Mailbox Monday: The slacker September edition

I've been quite the slacker lately!  This is the first Mailbox Monday post I've done all month.  Plus, I did almost no blogging at all last week--though the one video post I did was pretty awesome.  So, nothing is up.  Fall is just a very busy time for me.  I work for a university; the new semester is starting.  And San Francisco is chock full of exciting events and activities this time of year.  Also, it's our best weather of the year.  Finally, I'm really behind writing my book reviews.  I'm reading at a ridiculous pace, but I'm having trouble getting my thoughts on paper.  That's the whole story.  I will try to do better, 'kay?

Here's the good news...  There is so much exciting stuff coming up in October!  There are more amazing authors on tour, and hopefully, I can videotape a few of them.  Also, San Francisco's awesome literary festival, Litquake, begins soon.  Hundreds of authors participate (850+ according to their website!), and I will be attending as many events as I can manage.  And it's quite late this year, but at the end of the month, I'll be attending the Northern California Independent Booksellers' Association Trade Show, and it looks like they've got a great lineup this year.

Oh, I also just learned that I'll have a guest blogger post from novelist Jeremy Robinson on October 5th, as part of a month-long blog tour that he's doing.  And, if the above weren't enough, somehow I just got approval to upload videos in excess of 15 minutes to You Tube (and hence this blog).  Does anyone know, was that system-wide, or just my account?  Anyway, I've had some great video from BEA that I wasn't able to share, lengthy talks by film critic Roger Ebert, actress Jane Lynch, and novelist Jeffrey Eugenides that you can look forward to seeing in the next few weeks.  Also on the multimedia front, the awesome folks at MacMillan Audio are setting me up with some audiobook clips I can post alongside reviews for your listening pleasure.  How cool is that?  I just need to figure out the technology...

Clearly, this not the time for me to be slacking off.  As for books acquired this month, who can remember them all?  Here are some quick lists:

From the Audible.com $4.95 book sale (which you know I can't resist):

• The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty
• The Callahan Chronicles by Spider Robinson
• Nemesis by Philip Roth
• Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
• Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
• True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
• To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
• Stiff by Mary Roach
• Replay by Ken Grimwood
• The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
• The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
• Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Electronic Galleys:

• Marineman: A Matter of Life & Death by Ian Churchill
• The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
• Tension City: Inside the Presidential Debates, from Kennedy-Nixon to Obama-McCain by Jim Lehrer
• Bitter in the Mouth by Monique Truong
• Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie
• Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship by Gail Caldwell
• The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault
• The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen by Thomas Caplan
• Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg
• Me and You by Niccolo Ammaniti
• The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
• Death in the City of Light by David King
• The Night Swimmer by Matt Bondurant
• 1222 by Anne Holt
• Heft by Liz Moore

Paper Galleys and Finished Books:

• When She Woke by Hilary Jordan
• I Married You for Happiness by Lily Tuck
• The Night Circus (American first edition) by Erin Morgenstern
• The Night Circus (British first edition) by Erin Morgenstern
• The Time In Between by Maria Duenas
• The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
• The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

And there were surely others, but that's all I can remember off the top of my head.

Books finished since the last update:

• 1222 by Anne Holt
• Heft by Liz Moore
• Sanctus by Simon Toyne
• Darkness, My Old Friend by Lisa Unger
• Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer
• The Black Stiletto by Raymond Benson
• Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch
• Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber
• The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
• The Submission by Amy Waldman
• One Day by David Nicchols
• The Leftovers by Tom Perotta

Currently reading:

• The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty
• The Callahan Chronicles by Spider Robinson
• The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen
• I Married You for Happiness by Lily Tuck

And, I haven't asked in a while, but what books have you acquired?  What have you been reading?  Please let us know in the comments!