Situation Rectified
John pointed out to me recently the scandalous fact that in spite of my professed adoration of Virginia Woolf, I do not own a copy of To the Lighthouse. I've read the book, but I was a poor student at the time and checked it out from the library. Now I am happy to say that the situation has been rectified. I'd like to blame Danielle for mentioning Woolf purchases she has made from Pennyworth Books. I know a number of bloggers have made acquisitions from them so I thought I'd just go look. Yeah, right. At only $5 per book with free shipping for six books, my virtual basket was full within a few minutes. I managed to limit myself to seven books but it wasn't easy. See, the problem is they have a limited quantity of each title and they tell you how many of each they have left. When it's a book I want and the quantity says one or two, how could I pass it by? I might not be able to get it so cheap again. There might be someone else about to snatch it up right now! This is why I have avoided going to the site for so long. My books arrived yesterday, much quicker than I expected since they came media mail. To my credit, of the seven books I ordered, three of them are for Christmas/Solstice gifts. I have never bought holiday gifts this early before, but I couldn't leave them and hope to see them again in November. Now I have to find a place to stash them that I won't forget about them. My mom used to do this and inevitably would forget at least one gift that would turn up in February, or April in time for my birthday. Once though she found one in June! I am not able to tell you what gift books I got because those individuals drop by once in awhile. But the books I got for me are To the Lighthouse, Flush by Virginia Woolf (thanks to the excerpts Sylvia has been posting), The Solace of Leaving Early by Haven Kimmel (thanks to the Kimmel ravings of many including John and Susan), and Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino. They have all been added to my teetering piles. Now if there was only a website where I could buy extra time so I could begin to make a dent in the piles! What really strikes me though is what Dorothy noted on her blog about book reviews and how she is more influenced by bloggers these days. Even though I read a couple of book papers I find I trust the recommendations of bloggers more. Bloggers tell me if they liked or disliked the book. Book reviews say things like the middle was a little uneven. What the heck does that mean? And even if a traditional reviewer liked the book there is a certain lack of passion in the writing unlike blog writers who will giggle and gush if they loved the book. All this to say, these books that just arrived, I bought them because of bloggers. My teetering piles are composed of books I read about on other blogs, or people mentioned in comments here. My TBR lists grow longer everyday because of blogs. And my reading horizons have grown ever wider. Book bloggers are some of the coolest people I know. Blog on!
