Piling Up

Since my husband manages a bookstore he brings home some free goodies from time to time. The goodies he brought home the other day are pretty darn good. New additions to the tbr pile:

The March by E.L. Doctorow. It's about Sherman's march during the final years of the Civil War.

A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester. Winchester, who trained as a geologist at Oxford, turns his focus this time on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Since the Richter scale wasn't around then, we can only guess that the quake measured 8.25. That's huge. And as a born and raised California girl transplanted to the Midwest who lived in Northridge in 1994 during the 6.7 earthquake, I can't begin to dream how much more terrifying an 8.25 would be. For those who might not know, every point on the Richter scale is a times 10 increase in magnitude. In CA, you learn about the San Francisco earthquake in school. You also learn that it can happen again. And as you crouch under your school desk for the earthquake drill with your hands over the back of your neck and head, you know that it's a joke because your flimsy desk is not going to save you if the roof collapses. And you spend you time under your desk during the drill thankful that it's only a drill and praying that when the Big One hits you'll be at home. So I'm excited about reading this book and terrfied at the same time.

Glory, glory! Octavia E. Butler has a new book, Fledgling. This one is a bit of a departure from her usual aliens and post-apocalypse books. This one is about a young amnesiac girl who discovers that she is really a 53 year old vampire genetically modified to be able to go out in daylight. She is the only survivor of her community. The book is the story of her "struggle to rebuildd her family and learn who would want--and still wants--to destroy her." This is going to be good.

And finally, a book that is older so I'm not sure how my Bookman came by it, but I'm glad he did, Where Books Fall Open selected, with paintings, by Bascove. This little book has colored plates of paintings of people reading along with poems about books and reading and short essays and excerpts from longer books about books and reading. It promises to be enjoyable.