Thud

I thought that Terry Pratchett's new book, Thud, didn't come out until next week, so I was excited to see it available at Audible this morning. I finished Night Watch last week, and have been alternating between NPR and listening to music in the car, because I didn't know what I wanted to listen to next. Or rather, I did know--Thud, or Neil Gaiman's latest, Anansi Boys, which apparently does come out next week (the 20th). I just didn't want to start anything new. So I'll download Thud tonight and burn it onto CD, and can start listening tomorrow morning.

The other possibility was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I have all the previous books on tape, and while I wasn't crazy about this particular book, Jim Dale's narration is so wonderful that I know I'd enjoy listening to it. But my new car doesn't have a tape deck, just a CD player, and the CD's are so expensive! I couldn't decide whether to order it from Amazon, or buy it from iTunes, or wait until I had a Border's coupon, or what. I mentioned it to Bob, and he said that ZBS had it for about the same price. He loves their dramatized stories (I don't), and said if possible, he would like to support them (I think his exact quote was, "they're the last of the hippies"), so I went ahead and ordered it from them last night.

I had to pay shipping, so it would have been cheaper to buy it at iTunes, but it kind of bothered me to buy something so expensive from them when they don't offer an extended download, i.e., you buy it and download it once, and that's the only chance you get. At Audible, everything you buy stays in your library forever and can be downloaded again if you need to. It doesn't worry me spending 99 cents for a song and not having that option, but spending $50 for an audio book does make me think twice.

In any event, I will soon be "spoiled for choice" as the Brits say, with The Half-Blood Prince, Thud, and Anansi Boys in my "to-be-listened-to" pile.

My to-be-read pile grows ever larger, particularly since I haven't been reading much lately. I did check Necklace of Kisses out from the library, and read it over the weekend. It's Francesca Lia Block's Weetzie Bat, all grown up. I had never read any of the Weetzie Bat books--they were after my time--but when I noticed this one, it intrigued me, and I adored it. So I went to the bookstore over the weekend and bought Dangerous Angels, which is all four of the books in one volume.

I'm looking forward very much to reading them, but I haven't started them yet, because I also bought Good Grief, by Lolly Winston, which is what I'm currently reading. It's a book about a young woman whose husband dies, but while of course it has some sad parts, it's basically kind of funny, and very, very good.

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