In reading my post from yesterday, I realize I make it sound like new books haven’t entered my house in like, forever, but I forgot to mention that I did a bit of book shopping and book mooching over the holidays while I was on my blog break. So let me tell you which new books have been added to the piles of unread books.

Below are the books I traded for at a little bookstore I go to every so often. It’s sort of like a Half Price bookstore but you can bring in books to trade and you get credit for them. They mainly have genre fiction but that works for me when I’m looking for a good mystery.

• Invitation to a Funeral by Molly Young Brown
• Goodnight, Irene by Jan Burke
• The Hanover Square Affair by Ashley Gardner
• The Rosary Girls by Richard Montanari

And, the books from BookMooch are:

• The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence. This one is for the next Slaves discussion!
• Alentejo Blue by Monica Ali
• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (should arrive soon)

I think instead of books I should purchase some new bookshelves but books are just much more fun.

As I do every new year, I always say I’m going to try and limit my book purchases in the coming year and usually that little resolution gets broken pretty quickly. I’m quite impressed at myself for having made it through the first week but I couldn’t hold back on that “Add to shopping cart” button on Amazon any longer and I bought my first book of the year on Monday.

Today I got Zeno’s Conscience by Italo Svevo which is one of my challenge reads and a read for a book group as well. I am going to try and keep track of my book purchases this year because I’m really curious how many books I buy a year. I’m assuming a lot.

So has everyone already made their first book purchase of the year?

Today was also my first day back to the bookbinding studio after a three week break. I was so out of it that I even forgot to take my apron and now my jeans are covered in glue. Oh well, the exciting part is that I finished my rounded spine book and it’s just now under a weight for the next 24 hours so it will be all nice and set. I loved how it turned out and I promise I’ll post pictures soon.