Sunday Summaries: Whoops, some books fell on my pile!

Well, here we are at the end of the month and the end (or is it the beginning?) of another week. And what a week it's been: all the jobs squeezed into one day, planned out and then disrupted when The Powers That Be launched a whole load of extra promotions on the very same day. On the last week of the school holidays. Great.

Perhaps because I'm so tired, but I've been not feeling so great about the world this week. Perhaps reading Joe Hill's Horns didn't help my mood. It was an interesting read, and perhaps one that could be used for in-depth philosophical and theological debate if you read it really closely, but I can't in all honesty say that I enjoyed it. When every character we met confesses to terrible, terrible secrets it left a very grim view of the human race, compounded by all the ugliness in the news and on the internet of late.

But enough of the grumbles: I have books! Many books. This week started with a traditionally rainy bank holiday (which seems like such a long time ago now) during which Judith and I made an excursion to the Ryde Bookshop. I'm sure I've talked about that shop before: a small section at the front full of new books, and then a door that leads to a three-story treasure trove of second-hand stock. I came away with three books: Cross Stitch (otherwise known as Outlander, a time-travel romance that has apparently just been turned into a TV series) Foundation,by Isaac Asimov, as I ought to read some more classic science fiction, and Poison Study, which I've been not-buying ever since possibly my first visit to Forbidden Planet in London a decade ago. (Ugh - was it really ten years since I started university? Apparently so.)

Bought new: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, the new novel by Haruki Murakami, whose short story collection The Elephant Vanishes I have just finished reading. And the long-awaited Sarah Waters: The Paying Guests. I cannot wait to get stuck into that one, but may leave it until next week, when I should have three days off together.

And from the library: the eighth volume of Sandman: Worlds' End, which was my favourite volume on my first read-through, This Is What Happy Looks Like (because a title like that's bound to cheer me up, no?) The Coldest Girl In Coldtown which Ellie reviewed quite recently and which I sent as a ninja book swap gift but haven't read myself yet, and a book I'd never heard of but which caught my eye: Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots. 9 books acquired in a week! Oh, well. In part thanks to last week's readathon, I've read a massive 14 books this month, even if three of them were comic books/graphic novels. I have a lot of reviews to write...

Readers Imbibing Peril IX

For the last few years I've been aware of Carl V. Anderson's RIP challenge, and have watched my fellow bloggers spook themselves with books through autumn, and this year I've decided to join in the fun. I'll be going straight in there with Peril the First: the challenge to read four books in the genres of mystery, suspense, thriller, dark fantasy, gothic, horror or other such spine-chilling stories in September and October. I've got several suitable books on my to-read pile, and have selected a shortlist of potential RIP reads (although these are subject to change.)

• Full Dark, No Stars - Stephen King
• The Ghost Hunters - Neil Spring
• Weirdo - Cathy Unsworth
• Dream London - Tony Ballantyne
• The Passage - Justin Cronin
• The Coldest Girl In Coldtown - Holly Black
• The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters (a reread)
• The Silkworm - "Robert Galbraith"