Stack o' Books!

After yesterday's dour revelations about the state of reading in the US today I think I'm going to refocus on happier stuff. And what really made me happy yesterday was the haul of books that arrived at my door. We, Geoff and I, routinely order from our distributor books for ourselves and yesterday I received The Children of Hurin, the new J.R.R. Tolkien book! Wow, it looks so cool! It has beautiful illustrations inside and the description on inside flap alone is enough to make me swoon. I can't wait to read it. Also I got All That is Gone by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. I want to read it and report back here in this blog what I think of it. He is a new author for me so I'm excited to see what he's like. I also got a copy of the Constitution. Geoff got a copy of the new Margaret Drabble book, The Sea Lady and a research book for his next book project. I always stay on top of Ms. Drabble's new offerings since I know that she is one of Geoff's favorite authors.

All in all, it was a good haul of books! I already have a pile of books on my night stand. I'm still in the middle of The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi which is beginning to scare me. The tale is creepy but Helen is such a talented writer. Most authors would be ecstatic to be able to write like this by their fifth book. This is her first. It's well crafted with a uniquely honest point of view of a child.

I'm not sure what I'm going to read next. There is so much to choose from. I was thinking that I would read the Neil Gaiman graphic novel, Midnight Days but the Tolkien book looks so tempting...