Oops...

I was killing time before meeting a friend for dinner last night and accidentally ended up in a bookstore. Knowing how many unread books I already have and my financial situation being what it is, I am not allowed to go into those institutions. But it felt so nature that it never crossed my mind as wrong.

I escaped with three books. They were all from the bargain bins and I put back four others at that. I fought the urge of A. S. Byatt's The Children's Book for the umpteenth time and only spent twelve dollars. (Yes, I am justifying my purchase.)

Joe Hill's short story collection 20th Century Ghosts will be my introduction to horror fiction. Joshilyn Jackson is one of the most delightful authors I've had the pleasure of meeting and The Girl who Stopped Swimming will not be a book languishing, unread on my shelves for long. The final purchase was a hard one for me: A Betrayal in Winter by Daniel Abraham. It is everything I regularly swear off and rail against: epic fantasy and a story that needs more than one book to tell it's tale. It would seem I'm a junky who keeps coming back…

Quartet's have been all the rage in my reading and ever-growing TBR pile as of late: The Jerusalem Quartet, The Long Price Quartet, The Kingdom of Thorn and Bone, and The Alexandria Quartet. Thus far I feel only one of those series has needed four books, but then again I've only read one and a half of the four quartets mentioned.

It's too bad Jackson's book didn't come out today and could possibly capitalize on a currently series of books starting with "The Girl who…" Perhaps it would boost sales? Perhaps she doesn't need boosted sales? Either way, regardless of how I feel about the book, as a southerner I will read Jackson's other novel Gods of Alabama because of the awesomeness of the title alone.