Sunday Summary

It's all about a week of books and reading.

When the week began, I was in Anaheim, California, attending a conference. Sunday was the kick off for the conference and I was committed to meetings most of the day. The "book in progress" was Memory in Death by J D Robb, the 22nd in her futuristic mystery series starring detective Eve Dallas. Back in 2007, I read the two books which follow Memory in Death. I can't figure out why or how I managed to read those two out of sequence, but I finally got around to filling in the gap with this copy that I had picked up for my Kindle in March of 2010. I was able to squeeze in some reading time and finally finished it on Tuesday, 1 March.

On Tuesday, I posted a quick blurb on the blog for Teaser Tuesday. There, I posted a short quote from another book in progress, Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler. I started reading Full Dark House on 24 February, but I had set it aside to read the J D Robb book. (Besides, I was missing my Kindle and needed to give it a little bit of loving!) I'm still reading Full Dark House and it might be yet another week before I finish it. This is one of those books that is too good to abandon, but for some reason doesn't grab my attention and demand that I keep reading. So, I set it aside when another book catches my fantasy. I freely admit to being somewhat ADD and distractable. I deal with it.

Wednesday, I returned to the blog to post my contribution to the WWW...Wednesday meme. I again decided to set Full Dark House aside for a while and pulled out Honor Among Enemies by David Weber. This is the book that I keep on my Blackberry so that I can sneak in a couple of minutes of reading wherever I happen to be. But, I was getting interested in it and no longer wanted to put my Blackberry away after reading a couple of screens. Since I had also loaded the book onto my BeBook reader, I picked it up and carried it with me the rest of the week rather than toting the trade paperback of the Fowler book.

Thursday's post to the blog was my response to another of Deb's Booking Through Thursday prompts. She challenged readers to think of the various literary villains we encounter. Also on Thursday, a couple of books arrived in the mail. (No, they didn't catch up with me in California. My daughter picked up our mail at home in Texas and sent me an e-mail to tell me what I had received.) In the mail were two books which I had ordered from Green Earth Books—an Amazon Marketplace reseller—Bit the Jackpot by Erin McCarthy and The Merchant of Death by D J MacHale. I also received two packages from book swappers who play over at BookObsessed. LoriPed sent me Whack 'n' Roll by Gail Oust, and AM10000 sent me Perfume by Patrick Suskind.

By Friday, the conference was winding down and I was looking forward to a week's vacation as we drove home to Texas. Hubby drives and I read. It's a wonderful partnership. I worked very late on Thursday night and during one of the early morning breaks, I prepared and uploaded my Book Blogger Hop post for the weekend. This was a good thing because between the final meetings of the conference, checking out of the hotel and taking off up I-5, I didn't have much chance to get online the rest of the day. I did, however, get to spend a couple of hours in dedicated reading time as hubby navigated the Los Angeles traffic.

Saturday was a very lucrative day when it comes to acquiring books! First, there were the books which arrived in the mail. My fellow BookCrosser, Fotini, sent me three books. First was The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker by Leanna Renee Hieber, a book which I had selected from the Paranormal VBB at BookObsessed. The second was a book that I have had listed as a wishlist book for quite a while, Gabriel's Ghost by Linnea Sinclair. And the third was the sequel to Gabriel's Ghost, Shades of Dark. Fotini said, "because you can't stop reading after #1 in the series." Then, around mid-afternoon, I dropped in at Bucket of Books, a used book store in Atascadero which I had read about at Lisa's blog earlier in the week. I really tried to be good, but wound up buying seven books: The Seventh Witch by Shirley Damsgaard, Triple Witch and Wreck the Halls by Sarah Graves, Obernewtyn and The Farseekers by Isobelle Carmody, Quaker Testimony by Irene Allen, and Real Murders by Charlaine Harris.

Web Visits This Week

From the Teaser Tuesday site, I visited a couple of the participants whose comments were next to mine in the sign-ups for Teaser Tuesday. The comment/link immediately above mine was from Lisa at Lisa Is A Bookworm. Lisa's teaser came from Rugged and Relentless by Kelly Eileen Hake, a western romance novel which she was reading on her Kindle. I left a comment saying, "Hi Lisa. I made the comment immediately under yours at MizB's site, so of course it is appropriate for me to hop over here to see what you are reading. I think my mother would have really enjoyed this book. It's not really my style, but it does look like a good one. And, I should really compliment you on reading on your Kindle. I just finished reading a mystery novel on my Kindle." And, the comment immediately below mine was by Lisa-Marie at this little life of mine. Her teaser came from Funerals for Horses by Catherine Ryan Hyde. In her blog post, she mentioned a favorite used book store—Bucket of Books in Atascadero. Since we were nearby, I stopped in there on Saturday afternoon. After getting back to my hotel, I left a comment on her blog saying "So -- I popped in here to read your post on Tuesday and noticed your mention of Bucket of Books in Atascadero. Well, I knew I was going to be near there this weekend, so I stopped in this afternoon. Wow! The woman who runs the shop is amazing. Wish I lived nearby so I could shop there often. I picked up 6 or 7 books and had to restrain myself from buying a lot more. Thanks for cluing me in about it."

I got very busy on Wednesday and Thursday—even though I took a few minutes to write my own WWW...Wednesday and Booking Through Thursday posts, I didn't have much time to visit any other sites. And, since Book Blogger Hop goes on through tomorrow, I'm going to be visiting a couple of places today and tomorrow and may loop back to check on a couple of other bloggers who participated in the other two events.