My house has been all cold and damp lately, which has led to some fungal invaders setting up camp. At first I thought they were just confined to the bathroom, but the last few days I’ve noticed it cropping up in other places too. One of those areas was my bookcase, so tonight I bit the bullet and pulled all my books off to see the damage. As you can see, it wasn’t pretty:

The good news is the mold only seemed interested in my bookcase, not the books themselves. In that bottom corner I had a really nice hardcover book which still has clear white pages. I was so relieved to see there was no permanent damage done. I’m pleased to say that the bookcases are all clear now; front and back.

This endeavour has however reminded me that my bookcase needs an attack of a different sort. You see, last week I went to a convention in Sydney called Supanova. As happens at conventions, I ended up buying a new book (The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu) and when I got home I just didn’t have any room on the shelf for it. Oops. The terrible truth is, I need a book cull.

You would think I wouldn’t have this problem, since I get most books on my Kindle, but I do like a good old fashioned dead-tree book at times. I asked for a bunch of physical books for Christmas, and made the decision not to ever buy physical books for myself again. From then on, if I wanted a paperback or hardcover, I’d put it on a Christmas or birthday wishlist and only get myself ebooks. It seemed like a sensible idea since I live in a small house.

Now here’s a picture of all the dead-tree books I have bought myself since I made that decision:

Most were from op shop binges, and so far the only one I have read is Lovecraft Country. I made the decision that one of these would be the next book I read, but then I noticed that I had quite a lot of unread books that have been waiting a long time to be read. Some I might not get around to, and others I really want to try to read before the end of the year. There are also a lot of books that I have read, that I think I have to admit to myself won’t be read again. So, cull time.

A bit off topic, but going to Supanova was awesome. I saw lots of cosplayers, bought a lot of stuff, and got my Maze Runner trilogy signed by James Dashner. So, that’s three books that won’t be in any danger during the upcoming cull.

Now the question is, what to read next? And what to review next. I’ve nearly finished the Hugo Novella finalists, so I’ll be looking for something new to read soon. I suppose the logical thing to do would get one that’s been on my bookcase for ages, probably an older science-fiction story. It would be fun to review some classic SF, since I love the classics but have been reading and reviewing a lot of modern stuff lately.

Oh, but the sequel to Ninefox Gambit just came out. Sorry older books, looks like it’ll be a little bit longer before I start attacking that backlog I need to read.

~Lauren