My book whore reputation is rip roarin' this week, as I've completed and started more books than I'll probably be able to remember. If there's a spare moment, I have a book in my hand. And if I have a book in my hand, I'm flipping pages like wildfire. One of these days I'll spontaneously combust.

A couple I finished and love, love loved. Others I've started and love, love, love.

Here's a quick run-down. Not necessarily proper reviews, but something to give you an idea how happily this reading pig has been wallowing in the mud of bookishness over the week.

 

The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti

 

OHMYGOD. It's just that good. Ninety-nine percent of the time, when someone declares a book "Dickensian" I want to slap them across the face for their presumption. But in this case? It's Oliver Twist, without all the digressions. And so, so funny. MARVELOUS!

 

Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez

Won't be published 'til September, so this is one of my lovely, lovely review copies. It's about the aftermath of a worldwide flu pandemic, and one young orphan boy's experiences being fostered by a fundamentalist Christian household. Review to come later.

I'm working on…:

 

Strangers by Anita Brookner

 

I adore Anita Brookner, and compare her to Penelope Lively and somewhat to Jane Gardam. She's British, sets her books there, and generally writes about more mature characters undergoing life shifts. This book's no different, in this case a gentleman, Paul Sturgis, an elderly man fighting his urge for solitude out of fear he'll die alone. Just under halfway.

 

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (Book 2 – Hunger Games trilogy)

Book three won't be out 'til September (!), but I already have my pre-order in at Amazon. Yes, yes, I could nab it by asking the publisher pretty please, but I don't have time to properly review the series so I'd best pony up the cash.

Hardly into this one at all, but my older son child finished it in about two days, he loved it so much. As I mentioned earlier this week, our local high school required students to read The Hunger Games as their summer book. My son read that and begged for the sequel. So I ordered it via Amazon while we were on vacation, and it came the first day we were home. Scored major mom points for that.

I just loved seeing him glued to a book, giving the rest of the family annoyed looks when they made too much noise or tried to engage him in conversation. That was me, I thought, during the few happy memories I have from my childhood.

And I don't see that often in my kids. Hardly at all, really. Now he says he's going back to the third book in the Tunnels series (another goodie), which he never finished. Tra la!

And, finally, bought…:

Because everyone else in the world seems to have already read it, and reviews are RAVING.

AND:

Because The Good Thief left me yearning for more great reads starring teen/tween characters, and Barnes & Noble says this one's great. I don't always agree with them, but I'm so deeply in mourning after leaving behind the characters in Tinti's book I need something to take off the edge.

This week I want to finish Per Petterson's latest and get it reviewed, since it's out in a couple days. Also, finish and prepare book club discussion points for Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith. And, of course, finish what I've already started, then start Huck Finn for the Classics Book Group I'm a member of at the library and the Nonfiction Book Group's August selection: Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea.

Perhaps I'll also call a carpenter and an architect. The sides of the house are beginning to bulge from the sheer mass of all my books, and I'm not sure how much it can hold before the foundation cracks. I'm thinking of adding an addition expanding to the back of our lot line, turning the flower garden into an atrium/conservatory, then having a library built past that. What do you think, cherry bookcases or oak? All Stickley furniture, of course.

Don't wake me, please.