Mid-August Used Book Porn and a Mini-Commentary

Bought a few books, including two replacement copies, during my latest trip to McKay's in Nashville.  Saw an interesting Steve Erickson novel, The Sea Came in at Midnight and snagged that for a couple of dollars, as well as getting the tradeback edition of Jeff VanderMeer's City of Saints and Madmen (I bought the Prime hardcover edition back in 2003 and I finally got around to getting the updated edition for myself; I had earlier bought one for a friend living in El Salvador a couple of years ago).  The hardcover edition of R. Scott Bakker's The Thousandfold Thought will replace the Canadian ARC that I've owned for five years now.  Still weird to see an old forum screen name of mine appearing in the Acknowledgements.

Here are some of the foreign language books I bought:  four Spanish-language, two French, and one German, along with a copy of William Saroyan's The Human Comedy, which I seem to recall checking out from a library when I was in college well over a decade ago.  Not all that many books were purchased this time through, as I bought a DVD set for my classroom and two CDs as well.  Net loss of books on this one, as I traded in twelve books (duplicate review copies or books I knew I never was going to read) for the eleven pictured here.  The Erickson is off to a good start.  Hopefully I can find the time to read more print editions, as I've been buying close to two dozen e-books over the past month, as those fit in better with me reading during breaks at work or while I'm stuck in traffic. 

Thinking about taking a mini-break from reading shortly, due mostly to a bit of stress revolving around uncertainties at my job that I will not elaborate on, only to say it's more a case of deja vu than anything specific related to my own job performance.  Hopefully this spell will clear up in the next few weeks, as I would like to make this blog a bit more relevant compared to the past few months.  Maybe there will be a new audience coming in that will appreciate the changes in my reading over the past year or so; certainly seems there's more silence these days.