Good morning Sunday Saloners and regular readers!  It’s Sunday and I’m up bright and early to start a day of nothing but reading.   I don’t have any other plans (well, besides eating) today, so I’m pretty pumped up about that.  This is the last hurrah of the summer, because I still don’t have any homework obligations.  Pretty soon, reading will feel a little bit guilty when I know there is 16th century Spanish lit to be reading.

My week outside of the reading world has been pretty hectic.  I worked a lot and had my graduate school orientation.  It was… a little underwhelming I guess.  Not a lot of people were there and I really wanted to meet the professors I would be having for class this semester.  I met two professors in the department, but neither of them were my professors.  Oh well.  We talked a lot and it was good to know that I can still speak Spanish after a few months of practically abandoning it.  Remember my lofty goals of reading all my texts before school started?  We all saw how that one was going to end .  I’ll let you know how my first week of classes goes next Sunday.  It should definitely be interesting.

So, my roommates finally made me do it.  They convinced me that the books I’ve had checked out from the library since February probably weren’t going to get read any time soon and I should probably take them back.  As my roommate reminded me: you can always check them out again.  So I took two or three stacks and emptied out my car.  It was liberating!  And it means I don’t have to feel quite so guilty next time I go to check out more books.

As most of you know, it is RIP IV time.  I posted last week asking for recommendations, and here is my final, official pool for RIP IV!  I’ve only committed to read two books this time around, but I will hopefully get to read more than that.

• The Curse of the Blue Figurine, The Lamp of the Warlock’s Tomb, The Trolley to Yesterday by John Bellairs. John Bellairs was a suggestion from Nymeth and after looking him up, I realized that I read most of his books when I was in the 4th and 5th grade.  My library had the entire collection of editions that were illustrated by Edward Gorey.  I took a nice trip down memory lane looking at Edward Gorey’s art and remembering just how addicted I was to scary stories when I was that age.

Edward Gorey’s art is really something else.  And I remember absolutely loving these books when I was younger.  I’m really looking forward to diving into the nostalgia with these two.

• Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.  Recommended by just about everyone who commented, this is a book that seems like a must-read.   I requested it from the library immediately!
• Waking Lazarus by TL Hines.  Author recommendation by Guatami Tripathy of Everything Distils into Reading.  It sounds like an interesting read, that’s for sure.
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Another author that comes highly recommended.

I have a few more that I might add to this list, but these are the ones I plan on reading first!

I’m more than halfway through the fourth section of 2666 and I’m pretty sure it’s a section that would qualify for RIP IV.  It’s at once disturbing and moving and I have so much to say about it.  It has really elevated the book to another level for me, and I know people are going to be surprised by that given my reaction to the last section.  But I have several very valid reasons for my change of heart.

One thing about me as a reader that has changed since I began book blogging is that I went from being a one-book-at-a-time kind of person to an as-many-books-as-are-interesting-to-you-at-the-moment kind of reader.  Currently I am reading:

2666 by Roberto Bolaño
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Safe Area Gorzade by Joe Sacco
Only Twice I’ve Wished for Heaven by Dawn Turner Trice
On Borrowed Words by Ilan Slavans
One Day the Soldiers Came by Charles London

I hope to have a review up of at least two of those books this week!  Happy reading everyone!