Well, that’s hardly news. How about this: I went into the local Barnes & Noble yesterday and didn’t buy any books at all. I was there to pick up some gift cards, but I did wander through the store, looking. I’m afraid, though, that I’ve reached the point of feeling a bit overwhelmed in a giant bookstore, and find myself wishing, not for the first time, that there were more small ones left in the world. There’s just too much clamoring for my attention in the big ones.
Not that I wasn’t tempted. But I have two book orders outstanding, not to mention a couple of recent instant gratification episodes involving my Kindle. And no more time to read than usual.
Last weekend I ordered a stack of paperbacks from Amazon. Three of my Starcatcher sisters have books just out, their Golden Heart finalist manuscripts now in print, and I wanted paper copies of those: Valerie Bowman’s Secrets of a Wedding Night, Tracy Brogan’s Crazy Little Thing, and Sharon Lynn Fisher’s Ghost Planet.
As long as I was there, I ordered Elaine Viets’ latest Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper mystery, Murder Is a Piece of Cake. Josie Marcus and Helen Hawthorne, Viets’ other series character, are two of my favorites, and I’ve read them all. Amazon was running a buy three, get one free sale that day, and three of my four books qualified, so I ordered one more, Dipped, Stripped and Dead, by Elise Hyatt, the first in a series recommended by my friend Jane Perrine.
Then I wandered over to the Mystery Guild and preordered another stack by favorite mystery authors: Janet Evanovich’s Notorious Nineteen, Margaret Maron’s The Buzzard Table, and Marcia Muller’s Looking for Yesterday. These are all the latest installments in series I’ve been reading since their first cases, featuring Stephanie Plum (Evanovich), Deborah Knott (Maron), and Sharon McCone (Muller). And, from one of my favorite SF series, I ordered Lois McMaster Bujold’s new Vorkosigan novel, Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance.
While I’m waiting for all those paper books to arrive, I downloaded Heather MacAllister’s Haunted Spouse, a Halloween romance about an architect who specializes in designing Haunted Houses. Who knew? I started reading this one at lunch yesterday, and it’s charming and fun.
I know I’ll never catch up. I don’t care. There are so many worse vices and more dangerous addictions. Binge book buying seems pretty tame in comparison.
Kay Hudson 
Nov 05, 2012 @ 09:22:20
I love that term: instant gratification episodes! I have to confess to weekly doses of these “episodes.”
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Nov 05, 2012 @ 12:33:14
It’s so tempting, and so easy, and we all want to support our friends, and now I have to look at the KIndle app on my computer monitor to figure out what I’ve got and what I want to read next.
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Nov 05, 2012 @ 10:14:00
I have to confess to being a BBB (binge book buyer), too. All of the titles pictured above are in my library, with about two or three more “impulse buys” to boot. Oh, and research books. Can’t leave those out.
And don’t forget the holidays are coming! I tend to buy books for gifts — a present that’s lasting, enjoyable, life-enriching and supports the publishing industry, too.
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Nov 05, 2012 @ 12:36:48
I have shelves full of research books for my historical projects (and quite a few left from my days in anthropology and archeology).
As for gifts, when I was a kid there were more books than anything else under our Christmas trees. It gets harder to choose book gifts with people outside your family, but I still try, and there are always gift cards.
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Nov 05, 2012 @ 12:00:04
Ha, boy do I know those Kindle episodes. 🙂 Thanks so much, Kay!
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Nov 05, 2012 @ 12:37:53
Congrats on all the great reviews, Sharon. I’m really looking forward to reading Ghost Planet.
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