Lots of new books have been arriving at Casa Bookgirl this week. First a big thank you to Ravenous Reader who sent me a copy of Friend of My Youth by Alice Munro. I have recently read two short stories by Munro and have found them very moving. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to discover her work but so glad I finally have. Needless to say, I’m really looking forward to this book.

Also, I’ve been visiting BookMooch quite a bit lately and I’ve gotten a hold of some good books. Check it out:

• A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon. I’ve been wanting to read this after having enjoyed his first novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
• Death Angel by Martha Powers. I remember reading quite a few reviews when this book first came out and they all seemed to rave about this gripping thriller. Cool.
• The Secret Lives of People in Love by Simon Van Booy. This is an upcoming challenge read and I know Andi and Nancy have raved about it so I can’t help but be excited about this one.
• The Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich. Stefanie recently mentioned some of Rich’s poetry so I wanted to check out more and isn’t it perfect – just in time for National Poetry Month.

Finally, I got an ARC from BookBrowse’s First Impressions program, Evening is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan. ” A magical, exuberant, tragicomic vision of post-colonial Malaysia reminiscent of Rushdie and Roy.” I think I’m in for a treat don’t you think?

Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend and another visit with the Sunday Salon crowd. Today I just want to encourage you to celebrate National Poetry Month.

Read a poem, write a poem or you visit any of these links to find out more about poets and poetry:

• The Best Words in their Order is the blog of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Borzoi Reader will send you a daily poem
• Poetry Foundation offers poems daily via their podcast.

I’m ready to celebrate, I’ve got Poetry Speaks Expanded to listen to while I do some bookbinding today. If you’ve got some great links for poetry please share them.

But, speaking of bookbinding, I went to Paper Arts yesterday to look for decorative paper for a project I’m working on and later in the day when I was back home and relaxing with Leonardo’s Shadow I read a passage that totally made me smile. Giacomo, Leonardo Da Vinci’s servant, goes to the paper merchant.

“The door is open and inside there is paper, paper, paper everywhere! White, green, gray, yellow, light blue. Parchments, all types. Boards, bindings, blocks, and bookmaking materials. The shop has clean white walls, and the large front windows let in plenty of light. Oh, it is a marvelous sight! The shelves are stacked high with clean, fresh, fragrant, inviting paper!”

That was me earlier at Paper Arts. I didn’t need another reason to like this book even more, but I like that Giacomo and I can both get carried away by the sight of beautiful papers. This book has been a delight so far and I hope to spend a bit more time with it today.