Friday Finds (aka, Books Out the Yin-Yang)

There are so many books this week, that it's not even funny. Seriously, it's really not funny any more. I got a couple of books from the library that I'd been holding on: The Black Rood by Stephen R. Lawhead (Read my review of Book #1 in The Celtic Crusades series) and Sunshine by Robin McKinley. But, let's get to the real business of this Friday Finds post.

Finds From Blogs:
The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh - Recommended via Lisa's Teaser Tuesday post "...The setting is the L.A. funeral industry, where Whispering Glades provides deluxe service to deceased stars and their families, and the Happier Hunting Ground does the same for dead pets."

Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel - Recommended by Books on the Nightstand
"Last Night in Montreal ... is the kind of book that grabs you from the first chapter... Author Emily Mandel opens the novel with Eli, who is telling the story of his girlfriend's disappearance. Lilia awoke one morning, showered, and went out to get the newspaper--and then never returned... Mandel's writing is the true star. It's literary but accessible, precise and yet not at all cold."

Finds at the Book Store:

I went on a serious book-buying binge at the book store because all of these beautiful books were pretty cheap. Here's what I got (and why I got it):
The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading by Charity Tahmaseb and Darcy Vance - Saw this book online (the website of these debut authors was pretty fun to spend some time on) and then saw it at the book store and impulse bought it. I read it pretty quick, here's my review.
Take Me There by Susane Colasanti - Saw this one at the book store (typical boy/girl YA romance told from alternating POV's) and remembered I'd been wanting to read it because I liked Colasanti's first book a lot. (Read my review of When It Happens in this reading round-up post.)
Read My Lips by Teri Brown - The cover of this book caught my eye and then the hook of the book, a deaf girl can read lips across the cafeteria, catching all the gossip, which makes her a commodity to the cool crowd, got me to pick this one up.
Perfect You by Elizabeth Scott - Elizabeth Scott has a book that just came out, Love You Hate You Miss You, so her stuff has been pretty prolific on YA book blogs recently; I've never read anything by her, but I'd always planned to, so at the book store I checked around and this one (pretty typical boy/girl YA romance where he's a have and she's a have-not) seemed the most interesting to me (plus I loved the cover).
The Market by J.M. Steele - This book about a girl who cracks her high school's code that boys use to rate girls (aka, their Market Index) was a total impulse buy at the book store because the cover looked absolutely yummy. I picked it up, considered it, but didn't commit when I was at the store on Monday, but it was like a siren calling out to me and I buckled to my desires and bought it last night.
Exit Here by Jason Myers - I had seen this book before (a teenage guy lives a pretty hard partying suburban lifestyle and thinks he might want to start getting serious, but is it that easy?) and considered it--the cover always had a really nice "indie film" vibe to it--and I picked it up on Monday (because I only had two others books so far and more cash to burn) because the voice of the male protagonist seemed to pull me in. I'm such a sucker for this kind of thing.

But amongst all of my impulse shopping on Monday and Thursday night, this book The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Volume I, The Pox Party, was probably my most "redeeming" purchase. I plan to eventually read all of this series by M.T. Anderson, winner of the National Book Award in 2007, and finally took the plunge to pick up the first in the series (for only $9.89).