Mailbox Monday-- Just How Long Can I Be Good??

This past week, I sent 7 books to new foster homes via Paperback Swap, and I received 5 books from other members. I'm beginning to wonder just how long I can stay being "good". I'm not jonesing to go on a book buying spree...I'm just curious. Perhaps I'd better stop being curious; I'll probably only get myself into trouble!

Here are the books that were in my mailbox last week:

--How to Be a Pirate by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, translated from the Old Norse by Cressida Cowell. (PBS) I can't remember whose blog mentioned this entire series of children's books, but the titles made me grin, so I had to get my hands on at least one of them!

--The Tortilla Curtain, by T.C. Boyle (PBS). "Topanga Canyon is home to two couples on a collision course. Los Angeles liberals Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher lead an ordered sushi-and-recycling existence in a newly gated hilltop community....Mexican illegals Candido and America Rincon desperately cling to their vision of the American Dream as they fight off starvation in a makeshift camp deep in the ravine."

--The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, or The Murder at Road Hill House, by Kate Summerscale (PBS). I've heard nothing but good about this true crime tale of murder in Victorian England.

--The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas (PBS). "Strange things keep happening to British university lecturer Ariel Manto. First her supervisor disappears; then she discovers the rarest of rare books, The End of Mr. Y, at a secondhand bookshop. The tome was penned by Thomas Lumas, a nineteenth-century scientist who, as luck would have it, is the subject of Ariel's dissertation. (The book tells the tale of a man who swallows a tincture, stares into a black dot, and winds up in a place called the Troposphere, where he travels space and time through others' minds.) Bored and befuddled by real life, Ariel mimics the author's eerie experiment, with mixed results. (On her first trip, she melds minds with a randy rodent and a psychotic cat.)" This seems to be one of those love-it-or-hate-it books. I'll have to see which side I'm on when I turn the last page.

--The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie (PBS). "Exploring Indian identity, both self and tribal, Alexie's first young adult novel is a semi-autobiographical chronicle of Arnold Spirit, aka Junior, a Spokane Indian from Wellpinit, WA. The bright 14-year-old was born with water on the brain, is regularly the target of bullies, and loves to draw. He says, "I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats." He expects disaster when he transfers from the reservation school to the rich, white school in Reardan, but soon finds himself making friends with both geeky and popular students and starting on the basketball team." Alexie is one of my favorite writers, and I have high hopes for this book!

That's it for this edition of Mailbox Monday. Hopefully when you tune in next week, I'll still be on the straight and narrow!

A big thank you to Marcia of The Printed Page for hosting this meme. If you'd like to see more answers, just click on the graphic at the top of this post!