Fresh arrivals ~ they keep coming!

This one is at the top because I'm not apt to actually read all the way through it and because I won't likely review the parts I do read.  Donna (my BFF) and I went to the used book store today to get books on Excel (spreadsheets she needs for her teaching) and PowerPoint (for the writing classes I'll teach this fall).  We found one chunkster of a book that included both, but this Cutting Edge PowerPoint for Dummies was three years newer (2006).  So we bought separate books, which we'll share.  It's my first book "for Dummies," since I don't actually consider myself a dummy.

This YA novel is also from the used book store.  I've read Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Shiloh books and jumped on this YA novel when I saw it in the free bin for all the rejects.  Yes, "free" is the best price of all for used books!  And I've already started reading about 13-year-old Chrissa, whose sullen anger (my choice of words) is causing lots of friction between her and her mother.  Naylor's Ice was published in 1995, but seems current to me.  I remember when one of my kids went through some sullen years.

One more used book from today's shopping trip -- Ladies First by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel is a National Geographic book published in 2006.  While I was looking at used books, I found this one for the Women Unbound reading challenge.  (Have you noticed I've gone far, far beyond the minimum -- or even the maximum -- suggested by the three co-founders of this challenge?)  Anyway, there are some interesting "ladies" among these "40 Daring American Women Who Were Second to None":  Phillis Wheatley (first African American woman writer to be published), Wilma Mankiller (first woman to become Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation), Elizabeth Blackwell (first American woman to graduate from medical school), Dian Fossey (first woman zoologist to study mountain gorillas in their habitat), and Sally Priesand (first American woman to be ordained as a rabbi), for example.

Sheila at Book Journey turned me on to Seven Year Switch by Clair Cook, but until that gets processed into the system at my library, I have checked out another book by this author.  Multiple Choice (2004) is about a mother and daughter going to college at the same time.  It's supposed to be "hilarious," not what I usually look for in a book, but it sounds good to me at the moment.  Especially as I look forward to going back to college -- as a teacher of Developmental Writing.  We shall see.

Also from the library today was this book that I ran across while looking for something else (online book stores are good at suggesting titles that are nowhere close to what you searched for).  Wildwood by Drusilla Campbell (2003) is about "three friends, three lives, and one secret" from thirty years ago, when their innocence was shattered forever.  This is another book that seems perfect for the Women Unbound reading challenge.  (So do Ice and Multiple Choice, for that matter.)

And the final new book for today is Scout, Atticus, and Boo by Mary McDonagh Murphy (2010).  I told Donna about this celebration of fifty years of To Kill a Mockingbird, Donna's favorite book, that came out last month.  She has already bought and read the book and handed it to me to read this morning!

What books have you gotten "new" lately?

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Remember when you were a kid and getting new crayons was a big deal?  Getting new books holds the same kind of magic for some of us big kids.  Susan at Color Online came up with the idea of New Crayons as a metaphor for the new books that have arrived at your house.
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