This is our 45th contribution to The Story Siren’s In My Mailbox – a Sunday meme that features books bought, 
borrowed, stolen, received by around 300 [and occasionally 400] or so book bloggers from all over the globe. I am pretty happy with my book finds this week. This image (said to be from Random House, Inc) that is being currently shared in Facebook describes the story of my life:
Lovely Books from Pansing
I’m very happy to receive these two books from Pansing two days ago. Carrie Ryan’s The dead-tossed waves and The dark & Hollow Places. I already have a copy of The Forest of Hands and Teeth also courtesy of Pansing and I thought that it would be great to read the entire trilogy at one go. I’ve heard so many great things about these books so I’m pretty excited.
Bargain Books from Bras Basah
For those of you who regularly visit my IMM, you would know how addicted I am to Bras Basah here in Singapore, and with good reason. At a dirt-cheap price of 2 books for 5 sgd, how can I resist treasures such as these: The Novice by Trudi Canavan (I found Books 1 and 3 several weeks back – so I am glad to find this missing book in the trilogy) and Postcards from No Man’s Land by Aidan Chambers, Winner of the Carnegie Medal. I thought that this would be a good addition to our Award-Winning-Books Reading Challenge that we are hosting this year (do sign up here if you haven’t joined us yet).
I am grinning like an idiot when I saw these two lovelies (granted, I am still missing the third book in the trilogy, but no matter): Arthur, The Seeing Stone and Arthur at The Crossing Places by Kevin Crossley-Holland.
Last week, I shared how I found all five books of Jasper Fforde from the Singapore Book Exchange 2012, this is the missing book from the set [which I found quite a few weeks back]. I am fascinated with Fforde since my cousin whom I adore – swears by Fforde and Iphigene is also a huge fan (see her review of Fforde’s The Big Over Easy), so Lost in a Good Book it is. I was also pretty pleased to find A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond (a Newbery Honor book) and Laurence Yep’s Sea Glass. We are planning on reviewing more of Yep’s stellar, award-winning YA novels for our next bimonthly theme.
Two weeks back, I posted about Kadohata’s novels as borrowed from our community libraries. Was I surprised finding these two Cynthia Kadohata novels at such a bargain price (2 books for 5 dollars): Kira-Kira (a Newbery Medalist) and Outside Beauty – both books perfect for our theme. I also found Lois Lowry’s A Summer to Die which seems like a real tear-jerker. 🙂
Library Loot
Last week, my daughter finished Book One of this Holly Black series in one sitting, so she was eager to borrow and read Books 2 and 3: Kith and Kind respectively.
And yes, my ten year old is also strategically going through the entire Complete Peanuts Collection our library has. She loves Charles M. Schulz.
I’ve been borrowing quite a number of Newbery Medal books so we can make some headway with Newbery Reading Challenge that we have also joined this year, here’s another title that fits perfectly with our girl power theme: The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron. The last two books have been recommended by our Featured Poet/Storyteller, Margarita Engle: The King’s Equal by Katherine Paterson and Illustrations by Vladimir Vagin and Ever by Gail Carson Levine. I have a feeling I won’t be able to read all these YA novels, but it’s good to see them in my shelves and to note my ambitious intention of reading through them and featuring them here.
I have read a lot of rave reviews about Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Nivola from fellow kidlit bloggers, so I was intrigued. I am glad to find this in our library. The Butterfly Workshop by Gioconda Belli and Wolf Erlbruch is an award-winning book translated from the German language. While it does not fit our theme, I’ve read about this book as I was going through journal articles on award-winning picture books from different parts of the globe and I got intrigued.
When I read Jama Rattigan (of Jama’s Alphabet Soup)’s post on Maira Kalman, I just knew that I had to discover her artwork for myself, and this beautiful collaboration with none other than THE Lemony Snicket is a great library find: 13 Words. My husband and I are hooked on The Walking Dead tv series (and suffering from withdrawal symptoms ever since the Season 2 finale). This, unfortunately, is Volume 9: Here we Remain – which my daughter excitedly found in the bookshelves. Volumes 1-8 are out – that’s how huge it is here.
Gathering Books 
wow! there are a lot of good books here! I envy you!
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Now to find the time to read them all. 🙂
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You got 5 books of Thursday Next series! *drool* I’ve only read The Eyre Affair and loved it. 🙂
I’ve been looking for retellings of Arthurian legends ever since I’ve read The Song of the Sparrow by Lisa Ann Sandell (a beautiful novel in verse, I hope I can put up a review soon :D). It looks like I’ve found one in the Kevin Crossley-Holland books you mentioned.
I’ve just acquired a few books that would be great for the AWB Reading Challenge like Goose Girl and The Ask and the Answer. 🙂
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Halfway through The Eyre Affair – I had to stop in the middle as I just finished reading Newbery Medalist Caddie Woodlawn and also halfway through Monsters of Men. Talk about multi-tasking. I am excited to hear how you’d find Patrick Ness’ second book. I’ve done a review of Book 2 quite recently. Hope you get a chance to visit it.
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For Tin (above), the Mary Stewart novels about Arthur are wonderful. Look them up! These Crossley-Holland books are also popular among our middle school readers. I’ve lately found quite a few non-fiction poetry books in our school library, among them Eureka-a wonderful book about inventions through the ages. They are long poem/stories with good background info, too! Thanks Myra for all the tips about books. Maira Kalman is wonderful & I will look for The Planting of Trees. Love the graphic at the beginning also!
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Hi Linda! I’ll look for the Mary Stewart books you mentioned. Eureka seems like a very cool book! Learning about inventions through poetry might me easier and more fun. 🙂
Thanks for the recommendations!
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Hi Linda, glad to hear about all of your recommendations too. Would try to look for those Mary Stewart novels and Eureka. The Planting of Trees is also beautiful. 🙂
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You got a really cool collection of books there! Enjoy 🙂
Happy Reading
Filia @ Anima Libri – Booksoul
My IMM
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Hi there! I look forward to enjoying them all soon! 🙂
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Your camera skills are epic as your mail box. I’ve been meaning to read the good neighbor’s series. Happy reading want to see my mailbox go here ..http://sonythebooklover.com/2012/05/in-my-mailbox-29/
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Aww, that’s the nicest compliment I heard today. Thank you so much. My daughter enjoyed The Good Neighbors series by Holly Black.
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It looks like you’ve got some brilliant books to read. Hope you enjoy them.
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I’m crossing my fingers I get to find the time to enjoy them all.
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Wow you got a lot of books this week! I love book sales!
Happy reading
http://kristina-worldofbooks.blogspot.com/2012/05/in-my-mailbox-54.html
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Aren’t book sales the best?? – next to the library of course, hahaha 🙂
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I need to finish those Carrie Ryan books – but I love your covers much more than mine!
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I haven’t started on Forest of Hands and Teeth yet, but I’m excited. 🙂
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Some loot there! Happy reading!
http://booketta.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/what-postman-brought.html
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Thanks for dropping by! 🙂
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