Monday, November 26, 2007

New Books!

It seems that the new book gods stopped by my house today while I was at work not really working, but rather, writing my NaNo book which I'm less than 7,000 words from finishing! Ahem...work will resume tomorrow *cough*inbetweenwriting*cough* Now I promised that I'd try hard not to buy anymore books for myself this year and I'm sticking to that! I ordered these six books from bookcloseouts.com about 2 weeks ago and there just getting to me. So without further ado, here they are:

The God of Small Things: Both Kim and Nymeth read this one and gave it amazing reviews. I've heard nothing but good stuff about this one and it won the Booker Prize! I tend to like the Booker winners.

The Christmas Tree: This one was an impulse buy. It was only $1.99 on the website and it has some great illustrations. I was just looking for something Christmas-y to read.

A Study in Scarlett: Who hasn't read this book aside from me! Everyone who read this one for the RIP Challenge seemed to love it so I had to add it to my list.

The Bat Poet: I just happened to stumble upon this one on the website and it's such a cool book! It's illustrated by Maurice Sendak who I absolutely love. I feel like I can already recommend this one to everyone before I even read it.

The Book of Flying: Who recommended this to me? Someone did awhile back when I did one of those "what's your favorite book" posts...or it might have been "biggest surprise favorite book" I don't know, but this book looks so cool and I love the cover. And I know it's on somebody's favorites list!

The Kitchen Boy: This one comes recommended by Eva. She read it during the 24 hour reading challenge and really enjoyed it and I enjoyed her review of it :) So I'm hoping to enjoy the book in return! That's alot of joy!

Aside from reading and not working when I should be, I put up the Christmas lights tonight and I must say that they look nice! I couldn't help but laugh when I thought that since Katrina we've decorated a different house every year for Christmas. Actually, for the first Christmas, it was two. First I decorated my condo in Baton Rouge and then when I moved back to Metairie (my hometown, a suburb of New Orleans) we decorated our trailer...the inside at least. Last Christmas we were living in a duplex that we were renting, so we decorated our half of that, and now this Christmas we're renting a house! So at least we're movin on up! Hopefully by next year FEMA will get their act together and allow my mom to finally rebuild her house so that she can have a real Christmas in her own home again!

21 comments:

DesLily said...

you and me both! I got some books today too and that's the cut off till "next year"!!! So now when the 3 books I want that are due out during December I'll have to ask Santa (or my kid) for them! LOL.. (or wait..hmmm dunno if that's possible!) lol..

I love your word count baby boy!!! You are doing sooooo good! I be proud of you Chris!!!

I hope your mom has her own home back again by next year too.. unreal to me that you and others are still fighting for what's yours!

chrisa511 said...

Deslily, Yeah, I'm hoping Santa brings me some books too! Like I need anymore! I'm liking my word count too! It went up pretty high today. In fact, it may have been a record high for me. And it wasn't just filler stuff, it was real story. I would've gone longer too, but work happened ;)

It's unreal to me that we're fighting to, but I have to remember that we're really blessed compared to some people. There are still thousands of people down here spending their third Christmas in a trailer. So it could definitely be worse. Definitely could...

Becky said...

I really enjoyed The Christmas Tree. I read it a few years after picking it up at Half-Priced Books. There was also a TV movie of it. Anyway, it's a good choice for that price :)

Chris said...

7000 words! Wahoo!

Those books are gorgeous to look at. I'd have a hard time resisting.

chrisa511 said...

Becky, Oh good! Glad to hear that you enjoyed it. I had never even heard of it, so I'm glad to hear that someone else has ;) Now I'm even more excited about it!

Other Chris, I love looking at new books! They get added to the TBR shelf which is well over 100 books...so I have LOTS of pretty books to look a and choose from. Victory is almost mine with NaNO! Finally...I felt like it would never end!

Eva said...

Hope you enjoy The Kitchen Boy! I'm impressed that you've already decorated. Way more energy than I have!

Carl V. Anderson said...

Might have been me, I have mentioned The Book of Flying a few times on my and other blogs. It was a book that I picked up, read cover to cover in a day, and was in a good melancholy funk for days afterwards thinking of the story. We have to talk afterwards, so read it quick. Ha!

darkorpheus said...

Ah, I bought some books today too! Among my purchase is the new Ali Smith from the Canongate Myth series -- and the Buffy Season 8 graphic novel. One if happy when one is financially solvent enough to buy books. :)

The God of Small Things is a beautiful read -- I hope you love it as much as Kim, Nymeth and I did.

And good luck on the last 7,000 words. I have thrown in the towel on NaNo -- but you hang it there! Write like the wind!

But are you near the actual ending of your novel yet or you think it could go on further?

Anonymous said...

Ohh, I love new books! I have had The God of Small Things on my TBR book shelf for years, but have yet to pick it up. I did read The Kitchen Boy while on vacation this past spring and really enjoyed it (you can see my review here: http://thewrittenword.wordpress.com/2007/05/01/the-kitchen-boy/
I hope you enjoy it too!
Stephanie
www.thewrittenword.wordpress.com

Ana S. said...

yay for The God of Small Things! I can't wait to see what you think of it.

I remember Eva's and also Kailana's review of The Kitchen Boy. I really want to read it.

Good luck with the rest of your book!

Susan said...

Congrats on the word count. Very nice. I think you may have inspired me to do the Nano thing next year - maybe :)

I'm interested to see your reviews of your new books. I haven't read any of them.

Glad you all are keeping your chins up with the Katrina mess. It must suck not being in your own place, especially at Christmastime. Keep the faith! Things will work out.

Debi said...

