Friday, May 14, 2010

Friday Finds: 2010-05-14

MizB's weekly Friday Finds meme asks bloggers to share the new-to-you books found during the week—books you either want to add to your TBR (to be read) list, or that you just heard about that sounded interesting.

I'm thinking this is going to be a perfect place to stash away info on books that I think I might be interested in, but which I'm not sure enough about to add to a wishlist. ... kind of a place to park the title and author so that a month from now I won't have to try to retrace my steps trying to recall where it was that I saw a review or recommendation that I found interesting. There are too many book blogs and sites for me to follow them consistently and certainly too many to remember where it was that I stumbled across a book that appealed to me.

This week, I somehow ran across Not Now, Voyager: A Memoir by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. I'm not sure what led me to it, but seeing as Amazon's "Recent History" shows that I looked at the Kindle Edition first, I'm thinking that it must have popped up in one of those "just for you" links that you find on any of the Amazon pages. The publisher includes in the description of the book, “Not Now, Voyager takes us on a voyage of self-discovery as the author traces how travel has shaped her sensibilities from childhood through adulthood.” Given that I had been thinking about joining the Armchair Travel book swap at BookObsessed, I thought this might make a good book to buy, read, and swap. It's not the usual travelogue, but might appeal more to me since I have developed an appreciation for memoirs. This looks like it would be a nice merger of both types of books. For now, it's sitting in my shopping cart at Amazon until I decide whether or not to buy it.

And, when trying to find the name and author of that book—since I didn't bother to write it down—I stumbled across A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore. This is an author that I've never heard of, though apparently she's an established author. The blurb at Amazon.com indicates that A Gate at the Stairs was selected as an Amazon Best of the Month in September 2009 and notes, “It's been 11 years since her last book, 15 since her last novel ...” I'm not sure whether I want to read it, and I was perplexed because in a week, the link to it will have slid off my Amazon "Recently Viewed" list, but I don't want to put it onto my Wishlist because friends and family sometimes use that as a guide for gift-giving. I do want to re-examine this book at some point in the future and consider whether I want to read it.

And oh my gosh, I followed the link from Amazon's page about A Gate at the Stairs to the Best Books of the Month: September 2009—note to self, quit following links or you're going to go broke—and I saw Stitches: A Memoir by David Small. I don't think I've ever read a graphic novel (do comic books count?) but I'm really, really going to add this one to my wishlist if I don't just give in and buy it outright. Small, an award-winning children's book illustrator, tells his own story; and from the previews, he grew up in a horrific household.

OK. Enough! I have to stop reading about books and make time to read the fantasy novel that I've started.

Books mentioned in this post:

Not Now, Voyager by Lynne Sharon Schwartz A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore Stitches by David Small

2 comments:

  1. This is what happens to me all the time. I spend lots of time collecting books, putting them on my TBR, learning about upcoming ones, and then I forget to actually read them! :)

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  2. good ones! This activity is bad for my tbr piles seriously

    Here's mine

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