Alvah's Books

Like Oklahoma’s Ado Annie, I am easily seduced. However, my seducers are not men, but books. On Monday, after clearing another surface to make room for yet another pile of books, I said aloud to anyone who would listen, “No more books until I’ve read through these six piles.” Lola, my Labrador retriever, picked up her head from the floor, and shot  me a look that basically said, “Yeah, right, I’ve heard that before,”  sighed loudly and then went back to sleep.

Well she was right; my resolve to not request or buy any more books went like smoke out the chiminey. Yesterday, I received emails from three publicists, inquiring if I’d be interested to review the books they were publicizing. After reading the blurbs and the synopsis, how could I say no? The titles seemed too tantalizing and as I my finger pushed the mouse cursor to “Reply” for a mere second I thought, but do you really need to read this? Don’t you have enough to tide you over for the rest of the year? Apparently not because I hit reply three times.

If you recall my Bibliophile or Bibliomaniac post, I listed recent acquistions. Here’s my progress: I’ve read and completed  two of the 14 listed (The Angel’s Game and The Scarecrow, reviews awaiting) , currently reading four (You or Someone Like You, Stardust, The Rise and Fall of Communism, Beowulf on the Beach) and outsourced two for review (Hunter and Two to Six) to my brilliant reviewer and speed reader Randall Radic—I still don’t know how he reads these books so quickly maybe it’s all that Merlot he drinks.

That leaves me with five from that list that are patiently waiting for their turn, but after I finish reading Julie & Julia and The Puzzle King, but wait what about the seven recent ones that came in the mail these past few days?

Okay, I have you all as my witnesses, no more books until I’ve finished and written reviews for all the books I have stacked all over the house. There, it’s in writing. Now hold me to it.

I have to admit it that I have serious book problem. I vow that I’m not going to request any more review copies, but then something catches my eye and bang! I’m typing an email to a publicist requesting the book.

For a couple of weeks I was good, but I admit I started missing the daily packages. Some books that I requested a while back never arrived, but then I started to receive a deluge. Sometimes three or four a day, usually one a day. As it turned out, a bunch of these had been sent via media mail while others were sent regular mail or UPS.

No matter how they long they took to arrive, I now have a huge “To Be Read” pile that it would be shameless for me to jot off another book request until I finish these.

Since I’ve been busy this month with the Alvah Bessie tribute, writing a review for a Blog Tour, and I’ve been working on my own novel (and now I am trying to revise it as quickly as possible because an agent has expressed interest to read the entire manuscript), I haven’t had a chance to post “In this Week’s Post”  for quite a while. So I thought I would list what’s come in. On another note, I am discontinuing Weekly Reads. It was fun to assign books to myself for the week, but the truth was that it was getting to be too much like work . I already have enough deadlines for my job and other projects I’m working on, why add more stress?

Now to the books:

• A Circle of Souls, by Preetham Grandhi
• Hunter, by Cambell Jeffreys
• You or Someone Like You, by Chandler Burr
• The Embers, by Hyatt Bass
• The Angel’s Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• Stardust, by Joseph Kanon
• The Hunted, by Brian Haig
• The Rise and Fall of Communism, by Archie Brown
• From Where the Rivers Come, by Terin Tashi Miller
• Germany 1945, by Richard Bessel
• Sunnyside, by Glen David Gold
• Two to Six, by James P. Cornelio
• Beowulf on the Beach, by Jack Murnighan
• The Scarecrow, Michael Connelly

These were all the ones that came via mail. I also have three books I borrowed from the library, a half-dozen I bought at our local bookstore and library sale. And…I also have ten more that are slowly climbing up the to be read pile.  Last, but not least are the ones from my own collection that I’ve pulled out for the Spanish Civil War and Communism monthly theme.

There’s no question that I like to read, but is this becoming an addiction? I’m curious what others do to handle the backload of books. What do you do so that it doesn’t seem like work? I look forward to reading your comments and tips.