Just Arrived, Hiatus Catching Up Edition
Posted on September 14, 2010 Posted by John Scalzi 48 Comments
When I wasn’t writing on Whatever over the last few weeks, books were still coming in. Rather than try to briefly encapsulate each of these books, which would take, like, forever, what I’ll do here is post pictures of the books that came in and let you see what they were. In each case, the book is either newly released or will be released by then end of the year (mostly). Check your favorite book retailers for more details. Some of these will be featured in upcoming Big Ideas (and some were featured in recent ones, too).
If you can’t see the titles/author of the book, click on the picture and it’ll take you to a larger version of the picture.
I’ll start doing the “Just Arrived” feature in its usual format with the next installment.
Yeah yeah. Brag about how you have bookshelf space left.
Stupid living in a metropolitan area with enormous rents.
Stupid unending flood of tasty tasty books I can’t say no to.
http://twitpic.com/2h1tbc/full
I will say that the new Richard Kadrey Kill The Dead is one of the best zombie books I’ve read in ages.
holy Karp, is that a new Terry Pratchett?
Along the lines of Josh’s comment – Eventually, everyone runs out of shelf space, so how do you prevent massive bookshelf overload? Do you give books away (friends, library, lucky readers who ask about such things)? Do you box stuff up in the attic?
(If you’ve mentioned this previously, I apologize for not reading it/remembering it.)
if you find you need to get rid of those, I totally volunteer to take them off your hands. also, please tell us more about that Pratchett in photo 1.
My wife would FREAK OUT if that amount of books showed up on a regular basis. It’s all I can do to sneak one in every couple of months. Otherwise, she demands that an equal number of books leave the house as come in. Since our shelf space is already maxed out with books, she seeks equilibrium – and she HATES dusting around them (and, no, I’m not really interested in dusting them myself).
Marciepooh:
“Eventually, everyone runs out of shelf space, so how do you prevent massive bookshelf overload?”
Build new bookshelves.
Are the books in plastic extra special?
All my recent arrivals live in boxes or bags in the foyer until I can get them the hell out of the house if I’m not planning on keeping or reviewing them.
I noticed two titles, High King of Montival and Cold Magic. Haven’t read either yet, and don’t even own the first (Maybe come October). I’ll be reading the latter once I’m done with Jane Linskold’s Wolf’s Blood, it looks interesting. Trying out the Page 69 test…
From p69 of Cold Magic by Kate Elliot.
Sixty-One Nails is a good read. Just sayin’.
Chris:
In fact, the books in plastic are limited editions from Subterranean Press.
You could always buy a house next door and convert it into a library:
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/dc/news/bibliophile-converts-neighboring-house-into-library-the-minneapolis-star-tribune-125652
(after I read that, I knew my goal in life.)
I second? third? the nomination to feature the new Pratchett.
Heather:
I have in fact seriously considered buying another house to store books in, because there are houses near me that I could buy whose mortgage payments would be less than what it costs to rent a storage unit.
I’d recognize those plastic bagged Subterranean Press books anywhere…. Recently nabbed a grab-bag of books from them. Three of them I already had, but that’s cool, since I got them gratis (thanks Bill!). Lots of authors I hadn’t read before and am currently enjoying them all so far.
Good golly, you get a ton of those pretty limiteds from SubPress. *jealous*
Of the few of those I’ve been able to afford, I highly recommend the extra tasty short stories of Daniel Abraham, via Leviathan Wept,/i> (photo 2).
Mmmm, mmmm, mmm, that man writes some amazing shorts.
Now: I am off to become a world famous internet guy and author, so I too can get all the SP freebies.
Just bought a new-to-me house, 4 times the square feet of the one I’m in now. So I can expand from 210 linear feet of book shelf to around 400. But that’s just what I need for the books I HAVE (a lot are in storage) plus “a little room for growth”. Now I have to figure out the buy-build-have built on all that new shelving. A pretty problem to have, but it’s gonna be expensive…
Sorry, craptacular HTML there. The book title and the word “amazing” were the only things meant to be italicized.
My bad.
John, what about when you run out of wall space? I’m not there yet, but eventually… I guess Heather’s link has the answer to that one. If you can afford it.
“In fact, the books in plastic are limited editions from Subterranean Press.”
That is not going to do anything to lessen the jealousy factor at all.
Maybe you have the space, but do you have the time to read them all?
Mel@4 Let me tell you about the latest Pratchett.
It’s fantastic.
HTH.
