I had so many good intentions this weekend: write a review of the book I finished a week ago (The Little Prince, my review is started, which is something); post my January reading round-up on the last day of January, not the first of February; finish another book (I’ve read about five pages all weekend); and most urgently of all to not buy any more books, which should have been easy as we had no plans to go shopping, but then we did and I bought not just one or two but nine books. Oops.

The thing is, the very helpful knowledgeable folks at Excelsior comic shop recommended Ex Machina by Brian K Vaughan to me towards the end of last year (a series that finished in 2009, so it has the added bonus that I can collect the whole set without having to wait for it to be written), so I bought the first volume and really really liked it. When Tim and I changed our plans today and headed to Excelsior, I figured I’d buy the next volume, maybe two. But when I looked at the shelves, I saw that they have started reissuing Ex Machina in a new design, which I don’t like as much aesthetically but I did like that they’re each twice the size for only 1.5 times the price. So I was on the verge of buying the first couple of volumes of the new design, but then the manager said that he’d quite like to get rid of the old designs, which they had a full set of minus the one I bought last year, so he’d discount them for me. Of course, I didn’t have to buy the whole lot, but on the other hand it would suck if I bought half the series in the old design and then had to switch. So – nine new books.

To be honest, January was a bit unexciting after my birthday, but we have all sorts of fun plans for February, so watch this space!

Books

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch (short review)

The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen (review)

All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld (review)

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Saga volume 4 by Brian K Vaughan

Short stories / essays

“Pnin” by Vladimir Nabokov (New Yorker Fiction podcast)

“Housecleaning in Babylon” by John Gregory Dunne (Saturday Evening Post, Points West column)

“Brother Theobold’s earthquake” by Joan Didion (Saturday Evening Post, Points West column)

“On becoming a cop hater” by Joan Didion (Saturday Evening Post, Points West column)

“Dreampolitik” by Joan Didion (Saturday Evening Post, Points West column)

Happy February folks, and most of all, happy reading!