New Booksies

An update on the books I've received since I last felt like doing a New Booksies post. But before I get to the books themselves, I wanted to talk a bit about the read three buy one restriction I've been following. I got the idea from Tansy (on Galactic Suburbia, I think).

The idea was for me to stop compulsively buying books every time I saw one (or a pile) I wanted. Especially with ebooks not requiring any effort for instant gratification, some book-buying structure was definitely useful. I've found is that I've gotten quite good at reading books as I get them, particularly since they mostly trickle in. What I haven't got the hang of is reading my TBR shelf backlog. My TBR shelf is overflowing, so I mostly have read new (paper) books as I've got them (or left them floating on the couch...) but I'm not actively making room on said TBR shelf. Ebooks are partly to blame since finishing an ebook, even if it's one I've had for a while, doesn't magically free up paper book space.

So from this I've learnt noticed that buying a bunch of books at once (for example when I was in Australia and dropped the restriction for Aussie authors or when I was in the US, the event which I believe prompted the restriction) reduces the chances of my reading them in a timely manner. On the other hand, buying a pile of books at once (especially paper ones which are physically stackable) does make me happy. Therefore, my new experiment is going to involve saving my +1 unlocked books up and buying multiple books at once. I'm not sure for how long this will work. Ideally until Christmas, but I can't not buy the new Bujold book when it comes out in November, so we'll see. Hopefully I'll be able to make a bit of a gap in that shelf, though.

On to my actual new booksies!

I got Harbinger by Peta Crake from Penguin Australia on Netgalley. I'm currently partway through it and enjoying it. It's not a "romance" novel as advertised nor YA as I had assumed for some reason, but that's OK. Messenger for the gods (all pantheons ever) and strange/abusive goddy shenanigans.

And All The Stars by Andrea K Höst, self-published and review copy via Netgalley. I normally don't pay much attention to self-published books that aren't by authors I'm somehow familiar with. This one caught my eye because the author was shortlisted for an Aurealis Award... last year? It's science fiction and the blurb sounded interesting (and it's probably less like a particular Sean Williams series than it sounds).

And finally, I got the Australian edition of Venom by Fiona Paul. It's technically historical YA but the plot sounds like it will appeal to my (more speculative) tastes. The tiny cover above is the only version of the Australian edition I could find. I've included the larger US cover below (where it's just been released — Aus release is December).