Is it just me or does Pyr appear to have gotten their monies worth out of the modeling session with they guy appearing on both Tome of the Undergates and Twelve?
What you really need for books is a camel barn
http://camelbarnlibrary.blogspot.com/2010/06/silent-in-camel-barn-in-ayvalik-then.html#comments
Or better yet, build a treehouse library:
http://inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/maintreehouse1.jpg
I was gonna ask why some of the books are wearing condoms, but I see you answered that already.
Welcome back.
Josh@1: How do you keep your poor Roomba from going crazy with the ever-changing piles?
I do sympathize with you though … my shelves/floor look much the same.
Definitely a drool worthy post. Very nice. Feelings of extreme jealousy upon seeing I Shall Wear Midnight, and All Clear, tempered by surprise at the Sarantine Mosaic. Why so late to that party, but so early to the other two?
It’s good to see books already on my radar there. I am not so far behind the times after all!
Also, Packing For Mars is good.
The Japanese make book shelves that have sliding partitions, so you can stack almost double the number of books on the same wall space.
It’s less practical here because our books are printed in a larger form – they are heavier than Japanese books. But that’s still what I would love to have for my house!
Sharp pangs of longing for so many of the books you’ve pictured here. Oh, the pain.
FYI, another thing that just came out is a (pen & paper) roleplaying game based on Charlie Stross’ Laundry stories.
http://shop.cubicle7store.com/The-Laundry-RPG-PDF-Bundle-PRE-ORDER-October-2010
The Club Dumas? Awesome cue the dumb ass jokes.
‘Hey Scalzi, did you finish that dumb ass book yet?’
Good times.
if you need someone to help with the heavy lifting – give me a holler.
@1: As soon as I read your post, I high-tailed it to Amazon to get Kill the Dead and found that it’s not out for the general populous yet. Oh, the humanity! Do want!
My boyfriend’s solution to ‘books everywhere’ was to buy me a Kindle. 300+ books, itty bitty living space.
how many books do you read in a month? It sounds like you read a lot of books. A lot of authors don’t read much.
The library near your house is pretty lucky. I figure you probably donate older books to them.
I’m totally jealous of the copy of Tim Kring’s Shift I see in that first picture! I missed my chance to nab a free copy at SDCC this year so now it’s on my Christmas list.
Three Cold Magics books? Some to share, eh?
Dude, it must rock to be an author when release season rolls around. (Whenever that is, of course.) :D
The new Pratchett is the fourth Tiffany Aching book, I Shall Wear Midnight. It is YA, so it is not shelved in the main SF/F section. The next adult Discworld book is currently titled Snuff and will feature Sam Vines.
Also, the DVD for the Going Postal miniseries is now out in the UK. Still no idea when, or if, it will turn up on cable or DVD in the states.
To fully tie things back into the Just Arrived theme, my signed copies of both from PJSM Prints showed up yesterday….
Interesting. Never took you for a manga reader.
You got the new S.M Sterling. me too.
Cold Magic is fan-freaking-tastic.
There are several books on your shelf which caught my eye and interest:
I Shall Wear Midnight
Tome of the Undergates
Twelve
Salute the Dark
The Strange Case of Spring-Heeled Jack
Sixty-One Nails
Game of Cages
I intend to add them all to my own shelves.
Salute the Dark got a very good review on the Elitist Book Review site.
I noticed that the Return to Labyrinth books are numbered from right to left. Is that you normally put a series of books on your shelf? Or are those animes that are read from right to left?
I wouldn’t read anything to the order of these or any other of the books; I stuck them up there quickly specifically to be photographed.
“Also, the DVD for the Going Postal miniseries is now out in the UK. Still no idea when, or if, it will turn up on cable or DVD in the states.”
The DVD of Colour of Magic turned up, unexpectedly, in a RedBox machine at my local supermarket last year.
When I grow up, I’m going to get the rolling stacks the Locus offices have. If you’ve seen them, you probably want them too.
It’s absolutely worth having two copies of Cold Magic. It’s a great read, as always with Kate Elliott, with the surprise bonus of some really terrific banter.
(In that regard, it reminded me just a little of Freedom and Necessity by Steven Brust and Emma Bull. It’s a totally different book in almost every way, but also terrific.)
I saw a few possible Zombie related books in there, which prompts me to let you know I just finished reading “Night of the Living Trekkies”.
I have to say it was actually a fun read and somewhat scary / creepy too. Absolutely crammed full of Star Trek references and a slight twist on the classic zombie story.