Alvah's Books

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.