booklust

So there’s been a lot of Work lately. In the bits where there wasn’t Work, there was Knitting, and getting Things knitted In Time for Things. It all conspired to create a certain leanness in the Reading area, such that one or two Advance Reading Copies may not, strictly speaking, be Advance any more. But Santa was generous to the lucky, lucky booky chick, and brought a definitive end to the drought. He started with this:







The Knife that Killed Me, Anthony McGowan

…and I grabbed it with wanton abandon and read it in an afternoon, so I could share it among my booky mates. I love how Santa in an international entity, because this can’t be got in North America, and yet! I still get to have a copy, and more importantly be the bringer of it to others.

The desperate edge taken off my appetite, I started on this:








Stargirl, Jerry Spinelli

Which, I realise, everyone whose job is YA books should’ve read actually years ago, and wish I had, but at least I got to it now.

But then, this – another one you can’t get here, or not in this format – took up a siren call from the bookshelf:







Diamond Dove, Adrian Hyland


(Be interesting to see what the North American ed. has done to this actually. Different cover, different title (Moonlight Downs). Anyone know what's been done to the words on the inside?)

Anyway I’ve slipped, and I started cheating on Spinelli with Hyland, who is quite magnetic, but you know what? I can totally juggle two, and neither needs to know about the other; it’s not fair to ask me to choose between them right now, because I kind of need them both for different reasons, and nobody’s getting hurt and I can handle it, so if you can’t be supportive and accept my choices then just get off my freaking back, okay?

But Hyland and Spinelli are paperbacks, and sometimes I need a sturdy hardcover that will lie flat on my knees while my hands are occupied knitting all the many new request items, and I promise you it was just once, and just casual, but I dipped into this:







The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness



I’m pretty sure I’m still in control, so long as Ness remains with the knitting pile and Spinelli and Hyland stay on the bedside table and don’t see.

Trouble is, I know Santa also dropped in on New Zealand, and I have it on good authority that these good-looking Kiwi specimens will shortly be knocking on the door and asking me out for a flat white, nothing implied, no strings, just to acquaint ourselves:

New Zealand Book of the Beach 2 and Best New Zealand Fiction 5

…and I don’t think I can say no.