You know instead of talking about all the books that have arrived, I should be reading. Maybe then I’d make a dent in the piles. Ha. But who can resist talking about new books right?

All of these books arrived at Casa Bookgirl recently. Let me know if you’ve read any of these already and can recommend them.

• City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell. A story about a marriage set in revolutionary China.
• Crisp by R.W. Gray. NeWest Press is a new imprint for me and I’m very excited about this one.
• Dewey’s Nine Lives by Vicki Myron. I’m not a big fan of books featuring animals but I keep hearing such great reviews about Dewey so I couldn’t resist this one. Natalie & Stephanie recently posted reviews and a Q&A so check that out.
• A Friend of the Family by Lauren Grodstein. A story about a father’s fall from grace as he struggles to save his family, reputation and himself.
• Missing Lucile by Suzanne Berne. “Every family has a missing person, a ‘family ghost,’ someone who died young or disappeared.” Sounds intriguing doesn’t it?
• Writers Gone Wild: The Feuds, Frolics and Follies of Literature’s Great Adventurers, Drunkards, Lovers, Iconoclasts and Misanthropes. What a title but I want to know the scoop.

I have some others actually but it’s getting late and I’ve got to get back to my book. Nymeth and Stephanie just reviewed it and I can’t wait to find out what happens next.

We had beautiful weather this weekend perfect for the Texas Book Festival.

The first author I got to see on Saturday was Laurie Halse Anderson who was just wonderful. She was so funny and so passionate about her love of history and writing. I’ve only read two of her books but know I’ll be reading more by her.

After her talk I got to hear Julia Glass whose books I’ve not read yet but after hearing her I’m definitely excited to try one. I actually do have one of her books on my shelves but you know how that goes.

The most exciting part for me came next and that’s because I got to meet several Texas Book Bloggers! Jenn, Carin, Amanda, Trish, and Karen cover a wide range of bookish topics on their blogs and of course we all share a love of books. I’m only sorry I didn’t get to spend more time with them but maybe next year we can think of doing something else – a book exchange, meeting up for breakfast? I don’t know but we’ll think of something.

After our lunch break we went to a book talk sponsored by Vintage Books and we got to hear authors Abraham Verghese and Courtney Sullivan talk about books and book groups. Vintage also passed out some books & totes and I got The Vintage Caper by Peter Mayle and Bloodroot by Amy Greene.

On Sunday there were going to be more authors but I only went to see Justin Cronin talk about his book The Passage. I’ve not read it but of course I really want to now.

So, all in all a fun event. Oh but can you believe I didn’t buy any books. None. Maybe it was the heat that affected me after all. Ha. I do have a lot of new books to tell you about but I’ll save that post for tomorrow.