Saturday, November 19, 2011

One Book, Two Book, Three Book Meme

So, I'm loving my new job, but boy, working 40 hours a week does sort of interfere with your free time! And of course I'm sitting in front of a computer a large portion of the day, so when I'm home, I'm kind of avoiding it.  I'm not giving up on blogging yet, but I was inspired by Anbolyn's recent post to write a short update:  

1.  The book I'm currently reading:  The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy.  I only have 70 pages to go so I'm hoping to post a review in the next couple of days.  It's only my second work by Hardy and I've never blogged about him before, so I'm curious to know how other bloggers respond to my post.

2.  The last book I finished:  The Quiet Gentleman by Georgette Heyer.  A follow-up to my enjoyment of The Grand Sophy.  I chose this one because there was an audiobook available at the library branch where I work, so there you are.  I enjoyed it but since I just posted about Sophy, it seemed like it would be a little redundant.  

3.  The next book I want to read:  A tossup between A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  I'm dying to know what happens next in the fictional world of Westeros but the only copy I could get from the library is a mass-market paperback, ugh.  I'm still #2 on the library's waitlist for a hardcover copy and it might be a while.  And The Night Circus has more than 100 holds, plus everyone's raving about it, so I'd better get cracking or I'll never get it back, right?  

4.  The last book I bought:  That's a tough one -- I've bought several out-of-print and used books online in the past few weeks, and I can't remember which one was last!  The one that just arrived (though it may have been one of the earlier purchases) came from England via Abebooks:  Harry Potter y La Piedra Filosofal, also known as the Spanish language edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (or Philosopher's Stone for you Brits.  I know, the Yanks changed the name, because we're mostly not clever enough to know the difference.  Sigh).  Anyhow, I'm continuing my acquisition of Harry Potter volumes in various languages (and this is the only one I might actually be able to read, as I'm still trying to learn Spanish.  Wish me luck!)  So far I have them in eleven different languages, mostly the first volume of the series in hardcover.  My favorites are the Japanese edition which I bought when I lived in Japan -- it opens back to front, naturally, and the illustrations are cool -- and the Italian version which has beautiful illustrations.  My mother bought it for me a couple of years ago on a trip to Malta, which is also pretty neat.  I think this might deserve its own blog post someday. . .   

5.  The last book I was given:  Also tough, as I haven't really received that many books since my birthday -- and I still haven't read any of those!  In fact, I don't think I've read a single one of the books I received last  Christmas, and my husband just asked me for a wish list. . . . which is pretty much all books!  I think the last book I got as a gift was the wonderful Naxos audio version of Sense and Sensibility which I bought with a gift card I won from Jenners during her BBAW giveaway in September.  Does that count?  Either way, it's wonderful (wonderful that I won, and also one of my favorite audiobooks ever).  

And no, I haven't finished that one, either!

7 comments:

  1. I love the illustrations in the Italian version!! The German ones are awesome too. I always love when I get one of these and then discover that it looks different from the American and British versions.

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  2. Oh I know what you mean so much - I hope you are at least enjoying your new job.

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  3. What a cool collection of HP books. A spanish edition might be a very good incentive for a couple of my kids. :) Hope the job is going well!

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  4. I'm glad I inspired you to do this meme! They are so easy to do when you don't have time during a busy week to blog. And they are fun to read!

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  5. Amanda -- I think we must have different German editions. Mine doesn't have any illustrations and just has the American cover, with the title and so on translated. Now I want to see yours!

    Verity -- I am enjoying my new job, but now I really should read more YA because I'm coordinating the teen time -- which will make my TBR list even longer!

    Susan -- it's going well so far. I like the idea of the incentive. I'm still working on Spanish classes and I tried to do the HP audio in the car. I was only able to follow along because I'd read the book so many times!

    Anbolyn -- I need to do more memes, they're a nice break when I'm uninspired to write about books.

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  6. Yippee for memes! Congrats on the jog! Don't sweat the learning to balance time whatwith a new job (pls keep blogging.)
    Which reminds me, I need to send another clue to my persephone santee to NOT open the book when she gets it which is likely this week.

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  7. The Night Circus is about two magicians, Celia and Marco, who are in magical competition with each other a la The Prestige. But they are not entirely in control of the game, and each move they make impacts many, many people. What starts as a competition soon becomes almost a series of magical love letters before things take a dangerous turn when lives start becoming disrupted.

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