Housekeeping …

… no, not the book by Marilynne Robinson, just a rounding up of bookish things, as later in the week, it’s my first blogbirthday!

I’ve been trying to be good and actually get rid of some books recently (inspired by Scott’s efforts over at Me and my big mouth). I’ve not ditched as many as he has, but I am keeping quietly at it. I took a bag of trashy thrillers to the charity shop – there is a place for them as occasional guilty pleasures, but too many have crept in. I’ve also found a few books that I have two copies of, so the duplicates have gone too. I instituted some rules for keeping books back in Feb (see here), and I’ve been following them well, but too many probably get kept still.

New additions to the Gaskell Towers Library keep on coming though. Many are discoveries through some of my favourite blogs – here’s a few of them… From the top:

• Tales of Belkin by Alexander Pushkin – I won this one in John’s giveaway over on Asylum, many thanks John;
• Dark Visions by L J Smith, another ya vampire novel (see below), that arrived as a freebie;
• Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris, the latest vampire sensation, the first Sookie Stackhouse novel – now on TV as ‘True Blood’ – This is Twilight with sex. Could be fun!
• Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage. I loved Firmin, and the review of this novel over at Bookmunch made me rush to get it;
• Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker – a Bloomsbury group re-issue. What happens when a person you’ve invented as an excuse turns up in real life. Sounds like lovely farcical fun;
• Amulet by Robert Bolano, to review from Amazon Vine. Well – everyone else seems to be reading him – time to make up my mind too!
• Rice’s Architectural Primer by Matthew Rice. This is a lovely little hardback I found this week – full of lovely line and wash drawings explaining all those lovely architectural details that can be so confusing – so I need never confuse my oriels and mullions again. It really is lovely too;
• Lastly, The secret lives of buildings by Edward Hollis. Longlisted for the 2009 Guardian First Book Award, this tome looks at 13 iconic buildings – from the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip.

Given that I seem to have acquired yet nore undead novels, (Twilight is also in the TBR mountain somewhere), I’m going to have an Undead October, a Witchy Walpurgisnacht, or a Helluva Halloween, and read them all during half-term in a few week’s time. A prize for anyone who can come up with a better tag especially if it can involve vampires!

And finally, a huge thank you to Jenny and Teresa at Shelf Love who nominated this blog as one of their ‘Shelf Love Bookish Dozen’ celebrating Book Blogger Appreciation Week. Their blog is one of my must reads, and I feel very much on a reading wavelength with both of them – please do visit it.