Ruthie Reads

Yeah, I know I’m late with this. But here’s the thing… Every week I make a list of books I find while I’m wandering around checkin’ out everyone’s blogs, and every week I forget to post it until Saturday and then I figure that since Friday’s gone by again, I’ll wait and post next week. It’s gettin’ to be too much of a habit, so I’m posting today so that I get to share all these amazing finds :) (And yes, they’ve all been added to my ever growing wish list!)

Flirting with Forty by Jane Porter (Found on Debbie’s World)

Marshmallow’s for Breakfast by Dorothy Koomson (found on MizB’s blog Should Be Reading)

Detachment Delta by Don Bendell (found on Genre Go Round)

The Silent Man and The Faithful Spy, both by Alex Berenson and seen first on the bookworm’s blog

Gauntlet by Richard Aaron (seen on JenClair’s blog)

and Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende got lots of good comments on An Adventure in Reading and so caught my attention.

And that’s it, or at least that’s the ones I remembered to write down. :)

Share your Friday Finds at Should Be Reading

This week Musing Monday asks: How do you choose what do buy from your local bookstore? Do you have a list, or just browse? What is the selection in your book store like? Do you find what you’re looking for? Do you feel pressured to buy the kind of books the store makes prominent?

This is a great set of questions, and timely too since I spent 2 afternoons last week in bookstores.

I’m about 50/50 on the list. Sometimes I have a list of things I really want to get. If I’m working on a series I’ll make sure to take a list so that I don’t buy the books out of order. Other days I’ll know that I want something different and just browse until something catches my eye. We used to have this lovely little new-age book shop here, and I would go in there to just browse and books would literally fall off the shelves at my feet. I usually ended up buying those ones. More often than not though I’ll have a list in my notebook at home and realize when I get to the store that I’ve forgotten to put it in my bag. Then it’s anybody’s guess as to what I’ll end up coming home with. :)

We’re really lucky here. Within walking distance of my house are six used book shops, a couple of antique stores that have pretty good book sections, and a half-price books outlet. I can spend days just wandering from store to store seeing what’s available. A couple of the used bookstores are really disorganized though, so I don’t usually hit them unless I’m looking for something specific. My favorite is the half-price outlet because I can usually find a lot of books there I wouldn’t otherwise look twice at. It’s great for finding new-to-me authors. We also have a Chapters, but it’s a drive across town so I don’t get there as often as I would like to. (My bank account and credit cards thank me for that on a daily basis!).

I can usually find whatever I’m looking for in one of the stores. Occasionally I’ll have to resort to ordering online, but it doesn’t happen very often. And no, I never ever feel pressured to buy what the store has on display. Sure, I’d love to be able to walk in the door and pick up one of everything off the new release and best seller tables, but it ain’t gonna happen in the forseeable future. Reading is my joy and my escape, and I don’t allow anyone to dictate what I should be reading, especially not some marketing manager who thinks I can be swayed by a pretty cover and a prominent display position in the store. :)

Read other Musing Monday answers, or play along at Just One More Page.

It was a very good week in terms of books read and books bought. On Monday I went out to buy books for my son’s birthday and came home with five new ones for myself as well. By Friday I had already finished three of them:

Pendragon by Catherine Coulter for the Historical Fiction Challenge;
Knock Me Off My Feet by Susan Donovan for the Countdown Challenge; and
Prince of Wolves by Susan Krinard, just because it looked interesting and was set in Canada. (I’m sure I’ll find a challenge somewhere to apply it to before long.)

While I was at Chapters buying birthday books I also noticed a few sale tables of books that were marked down to 4 for $10. I didn’t have a lot of time that day to peruse, so on Friday I gave myself the afternoon off and headed back to check them out. I came home with 16 titles, a good mix of romance, chick lit, mysteries, and a couple that look like more serious literary fiction. I won’t list them all here because most of them are being used for the Countdown Challenge, and you can check out the list there.

One thing I will say is that I’m really glad to see that book-buying is alive and well here. Both days I was in the store, it was packed and the checkout lines were fairly long. We hear so much economic doom and gloom from the media, it’s nice to see people out spending money, especially when they spend it on books. :)

Now, on the reading front in addition to the three books I finished, I’ve also got three on the go:

Dipped in Chocolate by Renee Luke is on my nightstand. It’s an anthology of three sweet and sexy romance novellas, and lemme tell ya they make for some wicked good bedtime reading. And that’s about all I’m gonna say on this here G-rated blog.

Second on the list is Deadly Exchange by Geoffrey Gluckman. It’s an espionage thriller that I’m just getting started on, so can’t really tell you much about it yet.

Finally, I’m still plugging away at Saving Fish From Drowning. I took it with me to the laundromat tonight, and that was the first chance I had for some uninterrupted reading time today. I’m thinking about making some more time this week to finish this book because it’s starting to suck me in more and more each time I pick it up.

As for reviews, the best I can tell you at the moment is that they’re coming. I’ve blocked off several hours this week to do nothing but sit down and write them. If I have to take myself out of the house with pen and paper to get them done, that’s what I’ll be doing. The coffee shop is gonna get real sick of me before the week is out. :)

That’s about it for me this week. What about you? How was your reading week?