In My Mailbox – June 12

A trip to a local indie bookstore the weekend before last yielded a small pile of books. I did not intend to buy so many but I apparently can’t be trusted in a bookstore by myself. I should have left my purse in the car and just taken the cash I meant to spend with me. I’m weak! Weak, I tell you!

Anyway, this week has seen added to my bookshelf…

The Teashop Girls by Laura Schaefer
The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

Witch Catcher by Mary Downing Hahn (I have finished this and need to get off my butt and write the review.)
Vintage Tea Party by Carolyn Caldicott with photos by Chris Caldicott

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (I’m about 150 pages into it and frustrated with the slow pace.)

I also picked up two books for my friend Jamie’s young 14 month old daughter, Allyson.

The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
Alice in Wonderland: a colors primer by Jennifer Adams and Alison Oliver

(I might wait a few years to give her The Little Prince. I don’t want her to destroy it and every child needs a copy of The Little Prince.)

Plus a book of Herbal Cookery by the Saint Louis Herb Society from which I’ve already made great mint tea from.

I’m planning another trip to a different indie bookstore this weekend, this one a used bookstore. I’m fairly certain this will not end well for my budget. See ya!

In My Mailbox – February 27.

In December I won a gift card to Barnes & Noble through one of the blog hops and then for Christmas my brother gave me an Amazon.com gift card. I finally got off my butt the past week and spent them both. I wanted to get Witchlander by Lena Coakley because it was my favorite book in 2011 and I thought that deserved having its own copy in my library. Plus, I’m really hoping she writes a sequel. (Please! Please! Write a sequel!) But the Barnes & Noble didn’t have any copies (I was shocked!), so I had to buy it through Amazon.com.

Instead, from Barnes & Noble I got a thesaurus and a character trait guide book for my writing. I have dictionaries and a set of encyclopedias but I didn’t have a thesaurus. I thought I should probably get one. Then my friend, let’s call her S, had this character trait book and descriptive word index that I covet but that’s been out of print for years and I really, really want one but found this character trait book that looked good instead. With the gift card I won I ended up spending a little less than $5 on both. Sweet!

Then through Amazon.com I got Witchlander by Lena Coakley but for some reason they only had hard copies. I would have preferred a paperback but Amazon whacked me with a rolled up newspaper and told me no. So I ordered the hard copy. (Stupid Amazon.) Then I had been trying to find some witchy books by Judika Illes but could never find them in the stores. (I hate ordering things online. I prefer to actually look at a book before buying it. Especially non-fiction books.) I have other books by Judika Illes (The Encyclopedia of Witches was good.) and I know she has a lot of spells books and index books. So, I bought the Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells. (All the gods, what a fat book. Ugh!) With the gift card I spent just under $10.

I won a few books for a Christmas hop and a necklace I should get pictures up for. We’ll do that next week. Later!