I was controlled in August. Really, truly controlled. After all the book buying I’d been doing in the spring and early summer, I figured it was time to slow down a bit and let my reading catch up with my purchasing. Not to mention that it was time to let my budget recover a bit from all the acquisitions, delightful as they were (and as worth going into hock they were). I’d rather have the books than the money, but there should be limits, shouldn’t there?

So in August I purchased only a single book: Midnight Fugue: A Dalziel and Pascoe Mystery by Reginald Hill, the latest in the series of the two detectives who mix like oil and water. Yeah, okay, so it’s a signed first British edition – the true first – and I got it from a London bookseller, but still, only one.

Fortunately, I also received a couple of books specifically for review: Five Hundred Years After by Steven Brust from Orb Books and Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program. I very much enjoy the Early Reviewers program, which has netted me a number of books I've reviewed here; I still have a pile of other such books I'm looking forward to reading. I find LibraryThing to be a fascinating place in any event, and urge any of you who are book fanatics, like me, to take a close look.

August is also the month of my birthday, and my husband knows what I love best, because he loves them best, too. He got me Myths: Tales of the Greek and Roman Gods by Lucia Impelluso, which we’d seen while on vacation in Washington, D.C. the month before. It’s a lovely book of reproductions of paintings of mythological creatures and personages. Because I’ve been working with mythology in a few short stories I’m working on, this was an excellent gift. Even more excellent, though, were the signed first editions of Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt. Both were short-listed for the Mann Booker Prize in England, and Mantel’s book won. They’re both on the blue chip shelves, patiently awaiting my attention.

My budgetary resolve started to slip just a bit in September. As I’ve mentioned here before, I subscribe to Powell’s Books’ Indiespensable program, a wonderful way to find out about great new books before they appear on anyone else’s radar. It’s a delight to get these packages about once every six weeks, containing not just cool books, usually in special editions (signed, sometimes boxed), but also extras. This time the highlight of the package was Stitches: A Memoir by David Small, a tale in comics form that is elegantly bound and boxed. Included in the package was How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall, which I’d read about elsewhere but hadn’t gotten around to picking up yet. It sounds marvelous, and I’m looking forward to reading it as soon as I dig out from under this “to be read” pile that just collapsed on me.

I prevailed upon Ken Scholes to have his publisher send me an advanced reading copy of Canticle, the next in his series, The Psalms of Isaak, that began with Lamentation. You might remember how much I enjoyed Lamentation: here’s my review. I’m happy to report that so far Canticle is even better. I’ll be reviewing it soon. In addition, Tachyon Books, one of my favorite small presses, sent me The Hotel Under the Sand by Kage Baker and The Secret History of Science Fiction by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel, both of which are by authors and editors I trust implicitly from their prior outings.

I made a few purchases that I couldn’t resist. Once I start buying a series, for instance, I find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to stop. When the series is as fine as the Year’s Best Fantasy series edited by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, it is the essence of wisdom not to stop. And when I read that Ian Rankin had dabbled in comics with a story of his own about my favorite magician, John Constantine, in Dark Entries, I had to have it (it was a good read, too). Finally, I picked up a copy of a scholarly book called The Medusa Reader, edited by Marjorie Garber and Nancy J. Vickers, for research for my fiction-writing project.

Shortly before Fred’s school year started, we took a day to visit Santa Cruz. There’s a cute little place that serves great breakfasts, a nice jewelry store where I can ooh and aah without buying a thing, and, best of all, Logos Books. On the $5 and under cart, I hit a bonanza of advanced reading copies some other reviewer must have just sold to the store. Normally I’d feel guilty about buying these; they’re not intended for resale. But since I intend to review them here, I figure the publishers simply sent them to the wrong reviewer originally, and now they are in the hands of the right reviewer. I hope the bit of publicity that the authors get out of my reviews makes up for the fact that I bought these ARCs. Peter Ackroyd’s The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein will be particularly useful for a scholarly project I’ve been working on for years involving the English Romantic poets. The only book I bought that wasn’t an ARC was Robert Barnard’s The Killings on Jubilee Terrace, another of his fine small British mysteries, which I polished off in an afternoon with great delight.

It really wasn’t my fault that we followed this up with a trip to Mountain View’s wonderful BookBuyers used bookstore. I think that, after our trip to Logos, Fred’s booklust was in full flower. Mine, of course, was completely under control. But as long as I was there, why not pick up a few bargains? (Not shown: In Silence Sealed by Kathryn Ptacek, one of those books starring Romantic poets as characters. It's really surprising how many of these there are.)