(((Huge hugs to you and your mom)))
Hard as I try, and as many tears as I shed, I can't honestly comprehend what it must be like to have lived through Katrina and her aftermath. It both breaks my heart and makes me so angry to think about all the people who are being kept (through bureaucracy and sometimes worse) from putting their lives back together in the way they should be able to. I so admire the way you count your blessing though...I'm sure it can't be easy at times. I solemnly hope that by next Christmas your mom is back in her own home enjoying the holidays to the fullest!

And now, with those sincere thoughts expressed, let's get on to the books! That's quite a nice little early Christmas there! (By the way, I'm one of the others who has not yet read A Study in Scarlett...but then that's not surprising, huh?) I've never heard of that site, but guess where I'll be heading next!

Anonymous said...

well, i haven't read "a study in scarlet" either. so after you read it, it only be me that hasn't read it! ;)

i have read "god of small things" though, and enjoyed it a lot! very cool.

chrisa511 said...

Eva, I'm sure I'll enjoy the book. I love the cover, it's great! As for decorating, I'm usually not so motivated ;) but neighbors started decorating and I started shopping, so the mood was struck and I had to put the decorations up!

Carl, Now that you mention it, I think it was you that mentioned The Book of Flying! It's been on my wishlist ever since! I'm really looking forward to it, it sounds like a great book. I got it in hardcover for like $2.99...gotta love that website!

D-O, Nice book purchases! It's always nice to be able to spend a little on books ;) Another fan of The God of Small Things! I really can't wait to read that one, it sounds like such a great book. Sorry to hear NaNo didn't work out for you...but save your story idea! It's a great one and I was looking forward to hearing how it came along. If anything, you can take your time with it now. I think I actually am almost finished my novel...I'm guessing it'll be around 52,000 words, but of course that's just a first draft! When I go back to it I'm guessing the final version will be around 75,000 words. I'll definitely be expanding a lot of the plot points!

Stephanie, Oh good! Another fan of The Kitchen Boy! It's always good when you hear from a few people that a book is good. I'm really looking forward to The God of Small Things. Haven't heard anything bad about that one yet!

Nymeth, You're the one that really set in stone my decision to read The God of Small Things, so I can't wait to read that one. It sounds like something that I'll love. Don't know when I'll get to it though. The Kitchen Boy should be really good. Sounds great and it looks like a quick read. Thanks for the good luck on the book! It's almost done now! Just 4,000 more words!

Susan, Awesome! I really hope that you do NaNoWriMo next year. It's been an awesome experience. I've wanted to give up at times, but now that I'm almost done, I'm on cloud nine again. It's hard to believe that I'll have a novel written in a few more days! As far as the Katrina mess, we try not to let it get us down for Christmas. As long as we're all together and have our Christmas lights and a tree, it's still Christmas! That's what matters. The rest is just comfort and we're much more comfortable this year than we have been in the past. Thanks for your kind words :)

Debi, Thanks for the hugs :) Like I told Susan, Christmas is a feeling more than a place for us. As long as we're together, we'll still have Christmas and this year will be the best since Katrina, I'm sure! I complain a lot about Katrina, but it could've been so much worse for us. Sure, we got 4 feet of water in our house, but others had their entire houses demolished and lost members of their family. And there are people still spending Christmas in trailers. FEMA just pisses me off so much sometimes. There are still thousands of people living in trailers and we still have our house sitting there gutted and untouched 2 1/2 years later because FEMA won't do anything and won't let us rebuild. It's so frustrating. But what can you do...Thanks for you thoughts, Debi, they mean a lot! As for bookcloseouts.com, let me apologize now for telling you about that website!!! They have the best deals on books you'll ever find. All the books I got in the mail cost me $26 and that's including shipping! Email me if you order from them, I have a coupon code I can give you to get 5 dollars off an order of 35 dollars or more.I think I get a package a month from them :p

JP, Alright! Now there's 3 of us in the "I haven't read A Study in Scarlett Club"! Awesome! And yet another fan of The God of Small Things. I really have to push that one up on the TBR list.

DesLily said...

back from Nano!.. Way to go Chris!! You are a writing fool! lol

Debi said...

I keep popping back over here looking for the big post about hitting 50,000. I know it's coming soon...and I'm oh so anxious to read about it!

chrisa511 said...

Debi, The post should be coming tomorrow if all goes well! I'm a little less than 2500 words away now and I'll probably go a little over that, but I've started the grand finale today! It just took off and it's not slowing down. So the end is VERY near ;)

Booklogged said...

Speaking of new books, thank-you so much for Speaker for the Dead. It arrived last week or maybe even the week before. I've been very distracted lately and haven't kept up on blogging, but I am embarrassed at how slow I am to extend my thanks. Just want you to know the book did arrive and I'm anxiously looking forward to reading it. I'm reading Ender's Game again before starting on Speaker for the Dead. It was so long ago that I read it and felt like I needed to have it fresh in mind.

Anyway, thanks so much! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Good on you that you're decorations are up. With our remodeling, I don't know what I can expect from my husband. And me for that matter.

chrisa511 said...

Hey Booklogged! So good to hear that the book arrived safely :) I really hope you enjoy it. Rereading Ender's Game should definitely add to the experience of the book. While it's not a necessity, it adds to the book in my opinion.

Y'all are still remodeling from the basement disaster? I'm sorry to hear about that! What a mess, huh? I hope that y'all can get some decorations up and have a little bit of Christmas atmosphere ;)

Bellezza said...

The God of Small Things was VERY hard for me to get into, I started it several times, but it is definitely worth the read. I ended up loving it...

chrisa511 said...

Bellezza, I've had that experience with a few books. And then there have always been the books that I've gave up on after a few pages and have always wondered if I stuck with them would I have loved them? But I've heard nothing but great things about The God of Small Things so I'll definitely stick with it if it's not easy to get into!