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Sunday Catch Up

About every 18 months I pull all the books off the shelves and set to reorganize them. The shelves are deep so most are doing double duty with an unseen layer behind the more respectable titles. Anyway it is time, but it is already afternoon on a Sunday so it will have to wait another for weekend. I also wonder when we stopped indenting the first word of a paragraph. Maybe we haven't...

     A couple years ago I wanted to read through my To Be Read pile so that I had more freedom in my reading and by extension buying of books. As of right now.... hang on I have to go into the other room to count them...

     22. I'm need to buy 4-5 books to maintenance a couple authors I read, plus the inevitable 4-5 books that normally release in the first half of the year. Still, I feel in better shape than I have for a number of years. On the positive side I am excited to read most of the books awaiting me. I really buckled down at the end of 2019 to read some of the stragglers and let go of a few books that I knew I would never get too. The twin goal for the year is to read the books I buy in 2020 and to cut the TBR pile to the low teens.

     In other news I have plans to go to Sacramento Bouchercon in October. It will be my first since Long Beach. I'm looking forward to it. It will be good to see what is new in the field, maybe pick up a new author or two. I had anticipated heading down the road to Left Coast in San Diego this year. I decide to pass given a couple factors. One being my aforementioned attendance to Bouchercon, one con is probably more than my financial situation will support. Secondly Mick Heron will be in Albuquerque for 2021, and I am down to buy all of Mick's work next year in the book room.

    Recently finished up GM Ford's SALVATION LAKE. It was great to reconnect with a series I like and author who I think is quite talented. I picked up two more his titles and will spend the balance of the next couple weeks knocking them down.

Current Read: FAMILY VALUES - GM Ford
TBR Pile: 22...ish 

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