A good day in bookland

So, even though I spent most of today staring at a computer screen and am mentally (from thinking too much about my various projects) and physically exhausted (from failing to get my new PC, monitor, and mouse into an ergonomic arrangement), there are three very good reasons to celebrate this evening.

1 - My literary fiction chapter doesn't need nearly as much work as I'd thought, and is progressing nicely.

2 - My first ARC from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers' program is here - Barbara Wood's Woman of a Thousand Secrets. I confess, I experimented a bit in requesting this book, as I'd never asked for one before, but the subject matter intrigued me: a woman in Central America before the time of Columbus tries to return to her birth people, which begins a great adventure in the land of the Maya. Since part of the algorithm for review copy distribution in LT is based on your existing LT holdings, and since I have a pretty sizeable historical fiction collection, I guessed that if I ever asked for a historical novel, I had a good chance of getting it. I was right. Voila. Unlike most places, LT encourages pre-pub reviews of these ARCs, so I'll be posting a review on LT (and copying it here) as soon as I'm able.

3 - The long-awaited ARC for Devil's Brood has arrived, complete with much improved jacket art. It's 734 pages long, weighs 2.25 lbs, and seems to be happy in its new home, so I don't see it going anywhere.

The books in (2) and (3) are currently numbers 4 and 5 in my TBR pile, after some more pressing commitments, unless I can manage to shuffle them around before my other reviews come due. I am very tempted to read (3) immediately...

Unfortunately, while I was typing this post, my black cat, Max, had a regurgitation accident all over the carpet. I think this is payback for gloating about the Penman ARC. Fair enough.