A lot of new books

Obviously I'm not doing so well in the stop-accumulating-so-many-books department. The shelves are full and I'm running out of flat surfaces for the myriad stacks. So what else is new?

Sans yesterday's books, these are the tricky devils that have finagled their way into my home since the first of the year:

Skippy Dies. Paul Murray. A three-volume slipcovered novel about boarding school, doughnut-eating races and parallel universes.

Stephen Hero. James Joyce. An early version of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I found it on the Free Books table in the staff lounge.

After the Workshop. John McNally. What do you do after graduating from the Iowa Writers' Workshop? You write a novel about someone who graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and winds up working as a media escort for author tours.

Workers in the Dawn. George Gissing. Gissing's first novel brought back into print by Debbie Harrison and Victorian Secrets.

The Hand That First Held Mine. Maggie O'Farrell. Publishers have sent me both the hardback and then the paperback version of a couple of books, but I think this is the first time I've received both an uncorrected proof and the finished hardback.

Life Sentences. Laura Lippman. For a book tour. Look for my review on Thursday.

Parrot and Olivier in America. Peter Carey. Historical fiction based on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville.

Twilight in Delhi. Ahmed Ali. Nineteenth-century India.

Wigs on the Green and Don't Tell Alfred. Nancy Mitford. These should be great for the next Read-a-thon, don't you think?

Vertigo. W.G. Sebald. The Slaves of Golconda will be discussing this at the end of the month.

The Possessed. Elif Batuman. I thought this sounded perfect for my daughter--and how even more perfect that I got to read it first!

Wish Her Safe at Home. Stephen Benatar. Woman inherits a mansion, proceeds into mania.

The Cost of Living and Varieties of Exile. Mavis Gallant. Short stories.

Fortunes of War. Olivia Manning. World War II trilogy set in Europe.

The Eleventh Plague. Darren Craske. Review copy. Book 2 of the Cornelius Quaint Chronicles.

Hopeful Monsters. Nicholas Mosley. If we are to survive in the environment we have made for ourselves, may we have to be monstrous enough to greet our predicament?

Used book finds

While on my way to the pet store yesterday to buy the expensive litter that's our only line of defense against Claudius having accidents outside the box, I took an out-of-the-way detour and wound up at the used book store.

Incredibly enough, I had not been there in eight months. Even more incredibly, the unfriendly store cat was happy to see me and insisted that I make over him instead of glaring that I ought to keep my distance if I knew what was good for me.

So after our mutual schmooze session, I sneezed and snuffled along the fiction shelves and came away with:

Breakfast of Champions. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I have no idea where my original copy has wound up, but this one looks just like that long-lost friend. Ah, nostalgia. . .

Hideous Kinky. Esther Freud. I'd been on the lookout for this for awhile.

The Decameron. Giovanni Boccaccio. I think this is going to be my long-term project once I've completed Ulysses.

The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart. M. Glenn Taylor. A National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, according to the cover, which sports an impressive-looking snake.

Still Alice. Lisa Genova. Alzheimer's disease. I'll have to work up some courage to read it.

Our Sometime Sister. Norah Labiner. With this purchase I now own all Labiner's novels. I suppose that's a sign I should stop collecting her work and get around to reading it.

Terrible news

Charlotte Mecklenburg Library board members say they will vote today on a proposal to close half its branches and lay off 140 workers - almost a third of its employees - in the next two weeks.

. . . . The cuts come at a time of growing library use. Annual circulation was up more than 7 percent from October 2008 to October 2009, following a similar jump the previous year.

--Ely Portillo, The Charlotte Observer

Orange Prize Long List

Rosie Alison. The Very Thought of You

Eleanor Catton. The Rehearsal

Clare Clark. Savage Lands

Amanda Craig. Hearts and Minds

Roopa Farooki. The Way Things Look to Me

Rebecca Gowers. The Twisted Heart

M.J. Hyland. This is How

Sadie Jones. Small Wars

Barbara Kingsolver. The Lacuna

Laila Lalami. Secret Son

Andrea Levy. The Long Song

Attica Locke. Black Water Rising

Maria McCann. The Wilding

Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
.
Nadifa Mohamed. Black Mamba Boy

Lorrie Moore. A Gate at the Stairs

Monique Roffey. The White Woman on the Green Bicycle

Amy Sackville. The Still Point

Kathryn Stockett. The Help

Sarah Waters. The Little Stranger

I've read only the Moore and the Waters and have the Kingsolver and Mantel at hand. A lot of these I've never even heard of.

Why should we celebrate the Irish?

No doubt, several reasons could be proffered. But for me one answer stands out. Long, long ago the Irish pulled off a remarkable feat: They saved the books of the Western world and left them as gifts for all humanity.

--Thomas Cahill, Turning Green With Literacy

Proof you're way too much of a political junkie:

When one of the first thoughts that pop into your mind after you wake from a colonoscopy is "This is good news for John McCain!"

True Murder by Yaba Badoe

Whenever a thunderstorm occurred during Ajuba's childhood in Ghana, a superstitious maid would rush to cover all the mirrors.

It was said in her village that the reflection of lightning in a mirror could kill you. What was even more terrifying were the ghosts in mirrors. Lightning could reveal them. Her people believed that during a thunderstorm, if you looked carefully, hovering behind your reflection you'd see the faces of your enemies.

After a series of miscarriages and stillbirths, Ajuba's parents' marriage disintegrates and her mother--seeing a multitude of enemies in her mirror--sinks into mental illness. Ajuba is placed in loco parentis in a rural public school in England, where she eventually connects with another newcomer, Polly Venus, whose own parents are headed toward divorce. The 11-year-olds find human bones wrapped away in a trunk in Polly's attic and, influenced by the girls' shared obsession with true crime stories, spend a summer vacation together attempting to pinpoint the murderer. Meanwhile, Polly's mother becomes increasingly unhinged and it is Ajuba, not Polly, who worries over her decline.

And just how much worrying over Ajuba should the reader engage in when she reveals she's "reached a state of acute sensitivity in which other people's thoughts and emotions merged" with her own--particularly those of a violent sort?

Narrated by an adult Ajuba, who has been unable to bear looking in mirrors since her time with Polly's family, True Murder is an attempt to lay ghosts to rest by recounting the events leading up to her friend's death. Although readers are told on the first page of this death, Yaba Badoe, who's worked as both a journalist and documentary film-maker before turning to fiction, serves up an impressively shocking and creepy ending.

Published in the UK in 2009, True Murder still doesn't have a U.S. pub date. Thank goodness for the Book Depository and its free shipping policy.