Trip To The Bookstore And Mapping July

I've been so stressed lately and I'm not entirely sure why. I think it's just a number of things. Much of it is good stress, but good stress is stress none the less. I could sit here and ramble on about everything that's stressing me out, but that would only make me stress out even more...so instead, I'll talk about what I do to handle stress :) Well first of all, I tend to turn to books...duh...this usually involves buying books, which I did tonight. I didn't go overboard though...I used some control. The books of the night:

Kate Di Camillo's The Tiger Rising - I just had to read something else by her after the wonder Tale of Despereaux and this was all they had by her at Barnes and Noble. I may read this one tonight. Sounds great. By the way, if you're a DiCamillo fan, I highly recommend that you check out Carl's excellent review of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. It's the book that I really wanted to get by her tonight after reading his review...but they didn't have it :(

Terry Pratchett's The Color of Magic - This is the first book in the Discworld series. Knowing Nymeth's love of Pratchett's Discworld novels and after Jean Pierre's Thud! review and resulting Discworld conversation, I just had to start this series! So here it goes!

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera - Nymeth wrote a wonderful review on this one and Robin described it as "the most passionate and intoxicating book I have ever read." Well, after that I had to read it! The girl at the register at B&N told me that Marquez is her favorite author, so I have really high expectations of this one! Looking forward to it and I can add this one to my Classics Challenge list.

SO...the other thing I do when I'm stressed out is plan, plan, plan and organize, organize, organize...I need structure and when life gets too out of hand, I go crazy trying to get everything back in place. So I've planned out July's reading :) I may not get all of this in as I have a friend coming in all next week and then the following week I FINALLY get to spend a week with Megan...but here's the plan:-Finish The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
-The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo (may read tonight)
-Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (for Classics Challenge)
-The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
-Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi (for Newbery Challenge)
-Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
-Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (bonus for Classics Challenge)
-AND Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (this one will be read on July 21st...trust me)

Keep your fingers crossed on Thursday for me...Job interview at 2!