Mailbox Monday: More Book Fair Loot (November 1)

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books they received during the previous week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists! Mailbox Monday, which was started by Marcia at The Printed Page, is on blog tour—this month, it’s hosted by Julie at Knitting and Sundries.

I received two books for review this past week: The Distant Hours by Kate Morton from Atria Books and What I Thought I Knew by Alice Eve Cohen from BookSparksPR and Penguin USA.

As I mentioned last week, I was in Quebec City this weekend to go to another bookfair, and I came home with another mega pile of books:

The books are:

• As It Is in Heaven by Niall Williams
  
• At the End of the Day: A Memoir by Carolyn Smart (not pictured)
• Diary of an Ordinary Woman by Margaret Forster
  
• Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood by Rachel Manley
• Family History by Dani Shapiro
  
• Half the Day Is Night by Maureen F. McHugh
• Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress: Tales of Growing Up Groovy and Clueless by Susan Jane Gilman
  
• Knit Lit (Too): Stories from Sheep to Shawl... and More Writing about Knitting edited by Lina Roghaar and Molly Wolf
  
• Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God translated by Anita Barrow and Joanna Macy
• Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Journey into Manhood and Back Again by Norah Vincent
• Shadow’s End by Sheri S. Tepper
  
• Still Alice by Lisa Genova
  
• The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life by Deepak Chopra
• The Reader by Bernard Schlink, translated by Carol Brown Janeway
  
• The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond
  
• Thinking in Pictures and Other Reports from My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin
  
• Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
• What Every Girl (Except Me) Knows by Nora Raleigh Baskin
  
• Why I’m Like This: True Stories by Cynthia Kaplan

I also picked up a couple of other books for other people, for a total of 22 books for $26! (All books were $1, except for Why I’m Like This, which was $5.)

Have you read any of these books? Which would you recommend or disrecommend?

What did you find in your mailbox this past week? For other Mailbox Monday posts, head over to Knitting and Sundries.

Mailbox Monday: Book Fair Loot (October 25)

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books they received during the previous week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists! Mailbox Monday, which was started by Marcia at The Printed Page, is on blog tour—and I’m thrilled to be hosting this month!

October is one of my favourite months because it’s Book Fair Month: as much as possible, I try to go to both the McGill Book Fair here in Montreal (which happened this past week) and the Quebec City Women’s Club Book Fair in Quebec City (which is next weekend). (In the past, I’ve referred to the last week of October as “Book Fair Week,” as both book fairs have taken place that week; this year, however, the McGill Book Fair was a week early.)

This year, Linda (Better with Books), Amanda (Tales and Treats) and I went to the McGill Book Fair and I came home with a pile of books:

The books are:

• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
• Fabulous Friendship Festival: Loving Wildly, Learning Deeply, Living Fully with Our Friends by SARK
• I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
• Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships: Healing the Wound of the Heart by John Welwood
• Small Island by Andrea Levy
• Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self by Sarah Ban Breathnach
• Sugar by Bernice L. McFadden
• Surviving a Writer’s Life by Suzanne Lipsett
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
• The Inner Tradition of Yoga: A Guide to Yoga Philosophy for the Contemporary Practitioner by Michael Stone
• The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
• When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chödrön
  

I also picked up a few yoga books (of the variety that contain pictures of various poses) for a total of 18 books for $60.

I think I managed to visit all your blogs last week—if for some reason I missed yours, please let me know and I’ll visit it right away!

What books came into your house this past week? Let us know by leaving a link to your post below. Next month, don’t forget to visit our November host, Julie at Knitting and Sundries!

Book Fair Week 2009 (part 2)

As I mentioned in part 1 of my Book Fair Week posts, I was in Quebec City this weekend for the Quebec City Women’s Club Book Fair, which took place on Saturday. All their books are $1 each with the exception of a few they consider special books (usually bestsellers in great condition, art books and other coffee table books), which are anywhere from $2 to $10 each. I stayed away from the special books, so this is what I got for $24:

The books are:

• 3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows by Ann Brashares
  
• A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright
• A Wrongful Death by Kate Wilhelm
• Another Thing to Fall by Laura Lippman
• Bloodless Shadow by Victoria Blake
• Creating a Life Worth Living by Carol Lloyd
  
• Death in the Garden by Elizabeth Ironside
• Factoring Humanity by Robert J. Sawyer
• Ill Wind by Nevada Barr
• Kiss the Sunset Pig: A Canadian’s American Road Trip (with Exotic Detours) by Laurie Gough
  
• Memories of Anne Frank: Reflections of a Childhood Friend by Alison Leslie Gold
  
• Obstruction of Justice by Perri O’Shaughnessy
• Old Books, Rare Friends: Two Literary Sleuths and Their Shared Passion by Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern
  
• Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde
  
• The Doctor’s Wife by Elizabeth Brundage
• The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
  
• The Genius Factory: Unravelling the Mystery of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank by David Plotz
• The Girls by Lori Lansens
• The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Petty Details of So-and-So’s Life by Camilla Gibb
• The Secret Life of a Schoolgirl: A Memoir by Rosemary Kingsland
  
• The Tall Pine Polka by Lorna Landvik
• The Three Miss Margarets by Louise Shaffer
• White Teeth by Zadie Smith

My friend Michelle, who gave me a lift to Quebec City (and bought 83 books at the book fair!), gave me two more books:

• My Latest Grievance by Elinor Lipman
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

My best finds are A Short History of Progress (recommended by my sister R.), The Enchanted April (which someone at the book fair said was one of the best books she’d ever read) and Old Books, Rare Friends (which sounds great!).

Have you read any of these books? Are there any you’d recommend (or disrecommend)?