The Splurge to End It All

Times of austerity have now come to Bookgazing. I’m not allowing myself to make any more dvd, cd, or book purchases and am going to attempt to keep form buying anything luxury (except tickets to events) for three months, beginning from 13th Jan. I can buy presents for others, otherwise nothing. After the three months are up although I plan to be more permissive with myself, I’d like to keep my spending reduced. No huge splurges, just single books. I pair of shoes, instead of three at a go. No unreasonable goals.

I did say that before I stopped buying I was going to use a surprise Christmas bonus to have one last spending hurrah. And I went for it in a pretty big way, never say I can’t commit to an idea. I got shoes (you can see one pair in the background of that one post), a few dvd box sets and a cd. I also got (what else) books by the barrel. I’ll leave this marker here, with a list of the books I bought and what I received for Christmas and birthday presents. When my purse starts to come out in a book shop I’ll just remember what a big pile of books are still waiting for me at home:

Christmas

‘The Dispossessed’ – Ursula Le Guin: February’s Women of Sci-fi pick. I’m hoping this will be the book that brings me round to Le Guin, as I’ve been told it’s not fair to judge her on the Earthsea books.

‘Rebels and Traitors’ – Lindsey Davis: Not a Falco mystery, but a standalone historical romance set during the English Civil War. I’m not sure how this could be more my sort of thing.

‘Black Powder War’ – Naomi Novick: The third Temeraire book and I’m going to enjoy it so hard (I hope) as I begin to approach the very possibly dodgy part of this series. *Clings to joy*. This time we’re off to India, but Temeraire’s nemesis, the female dragon Lien is determined to get her revenge.

‘Tooth and Claw’ – Jo Walton: Nymeth put this on my radar and when it turned up as part of the Women of Fantasy group I wanted to make sure I’d be able to take part in the discussion. Victorian social behaviour transposed on to dragons sounds just so far out and fun.

‘Now Panic and Freak Out’: A twist on the classic saying, with quotes about panicking : ) Sometimes you need someone to say it’s ok to freak a little bit.

‘A Simples Life’ – Aleksandr Orlov: Yep I’m part of the culture that is bringing the literary world to its knees. I got someone to buy the biography from a fictional meerkat, who came to fame because of car insurance adverts. I am being manipulated by advertising, but as I don’t have a car to get insured I don’t think it’s that big a problem. I have been to the fake website people, I find it adorables. My parents also sponsored a meerkat at our zoo for me – see we help too.

Birthday

‘Prospero Lost’ – L Jagi Lamplighter: A futuristic continuation of the story of the characters of The Tempest. I honestly can’t get enough of revisionist/adaptations/inspired by Shakespeare stories and The Booksmugglers recommend it, so that’s another choice made for my Women in Fantasy participation.

‘The Agency: The Body at the Tower’ – Y S Lee: I am so excited for the second instalment of this Victorian mystery series. There has been a murder at the soon to be completed Big Ben! Mary must pose as a boy working the construction job (I grew up with stories of girls dressing as boys for adventuring so I am well excited to see this trope appear more and more). James is back. All good things.

‘The Nightwatch’ – Sarah Waters: I read ‘The Little Stranger’ last year and now I want more. I know everyone raves about ‘Fingersmith’ but the WWII setting sounded irresistible.

‘Next World Novella’ – Matthias Politycki: My parents got me the 2011 Peirene subscription, which means I get all three of their 2011 novellas delivered when they’re published, beginning with this one. More literature in translation to further that 2011 goal.

Which just leaves ‘Dust’ by Elizabeth Bear spinning in orbit somewhere. It was in stock when my parents ordered it, now not so much. Will it appear in time for the Women of Sci-fi discussion?

Work’s Secret Santa Present

‘Full Dark, No Stars’ – Stephen King: It is a miracle that I got a book for my present from work! One year I got £10 in an old PDA box (we work with PDAs). Most of the time the one other woman in our office buys my secret Santa gift for whichever bloke has got me (not that I didn’t appreciate my pot of irises, my solar powered desk toy and my chocolates). This year was a bit of a splendid surprise, present bought by person who actually got me as SS, present a book I am looking forward to.

Another fantasy adventure begins

This section I blame almost entirely on The Booksmugglers : ) Exactly how many fantasy series am I in the middle of (many). How many first books in fantasy series do I need to buy (none). And yet…

‘The Poison Throne’ – Celine Kiernan: This is absolutely their fault ; ) I hadn’t even heard of this series as far as I recall before seeing it mentioned at their site AND THEN they did a big post on the entire series. It sounded wonderful. *Sobs* money runs through fingers.

‘White Cat’ – Holly Black: Jeanne’s review encouraged me to start this series, with hints that all is not as it seems. I will let The Booksmugglers off the hook on this one (even though they mentioned it a lot last year).

‘The Knife of Never Letting Go’ – Patrick Ness: The big series of the last few years and I’ve been so good at avoiding all spoilers, all posts on it and the temptation to buy, but seeing it on the smugglers top of the year post meant it flipped its way into the basket.

