I mean I really am obsessive about them. I have all of the works of the authors in my library catalogued, notated with marks for books I own (listed as paperback or hardcover) and/or read, and those that I have collector’s editions of. If books are removed from my library, I have a spreadsheet for those as well, so I don’t buy them again. I have a list of upcoming new releases that I want, sorted by release date and a list of books I’ve completed reading by year (this is a more recent undertaking and includes books that I check out from the local library).
I also get emails from: Barnes and Noble, Simon and Schuster, Penguin Random House, Knopf Doubleday and Subterranean Press (their books are not my typical genre, but a few of my favorite authors will publish with them so I keep the emails coming). Then I receive emails from a few independent bookstores – Foxtale Bookshop, Porter Square Books and Books on Broad (my local shop). FYI Foxtale Bookshop and Porter Square Books do virtual author events, so you might want to check them out. Cemetery Dance is another independent press that you can get books from as well.
I am currently working my way through the Hunger Games prequal – The Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds by Suzanne Collins, which I bought last spring. It’s funny the young woman at the bookstore said it took about 8 Chapters before she really got into it and I’m on that same path. Now let me clarify that I just picked the book up about a week ago, not that I’ve been working on it since last spring. I’m not that slow of a reader 😁. But if you’re like me, you have a book stack (or three) that is constantly shifting depending on your mood. So now it’s The Ballad’s turn and while I’m enjoying it, I haven’t quiet fallen in love with the characters as I did in the original Hunger Games Triology. It probably doesn’t help that you know what kind of person president Snow becomes by the trilogy which is probably coloring my impression of the younger version. I am also struggling with his first name Coriolanus! By brain slows every time the name shows up because it’s trying to pronounce it in my head (yep the voices are real when I read 😂). Let’s just say it doesn’t roll off tongue easily. If you want to comment – no spoilers, please.
I’ll update you in a week and I will have, hopefully, finished it, cataloged it and put it in its rightful place on my shelf.
“Reading gives us someplace to go, when we have to stay where we are.”
Mason Cooley
My Lemons My Lemonade 