Books: Emergency Book-Aid-Drop from the land of Minnesota

Oh, delight of all possible earthly delights, today the 10 am mail delivery at my office bequeathed to me a package from my very own mother. Like a skein of Noro yarn in the $1 bin at a yard sale, I spotted it immediately amongst its FedEx brethren of packages returned as undeliverable, new projects, and far more complimentary copies of "Introduction to Biology, Eleventy-hundreth Edition" than I could ever hope to use. A (perhaps) shrill "Yippie!" was heard from my direction, causing my cube-neighbors to peer at me over their cups of coffee in a puzzled, groggy sort of way.

My mother and I share a long and (yes) fanatical devotion to young adult fantasy novels. Occasionally other sorts of young adult novels will find their way into the mix, but we're pretty exclusive. We'll read just about anything once, tend to have very similar tastes about what we've read, and have been known to discuss them far into the reaches of the phone bill (now we have the same phone plan and don't have to worry about such pithy restraints). Since Mom-bo lives in rural Minnesota, she orders most of her books online and from catalogues, and she very generously passes them on to me when she's done.

Today was a nice mix of books I was expecting (because we've been talking about them) and surprise books. They came at the perfect time because my Tamora Pierce marathon needs a bit of a mile-15 water break. Here's the run-down:

Troll Fell by Katherine Langrish
Gifts by Ursula Le Guin -- Mom and I *think* this is the first YA book Ursula Le Guin has put out for a while. I've missed a few, but I think the last time I read anything new by her, I was in middle school. Muy exciting!
Septimus Heap: Magyk by Angie Sage
The Book of Dead Days by Marcus Sedgwick
Inkspell by Cornelia Funke -- This is a sequel to Inkheart, which I didn't really like. Mom thought this one was better, though, so I'll give it the old college try.
Pendragon: The Quillan Games by D.J. MacHale -- Ahhh...the long-awaited 7th book in the Pendragon series. This is soooo not your typical Arthurian legend/spin off book. There actually really aren't any connections (so far, anyways) to Arthurian legend. The main character is an American boy who is one of the "Travelers," a band of mysterious multi-universe travelers a bit a la Dr. Who. The first book started off slow, but now Mom and I are totally hooked. (P.S. Spell-check wanted to replace "Arthurian" with "earthworms." That's funny stuff.)

The other great thing about Mom Emergency Book-Drops is that she leaves great little notes on each one item included. I have a feeling if Mom-bo was ever asked to write a marketing quote for any of these books, they'd sound much like this. And she'd probably insist they be affixed to the cover via post-it note, as well.

I've vowed to work through a stack of library books (some of which have already been renewed a few times...er...) before consuming these, but my discipline may waver. Stay tuned for your breaking-news updates.