knowing my shelf

I love nothing more than buying books. I buy new books, used books, old books and anything I think is just plain cool. Mostly I like to buy from Goodwill or the Halfprice bookstore, Mike's Merchandise, or any other place that has cheap books. Only on a special day or for a special book do I actually buy something new off the shelf. Speaking of shelves, what all that means is that I have more books than I know how to read. That is unacceptable to me, especially since I plan on pursuing a career in book publishing. So, I'm creating this blog to hold myself accountable for reading as much as possible and writing about it so I don't forget everything. And if somebody else happens to enjoy it, too, then hurray! Just fair warning, though ... this blog will inherently contain spoilers. I'll also put quotes I like, links, vocabulary words, and who knows what else as I go through my personal library.

I also have an account on Goodreads.com, but I want this to be different. I want to be a little free-form, totally honest and possibly rambling. I guess we'll see what happens.

So just to say what's been happening lately in my book world, I just finished reading "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal." I liked it. I reviewed it on Goodreads with four stars, but I had some gripes. It wasn't perfect, but it was an A for effort. I bought it on a whim at the mini Borders in the mall, where I also ran across Paulo Coehlo's "The Witch of Portobello," which I hope to get soon. I could only justify one full-price purchase. It's not that I'm cheap, people. It's that I'm poor. There is just as much a place in my heart for spanking-new books as there is for previously loved ones.

In the past, I've been really good at starting a book and not finishing it. It took me probably four tries to get through "Bridget Jones's Diary," even though I thought it was brilliant. Some other books I've begun but never got around to finishing: "Girl With a Pearl Earring," "Spirit of the Rainforest," "The Real Rules," "Pet Sematary" and "Everything's Eventual." There are probably more, but so far those are the victims. I also admit to having started "The Awakening" again, but it's being put on hold since I've read it before and I'm trying to get some fresh material in my head. The point is to be well versed in a variety of book "things" so I won't feel out of place when I attend publishing school (assuming I get accepted, which I will).

I have also lately signed up to receive the Sunday Book Review from The New York Times, which I've greatly enjoyed. I read reviews of Anne Rice's "The Road to Cana," "The Best American Erotic Poems," "Willing" and "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles," and I learned about the difference between trade and mass-market paperbacks. I sort of already knew that, from a year-and-a-half-or-so stint at Books-A-Million.

I've got quite a list of books to read, and perhaps I'll eventually make it through all of them. The problem is they multiply faster than I can read them. It might take a week or a month to get through one book, but I can sweep up an armful in under half an hour at any given bookstore. So now I'm off to bed, a.k.a. book haven, with "Valley of the Dolls." So far, so good.

Books upcoming beyond "Valley" will be "Spirit of the Rainforest" and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time."