‘The Thief’ – Meghan Whalen Turner: The smugglers pick the best covers and this series has some of my fav cover artwork. It’s just so old fantasy feel, but somehow also very sharp and…relevant looking? Also beautiful colours. I’m also interested in the story, of course! But sometimes it’s nice to stop and admire the pretty.

‘The Hunger Games’ – Suzanne Collins: You knew I couldn’t resist in the end didn’t you? I held out until the series was finished at least.


Books for Review

‘Jazz in Love’ – Neesha Meminger: Very kindly sent to me by the author after I requested it. I know some adults don’t like contemporary YA, even though they like other YA. Contemporary and humour were a big part of what book raised me when I was growing up, so when I came back to YA it seemed natural to go back to reading some contemporary YA alongside the fantasy.

Books for group discussion

‘The Summer Book’ – Tove Jansson: For the Slaves of Golconda January read.

‘Rider’s of the Purple Sage’ – Zane Grey: For Amanda’s informal classics readalong (which I missed by miles, but I'll still be reading this).

‘Total Oblivion, More or Less’ – Alan Deniro : Jeanne and I will be reading this together in May and spending quite a bit of time discussing it.

‘Annabel’ – Kathleen Winter

‘Scars’ – Cheryl Rainfield

‘Will Grayson, Will Grayson’ – David Levithan & John Green

‘Krakow Melt’ – Daniel Allen Cox

Those four are titles on the shortlist for the indie literature awards. Only one and a bit to go until I’ve read them all.

Following Up

I wanted to spend some time this year reading more from authors I like who have sizeable backlists. So I bought further works by a few adult authors:

‘The Locusts Have No King’ – Dawn Powell: This will be my third novel by Dawn Powell, having previously read ‘The Happy Island’ and ‘Dance Night’.

‘Time will Darken it’ – William Maxwell: My second book by William Powell, the first being ‘The Folded Leaf’.

‘Journey into the Past’ – Stefan Zweig: My second by Stefan Zweig, the first being the book that brought him back to mainstream notice ‘The Post Office Girl’ (it is wonderful in the saddest way, it really explained the world to me).

‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ – Joyce Carol Oates: Ooo let’s see this will be my seventh novel by Joyce Carol Oates if I’m counting right and you’ll know that that barely scratches the surface of her published work. I just love her novels. Blonde will be a film soon and we can all go and see it.

‘Parrot and Oliver in America’ – Peter Carey: I think this is my fourth novel by Carey. Sounds like a romp and if any literary author can do a plot based story that then turns round and makes you explode with feeling it is Carey.

YA – Y not?

‘Wildthorn’ – Jane Eagland: A girl locked away for deviating from her Victorian parents ideas is another trope I favour. I also hear this is a historical with a lesbian main character, although the blurb doesn’t mention it.

‘Skunk Girl’ – Sheba Karim: I’ve been wanting this for ages and I’m so excited to finally have it. Skunk Girl was Nerds Heart YA nomination last year and I can’t wait to meet the central character.

‘The Latte Rebellion’ –Sarah Jamila Stevenson : Ari spotted this book and I instantly craved it. An idea developed to make two teens some cash spins out of control.

‘Slice of Cherry’ – Dia Reeves: The pre-order surprise that made my day. This novel is set in the same universe as ‘Bleeding Violet’, but follows different characters (serial killer sisters).

‘Shipbreaker’ – Paulo Bacigallupi: You know I was very won over by ‘The Windup Girl’ so how could I resist the book everyone is touting as much better than that? I am hoping that with Shipbreaker being YA there will be less awful sex toy rape, because those were some squicky scenes to read whatever their value to the story.

‘Behemoth’ – Scott Westerfeld: I must know what is in those eggs that were so mysteriously mentioned in ‘Leviathan’. In the sequel our hero and heroine in disguise are off to the Ottoman Empire with their bowler hated lady boffin.

Serious non-fiction

‘50 Literary Ideas You Need to Know’ – John Sutherland: I saw John Sutherland talking about literary conversation in The Times a few weeks ago and thought ‘Oh that sounds just like the ideas litlove is always trying to explore’. Although I’ve got a good handle on the thought processes behind lots of literary theory (areas Sutherland puts under a heading ‘New Ideas’) I want to educate myself a bit more on literary technical terms. I’m excited about this one, because Sutherland is so smart, this series of ’50...ideas’ is very accessible and at the end of contents table there’s a section called ‘The future of literature’ which includes chapters on e-books and fanfiction.

Impulse Buy

‘Coconut Unlimited’ – Nikesh Shukla: I do much less impulse buying online, but sometimes something just jumps out of those related recommendations boxes. This book is about racial identities that don’t fit easily into categories and friendships solidified by starting a band. I like books where bands are started and this sounds like a bit of a crossover adult/YA book, which is also a favourite thing of mine.