I'd figured that you readers would know the true extent of my bibliomania if I honestly told you of all new arrivals, so I've been holding out on you. No longer. As I buy books, you'll hear about them. If it makes you think I'm afflicted with the Gentle Madness, congratulations; your thinking is right on target.

I paid a visit to one of my favorite specialty bookstores last week, Borderlands Books on Valencia Street in San Francisco. I enjoy shopping there because they have lots of signed books, lots of SF, fantasy and horror criticism, and lots of books from England that have either not been published here yet or never will.

The haul included Ramsey Campbell, Probably, a collection of 30 years of Campbell's essays and articles. The collection includes a number of pieces from the late lamented "Necrofile," a bi-monthly horror review (and one of those magazines you never want to be seen reading on the bus). It's signed and numbered, and a very welcome addition to my extensive criticism collection. God bless PS Publishing, which continues to put out wonderful stuff.

Next is Pearls From Peoria by Philip Jose Farmer, a thick volume of fiction and nonfiction written by one of the science fiction greats.

And then there's Mappa Mundi by Justina Robson, a young writer whose books have already met with incredible acclaim. It's a science fiction novel about nanotechnology, national security, mind control, and the notion of a radical shift in human identity. This book is publisher by Lou Anders's Pyr, an up and coming name in the SFnal publishing community. It's a beautifully made trade paperback, sturdy, heavy, with alkaline paper -- for those who love books as objects as well as for their content, this is one the best treats-for-the-eyes I've seen in trade paperback.

Because I'm a lawyer, I've had my eye out for Batton Lash's Tales of Supernatural Law. Comedy about lawyers is hard enough (and no, lawyer jokes don't count); make it a comic about lawyers representing Dracula and other creatures of the night, and you have something very silly and delightful.

James Lovegrove hasn't been published much in the States, so I was happy to find Worldstorm and Provender Gleed. They seem like books that are very different from one another, but which will give me the taste of the New Weird, which I love so much.

Eric Brown's A Writer's Life has been on my list for a long time because I love metafiction, and this book seems to hold a bunch of it. It's another signed and numbered book from PS Publishing.

Mark Budz's Idolon was there, too, signed -- a science fiction mystery, one of the hardest crossover of genres that can be done. Sounds cool.

Holly Phillips puzzled and pleased me in The Burning Girl, so I snatched up her small press book of short stories, In the Palace of Repose. Anything labeled "Dark Fantasy" is likely to appeal to me, especially in short stories (I tend to think horror usually works better in short form, notwithstanding Stephen King; heck, I even prefer his novellas and short stories to his novels, despite the fact that I enjoy falling into his longer works and not resurfacing for hours).

I have a decent collection of Arkham House books -- again with the publisher, I can hear you saying, but really, these specialty presses are becoming more and more important in this field. I picked up Michael Bishop's One Winter in Eden as my final purchase of the day. This book was first published in 1984, but except for some minor shelf wear it looks like it rolled off the presses yesterday. More short fiction, more promises of great reading.

I haven't been to a bookstore now in nearly a week, and I'm starting to get short of breath or something. Is there anything better in the world than buying an armful of books?