I confess, though, that I went completely nuts in October. I don’t know what came over me, but suddenly there were a very great many books that I could not live without and absolutely couldn’t resist for another moment. I’m looking at credit card bills now and wondering what got into me. I’m sure you’re not wondering, because I’m like this all the time, aren’t I? Perhaps this was a bit more extreme than most months, but still, it’s hardly atypical, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise. I only wish that booksellers sold time to read along with the books themselves.

I made the acquaintance of three authors this month, all of whom sent me their books. Mindy Klasky and I had a lovely hour together at the World Fantasy Conference this weekend. She is smart, sweet and has a wit on her like you wouldn’t believe. I’m looking forward to reading her book, How Not to Make a Wish. I’ve only met Daniel Marcus by email, but he was kind enough to send me a copy of Burn Rate, which looks sufficiently compelling that I plan to read it straight through the next time I’ve got an afternoon free – perhaps while on Thanksgiving break. Jeff VanderMeer is someone whose blog I read regularly; he’s told me I’m quoted in Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer, a book about writing I really need (and isn’t that a great cover?). Finch looks like the kind of cross-genre book I love, a mash-up of fantasy and noir mystery, and it’s on the “read next” pile. It was great to finally meet Jeff and Ann VanderMeer at the World Fantasy Convention, where one of the outstanding panels featured them interviewing each other.

The redoubtable editor Lou Anders posted on Facebook about a review, prompting me to write to him to see whether additional reviews would be useful to his excellent press, Pyr Books. I’m particularly looking forward to reading Sasha (A Trial of Blood and Steel, Book I), as I’m always on the outlook for great new fantasy; but Paul McAuley’s The Quiet War sounds like just the kind of challenging science fiction that makes me think, so that’s high on my pile as well.

Other publishers helped out with a few books this month, too. I’m especially looking forward to reading Cherie Priest’s steampunk book, Boneshaker. I was one of the bloggers who won a competition to get a review copy of The Poison Eaters: and Other Stories. I admire Holly Black’s work, so I’m very happy to get my hands on this one.

A number of books I purchased from the excellent small press Night Shade Books during its sale this past summer arrived in one lovely big box one cool October afternoon. It’s hard to pick one to start with, but I’ll probably grab Ellen Datlow’s anthology; she is a superb editor. Of course, so is John Joseph Adams, as my review of The Living Dead showed. It’s very hard to decide what to read next in this house.

A little bit of horror from Amazon, ordered long ago and only now published. Two more wonderful anthologies from excellent editors.

One Saturday we took in a movie and had dinner, but began the evening with a trip to San Mateo’s M Is For Mystery, an excellent specialty mystery bookstore I’ve written about before. We usually limit ourselves to signed first editions here, and this trip was no exception. It’s a pleasure to be able to buy such lovely books for both reading and collecting.

Every year around this time the “best American” books come out. Remember what I said about series, up above? Well, these series are no exception.

I took a quick trip to Barnes & Noble to pick up Darker Angels by M.L.N. Hanover after finishing the first book in his Jayné Heller series, Unclean Spirits. As you know if you’ve read my review of these two books, it was worth the quick emergency trip.

So: quite a three months, eh? Enough to make you start urging me to attend Bookaholics Anonymous. But believe it or not, we’re not done yet, because this past weekend was the World Fantasy Convention. First, there are the books that you got just for signing up to attend, worth the price of admission all by themselves:

(Not shown: The Classic Car Killer by Richard A. Lupoff.)

In the dealers’ room, I encountered Heidi Lampietti, the editor of a small press that I’d previously not heard of, RedJack. She gave me a couple of books to review, neither of which I’d heard of before, but both of which look interesting: X and Y And Other Like Stories by Heidi Cyr and Edge of Our Lives by Mark Rich. I love making new discoveries like these.

I tried very hard to control myself in the dealers’ room, honestly I did. My husband can attest to that, because I kept calling him to ask whether I should buy this or that book. He talked me out of quite a few, but I still bought books from small presses Prime Books and PS Publishing, as well as several books from the great San Francisco specialty bookstore, Borderlands Books. I kept the total down to nine, which amazes me:

Not shown: A Book of Endings by Deborah Biancotti. I’m sorry I can’t show you this one, because it’s one of the books I’m most excited about. It was published in Australia, though, and so isn’t available through my usual channels. At the World Fantasy Convention panel on the best short fiction of the year, Biancotti’s work was prominently mentioned. Also not shown: Impossible Stories by Zoran Zivkovic, who kindly signed both this and Impossible Stories II for me after his reading.

By my count, Fred and I have therefore acquired 79 books in three months, about a book every two days. So far this year, in 10 months, I’ve read 103 books. So in three months I’ve obtained about eight months’ worth of reading material. This poses an obvious problem: where will I get the time to read all these books? It seems to me there is only one answer, and that is to cease sleeping. It would be worth it, if only I could figure out a way!