Acquisitions

I've been a member of the Quality Paperback Book Club for years, but, of recent, I haven't been too interested in their offerings. Apparently, I'd gone so long without buying a book, that they offered to allow me to rejoin. They're a bit like drug dealers aren't they, i.e., the first time's free, so we've gotten a bunch of new books.

Anyhow, our book collection has profitted from their peddling.

• Patricia Schultz, 1,000 Places to See Before You Die (Workman Pyblishing, 2003). We're already planning 1,000 trips.
  
  
• James Shapiro, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (HarperCollins Publishers, 2005). "Wedding is great Juno's crown./O blessed bond of board and bed!/'Tis hymen peoples every town;/High wedlock then be honored./Honor, high honor and renown,/To Hymen, god of evrery town!" (As you Like It, 5.4.140-145). How could anyone not like Shakespeare? Lovely. Just lovely.
  
  
• Biggest Book of Slow Cook Recipes (Better Homes and Gardens, 2002). Yum.
  
  
• T.J. Wray and Gregory Mobley, The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil's Biblical Roots (Palgrave, 2005). It'll either be great or really laughable.
  
  
• Julian Barnes, Arthur & George (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005). Historical novel...We shall see.
  
  
• Donna Leon, Through a Glass Darkly: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005). I love a good mystery.