Look What I Won! (Forgotten Bookmarks!)

It's easy to feel unlucky in the art of winning prizes and awards.  Those pesky odds.  When I left a comment to enter one of Forgotten Bookmarks' giveaways, I held little hope of actually winning.  I don't enter there often, but I couldn't resist trying when he offered an old etiquette book.

After entering the contest I promptly fell into a fever-induced state of forgetfulness about the whole thing, making me completely miss out on the whole state of anticipation.  Imagine my shock then, when - still in a feverish frame of mind - I tried to comprehend the email I received telling me I'd won the book!

Manners, Culture & Dress is packed with wonderfully helpful tidbits, from directions for removing freckles to Trifling With a Man's Feelings.  Imagine a time when peer pressure was so intense that there were scores of books offering guidance and assistance...oh wait, that applies to the current day also, doesn't it?  Somehow, the social anxiety of a bygone era seems so much simpler and quaint.

Anyhow, thanks to Michael at Forgotten Bookmarks for the lovely book - such a treat!

For the Record: February 2013

So here's the deal.  I've been on a knitting rampage for the last few months, and it is definitely eating into my reading time.  But.  I can knit while I'm visiting with friends, (can't really read and visit at the same time,) and I've made some really great things.  There: I've come clean.  In other news, I'm moving again this month, and so all my newly unpacked books are being repacked.  Which books do I leave out in order that I might read them in the next month?  Such difficult decisions!

6 Books Read in February: (14 year-to-date)
1 for Book Club:
  - The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski (3.5) [boooring]
3 Wishlist/New Books:
  - The Death of Bees, Lisa O'Donnell (4) [Indiespensable selection, set in Scotland!]
  - The Illusion of Separateness, Simon VanBooy (5) [ARC--perfect, brilliant, lovelovelove]
  - The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller (4) [proof that genre fiction can be well written]
2 from my shelf:
  - The Toothpaste Millionaire, Jean Merrill (4) [fun read-aloud, and smart too]
  - River of Earth, James Still (4) [classic Appalachian lit]

          


2 Current Reads:
  - Some Tame Gazelle, Barbara Pym.  My first time reading Pym!  It's fun and funny, if a bit simplistic.  But there's a time and a place for everything & this is fun right now.
  - Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky.  Reading it along with a great group (& Wallace) @ Unputdownables.  I must admit I'm not enjoying it much, but if I don't finish it now, I never will.  So: little by little, keep on reading.

  

On My Nightstand:
I seem to have the same 2 books on my nightstand.  Maybe I'll stick them back on my shelf and see if that makes me more in the mood for them?