New books for me

Oh my, it was one of those binge book acquisition weekends. In my defense, I spent very little money doing so, but now my neat shelves look crowded once again. First off I visited the local thrift store where I saw the last two volumes in John Birmingham's guilty pleasure series the Axis of Time. In these books, a multinational naval task force from the Year 2021 is catapulted back to 1942 where they cause all sorts of havoc. Pretty silly, but lots of fun. There was also the Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber, another entry in the literary thriller genre. I've heard mixed things, but I am sucker for this genre. If you haven't perused the local thrift store (and you live in a town with lots of readers) I suspect you will be surprised by what you find.

Then I sold quite a few books at Powells and had a lot of credit on my hands. Theoretically, credit is good for taking chances. It is a bit like free book money, so why not buy a bunch of wild cards that you may or may not like. What limits that behavior is the high numbers of books I know I want to read. This time, I acquired the following.

The White Man's Burden. The title is a tad off-putting, but the author, William Easterly, knows a thing or two about international development and I loved his prior book.

Brass Man. I LOVED the last Neal Asher I read, so how about another? I purchased the blocky British mass paperback edition. The corners seem less rounded than ours.

The Unblemished. Here is my wild card. This is a British horror novel that was on the scifi/mystery/horror recommended shelf (generally a gold mine). To be honest, it looks more than a little nasty, but what the heck?

Half-Life. Another Powell's recommendation. They generally know what they are talking about.

Sharp Objects. This one has some buzz, but reading the Powells review, I think it may be less that I was hoping. Thanks a lot Powells.

Then I went to the library and checked out Resistance, a literary alternate history novel (surely this is something new under the sun) and I am still plugging away at the titanic Wages of Destruction. Ah so many books.