Another book giveaway and a poll

I know that I said that each time I read a book I would then let you vote on the next book I should read. Unfortunately, it seems that I read faster than I can find time to look up links and post, so the result has been that, while I HAVE been faithful in reading the books that won the elections, I have also read several books for which you did not have the opportunity to vote. To try to remedy that, today I am listing SEVEN potential next-reads for your voting enjoyment. Also, I am asking that you select TWO novels from the list. The top THREE selections will be my next three reads. I hope that by increasing the number of books you choose for me each poll, I can find the time for another poll before I am done reading the books on which you voted, so I will NEVER HAVE TO SELECT MY OWN BOOKS AGAIN!!! The poll will be open until 8:00am Friday, March 27th (Hopefully EDT, but who knows, really?). Your choices this time are:

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond,

High Five by Janet Evanovich,

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury,

Fatal Flaw by William Lashner,

The Stingray Shuffle by Tim Dorsey,

Pandora by Anne Rice and

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

Also, it has come to my attention that my prolific library-sale-and-bargain-table purchasing has led to my having two copies of yet another novel. This one is Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich. It is a hardcover that I purchased for $1.00 from a library sale and it is missing its dust-jacket. Still a perfectly good read, and really, isn't a dusty dust-jacket just as big a pain-in-the-ass as a dusty book sans jacket? If you would like me to send you this novel, just leave a comment. If you are familiar with the series to which the novel belongs, tell me how you are like the heroine, Stephanie Plum. Go ahead, you can admit it here. :) I will randomly select a winner to be announced as soon as I get around to posting again after Friday morning. POSSIBLY as soon as THAT DAY, but don't hold your breath or you'll turn blue.

It's that time again

I don't like when this happens on a weekend, since so many of you only do the blog thing during the week, but there's just no help for it. I finished Third Degree by Greg Iles, so it is time for you to select what you think I should read next. Since it is the weekend, I will leave the poll up through Monday night so those of you who are solely weekday bloggers can vote and thus enter the BONUS giveaway. Yes, once again, I have more than one copy of a book.

I had to re-stack my three to-be-read towers of books, since they were about to topple, and while doing so, I discovered that I had a brand-new hardcover copy of the book I had just finished, Third Degree by Greg Iles. Sorry, you don't get that one. But you CAN win the slightly used paperback copy that I just finished. It really is like new; I'm very easy on books. So go vote over on the right for the book you think I should read next and leave me a comment if you want to be entered in the giveaway. I'll let you know the winner on Tuesday. The randomly selected books from which to choose this time are:

The Rosary Girls by Richard Montanari,

The Wish List by Eoin Colfer,

The Hunt Club by John Lescroart,

Four to Score by Janet Evanovich and

The Expected One by Kathleen McGowan.

While I am waiting for the results, I am going to read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I know a lot of you DESPISED, HATED and LOATHED that book; Shelly's review is here. Because of that, I had pretty much decided not to bother with it. But then Shauna said she LOVED it, and because she seems to like some of the same stuff I do, I began to think that maybe I would like it too, despite the fact that Tess also likes some of the same stuff I do, and she was one of the ones who DESPISED, HATED and LOATHED it. Then when a single copy of it appeared on a shelf in front of me on sale and I flipped through it to see that it didn't look like a book that would take an eon to get through, which if it were horrible would render it unfinishable, I went ahead and bought it. So since it may never win a vote (unless it does so on the merits of misery loves company), I'll go ahead and read it over this weekend while I wait for your votes.

Odds and Ends

First of all, they did have to intubate my grandmother Friday afternoon, but I haven't heard anything since then. I think the plan is to clean out her lungs and then try to remove the breathing tube. So we'll see.

Secondly, my husband fried the motherboard of my computer Saturday evening. Luckily, I married a compter geek, so there are three other machines on the switchbox and one connected via wireless for me to choose from to check email, blogs, Facebook and whatnot. He bid on a new motherboard on Ebay, so he should get me up and running by the end of the week. BUT, until then my intention of posting the "November notes" and "December digest" posts will have to be put off, since my pictures are on the hard drive that's connected to the dead motherboard. So maybe I'll get to a "Buncha books" post since it's been a while for one of those and the un-reviewed books are piling up.

