Sunday Salon: End of Novemebr and everything books

After reading so many great reviews about Neil Gaiman's newest novel, The Graveyard Book, I did something I usually don't do: bought it in hardcover. As much as I love books I never buy a book in hardcover unless it's used. Books are so expensive that I rather check them out at my local library, receive them from paperbackswap, wait a year or more until they come out in paperback or buy them used. I am glad I bought The Graveyard Book.

The description from Amazon perfectly sums it up:

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy.

He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead.

There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy-an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer.

But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod's family. . . .

I have so many obligations this week: studying for finals, essays, homework, and family that reading this book felt a little rushed so I plan on rereading it later on this week.

I started November out in a book funk. I could not finish any books I started. The cure: picture books. I read so many great picture books like Delilah D at the Library by Jeanne Willis about a young girl with a very big imagination, The Bearskinner by Laura Amy Schlitz which was a spin on a Grimm fairy tale, and Woolbur by Leslie Holakoski about being your own person. My kids loved all three books.

Even in a book funk and with Christmas approaching, I have madly been searching through thrift stores, libraries, paperbackswap, and used bookstores for great finds and have acquired so many great reads ranging from Joyce Carol Oates's The Gravedigger's Daughter, to Ami McKay's The Birth House to Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres. Now I just have to find the time to read!

Have a great week and happy reading!