 volumes long but I hold out hope that if they continue churning out the three in one volumes, I will eventually be able to collect all of them.

For Darkness Shows the Stars – Diana Peterfreund

I tried really really hard not to give in to this one. But the more I saw people around the blogosphere enjoying this, the more I wanted my grubby hands on it. So I caved finally and now, my precioussss, is here! I can pet it to my heart’s delight. My heart is very delighted. My bank account isn’t. Hur.

The Mistborn Trilogy – Brandon Sanderson

Another purchase that The Book Depository beguiled me into making. I mean, you guys, it was only 16 bucks for the box set and it would have cost me about $30 Canadian for the books if I bought them separately so…yeah okay, I have no spine. :\ But I don’t regret it! At all!

I leave you with a Japanese word that describes almost all of us booklovers. Credit on the picture.