I was very excited last night to find out that Clarkesworld Books, which used to be one of my favorite bookstores before it closed, is temporarily open through July 31. The order minimum is $35, but it’s for a good cause – the owner is trying to free up some space so his two boys can have bigger rooms. So you can always justify your order by telling yourself it has nothing to do with an uncontrollable book buying addiction – you’re just trying to help some children.

Of course, that’s what I told myself when I ordered 8 books (they were also very cheap since most of the books are on sale – the most expensive book I ordered was a signed book for $6.99). Two were signed books, one of which was also a new copy of Dreamsnake which is out of print. It won both the Hugo and the Nebula so I’ve been on the lookout for that one for a while. I also ordered a signed copy of Elizabeth Bear’s Carnival. The abundance of signed books and hard to find books that are not very expensive are one of the reasons that this was one of my favorite places to get books until it closed.

Most of the regular mass market paperbacks are only $3 or $4 now and the signed ones are about the normal price for mass market paperbacks. In addition to what I got, I also saw some signed books by Charles de Lint and China Mieville as well as a few more expensive ones by Ray Bradbury and Neil Gaiman. They also still have signed copies of Elizabeth Bear’s Blood and Iron, which is where I got my signed copy that I read not that long ago.

I also got a couple of Catherine Asaro’s Skolian books, the two Alastair Reynolds books that complete the series beginning with Revelation Space (which I am very eager to read but keep putting off because I don’t have the rest of the series), City of Pearl by Karen Traviss, and Accidental Goddess by Linnea Sinclair. It was hard to just narrow it down to a few books.

Now for the update part of this post:

Unfortunately, my weekend was too busy to post a review like I normally do on the weekends. The next review will be Witness by Bill Blais, to be followed by The Radiant Seas by Catherine Asaro, which I’m nearing the end of now. My order containing the next two “Promethean Age” books and Maledicte should arrive pretty soon and I’m looking forward to continuing Elizabeth Bear’s series.

I really wanted to have another book read before Tuesday so I’d have 25 books read halfway through this year but with the busy weekend I’m not so sure that’s going to happen. Any suggestions for short, easy to get into books that can be read in a day or two? I’m really wishing the sequel to Grimspace was out right now because I’m looking for something like that book.