Thirdly, I finished reading Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, so I need a new book. I want to give a little more time for voting (I wanted to post the poll this weekend, but didn't have time to write this post), so while I'm waiting for the 48 hours I'm going to give this time to end, I will be reading Step on a Crack by James Patterson because his books are always quick reads, so I'll be done by the time the poll ends. So the randomly grabbed candidates this time are:

The Alibi Man by Tami Hoag,

Mr. Murder by Dean Koontz,

Third Degree by Greg Iles,

Sam's Letters to Jennifer by James Patterson and

Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen.

Go forth (over to your right) and vote!

Last, how do you handle this situation: I received a friend request from someone who went to my high school at the same time I did and whose name sounds VAGUELY familiar, but I can't remember her for the life of me. I feel bad for not having a clue who she is. I don't want to ignore her request, thus REJECTING her if I knew her, but I don't want to accept her request if I don't know her (or DIDN'T know her, I should say, since I obviously DON'T know her now). Anyway, have any of you been faced with this situation? I'm not really posting anything personal on Facebook, so really it's not a HUGE deal, unless she knows the folks who were the reason for my shutting down my other blog, in which case her friend request could be nothing more than a spying type thing. IF she knows them and IF she would do something like that for them. Not likely, but not impossible. Also, I am thinking of staring a new support group called "Over-thinkers Anonymous". Anyone want to join?

What should I read next AND a giveaway

First of all, thank you to my FIVE voters even though there were MORE THAN FIVE commenters (Come on, are you AFRAID I will be mad if I don't like the book you pick? Are you too CHICKEN to have an opinion and vote?)** last time. You unanimously selected The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst as my next read. So I am reading it. As a result of feeling too crappy to do anything other than read, blog and watch TV, I am about 15 minutes away from being done with The Dogs of Babel. So it's time to pick my next book. My random grab from my book piles resulted in the following choices:

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes,

The Blue Zone by Andrew Gross,

Step on a Crack by James Patterson [Wait a minute, this was a choice last time. I have ANOTHER copy of this book? It seems I have once again double-purchased a book. I have a paperback AND a hardcover. Hmmm... What should I do with the extra copy? Let me ponder that a moment...]

Paint It Black by Janet Fitch AND

Simple Genius by David Baldacci [Um, I seem to be holding a paperback copy of this book while looking at the spine of a hardcover copy in my book pile... Another troublesome problem.]

OK, so go vote in the poll to the right to determine what I will read next and leave a comment telling me why you chose the book you did. I will then randomly choose two commenters. The first one chosen will win my brand-spanking-new paperback copy of Step on a Crack, and the second one chosen will win my brand-spanking-new copy of Simple Genius. So come on, people... VOTE. You have incentive this time - WIN A FREE BOOK.***

** This is trash talk. I'm not very good at it. It is SUPPOSED to provoke you into doing what I want you to do. We'll see if it works...

*** This compromises the validity of the trash-talk experiment.

What should I read next?

Every time I finish a book, I then face the dilemma of choosing my next read from a towering pile (actually THREE towering piles) of books I've acquired but not yet read. It's a really hard decision for me because I want to read them ALL. So I've decided to add a new and EXCITING little number here. YOU, yes YOU, get to decide which book I read next. Each time I finish a book, I will grab 3-5 books from my piles and put a poll over to the right, where you can vote on my next read. Since I review the books I read here, you can essentially have me test read the books for you if you think they are ones in which you might be interested.

So anyway, last night I finished Plum Island by Nelson DeMille. This morning I selected for your decision-making pleasure, the following: The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst, Step on a Crack by James Patterson and either Brimstone by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child OR The Wheel of Darkness by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

I need some info on the Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child book (I'm looking at YOU Shauna, if you still come by here that is, I know it's been a while since I've been around). You might remember that I read a Preston/Child book a while back entitled The Book of the Dead (reviewed here) that turned out to be the seventh (I think) book in a series revolving around FBI Agent Pendergast. Being the anal retentive individual that I am, I prefer to read series books in order, even when they stand alone perfectly well. Since I also happen to buy most, if not all, of my books from bargain tables and library sales, or get them from Bookmooch, I don't happen to have all of the previous six to choose from, but I do now have two of them (assuming both of them come before The Book of the Dead), and I might as well read them in order. So Shauna or anyone else who might know, which of the two Preston/Child books here comes first?

Okay, now go VOTE. Because I'm drinking my coffee, but I have nothing to read while I am doing so. In the future, I will have to put these polls up the day before I'll finish a book, so there's one on deck. I guess today I'll just clean the house or something, maybe put away Christmas decorations, until the poll time is up. This time, I'm only going to give 12 hours of voting time, since I'm needing a decision NOW, but in the future I'll give 24 hours. Now VOTE!!!