Mailbox Monday - January 10

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week.  Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia at The Printed Page, is now on a blog tour! Rose City Reader kicks off 2011.  Please stop on Rose City Reader  and see what everyone else got this week.  As a bonus, she's also featuring a giveaway. I got behind reporting my deliveries over the holidays, and this concludes the catch-up I started last week.

There were several ARCs I received from Hachette Book group in the past few weeks.  The first was

Hell's Corner by David Baldacci..

The fifth adventure of the Camel Club and the seemingly invincible Oliver Stone.  I've seen mixed reviews of this one, so I'm anxious to get into it myself to form my own opinion.  I may have to go back and read one of the earlier ones since it's been awhile but I'm going to be sure to get to this one.  It's been a favorite series of mine all along.

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Christmas Mourning by Margaret Maron

 This one arrived shortly before Christmas and I put everything aside to read it.  I wanted something comfortable, engaging and fun and it didn't disappoint.  My review was posted back on December 30th.  At that time I said that you didn't necessarily have to read it as a holiday story....it would be good any time of the year.

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The Sherlockian by  Graham Moore

 I'm always up for a good mystery.  This one arrived just last week and it's going to be one on the 'sooner rather than later' pile.  Here's the blurb:

In December 1893, Sherlock Holmes-adoring Londoners eagerly opened their Strand magazines, anticipating the detective's next adventure, only to find the unthinkable: his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, had killed their hero off. London spiraled into mourning -- crowds sported black armbands in grief -- and railed against Conan Doyle as his assassin.

Then in 1901, just as abruptly as Conan Doyle had "murdered" Holmes in "The Final Problem," he resurrected him. Though the writer kept detailed diaries of his days and work, Conan Doyle never explained this sudden change of heart. After his death, one of his journals from the interim period was discovered to be missing, and in the decades since, has never been found....
Or has it?....
When literary researcher Harold White is inducted into the preeminent Sherlock Holmes enthusiast society, The Baker Street Irregulars, he never imagines he's about to be thrust onto the hunt for the holy grail of Holmes-ophiles: the missing diary. But when the world's leading Doylean scholar is found murdered in his hotel room, it is Harold - using wisdom and methods gleaned from countless detective stories - who takes up the search, both for the diary and for the killer.

And finally I received an autographed copy of

A Heartbeat Away by Michael Palmer.

You'll be hearing more about this one very soon.  The publication date is in early February, and I'm going to have an extra autographed hardback edition (not an ARC) to giveaway to one of my lucky readers.  So check back here often for details.

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To wrap up the mailbag news there was an audio book from a contest win at Metroreader:



Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace.

Here's what they're saying about this one:

Published when Wallace was just twenty-four years old, The Broom of the System stunned critics and marked the emergence of an extraordinary new talent. At the center of this outlandishly funny, fiercely intelligent novel is the bewitching heroine, Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman. The year is 1990 and the place is a slightly altered Cleveland, Ohio. Lenore’s great-grandmother has disappeared with twenty-five other inmates of the Shaker Heights Nursing Home. Her beau, and boss, Rick Vigorous, is insanely jealous, and her cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler, has suddenly started spouting a mixture of psycho- babble, Auden, and the King James Bible. Ingenious and entertaining, this debut from one of the most innovative writers of his generation brilliantly explores the paradoxes of language, storytelling, and reality.  This sounds perfect to keep me awake on a long drive I have planned for next month.

What did you find in your mailbox this week?