Jonesin'

My day started out pretty rough yesterday, and while it didn't get any worse, it never really seemed to get that much better. I guess the biggest factor was having to work the day after Christmas. By the time 4:00 came around, and I was in my last hour of work, I was dead tired. I was shelving nonfiction books, and it occurred to me that what I really needed was some Half Price Books time. And for the next hour, all I could think about was the *need* to get to Half Price Books! 

We had plans with friends for dinner, so after a very nice dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant, I proposed a trip to the bookstore. Being with bookies, this wasn't hard to sell. For the next 30-45 minutes, I browsed the fiction shelves in bliss. Just what I needed after a hard day. I was good, too, only waiting for the books that just absolutely cried out to me. I got 4 books. 

The Museum of Kitschy Stitches: A Gallery of Notorious Knits by Stitchy McYarnpants - total silliness and horrid, horrid, horrid pictures of bad knit/crochet garments

The Terror by Dan Simmons

Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue 

Rules for Old Men Waiting by Peter Pouncey

Slammerkin and Rules for Old Men Waiting already had good prices ($2.98 and $2.00, respectively), but on top of that Half Price Books was having a 20% off sale on everything in the store. 

My day ended on a much better note than it started. :-)

Half Price Books

Recently, I got a performance award at work and yesterday I received my $25 gift card in the mail. I took advantage of the hour Eli was in gymnastics and headed over to Half Price Books for a little browsing (as if I need more books). I found 4 books and only had to pay $.35 out of my pocket. I got:

Cordelia Underwood: Or, the Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League by Van Reid
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore
Moloka'i by Alan Brennert

I own the 2nd in the Moosepath League series, Mollie Peer: Or, the Underground Adventure of the Moosepath League, which I bought several years ago after seeing it in my Book Lover's calendar, not realizing it was part of a series. This is the first time I've happened across the first book, so I snapped it up!

I'm pretty sure we have American Gods somewhere around here, but I haven't seen it in ages and have really been wanting to read it. Yes, I know it's available for free online this month, but I also know there is no way I'm going to get it read in that length of time!

I loved A Dirty Job by Moore, so I've been on the lookout for other books of his to snap up.

Moloka'i is on the Name that Book list. I've now got 5 titles on that list that I have picked up cheap waiting to be read.

Half Price Books

One of my favorite places on the planet is Half Price Books. We're lucky enough in the Houston area to have several locations. Today we took our daughter to get gelato in a shopping center that also houses a Half Price Books, so, naturally, we had to stop in. Here's what I came out with (some of these are more my daughter's than mine):

The Wright 3 by Blue Balliett (sequel to Chasing Vermeer)
The High King by Lloyd Alexander
In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll
Shogun by James Clavell