I'm in a bit of a reading slump. So what do I do? I buy more books. ::sigh:: One thing I want, but haven't ordered yet (and probably won't until there's a Yen Press sale at Right Stuf), is Yen Press's release of the first volume of Kaoru Mori's Emma.

Anyway, here are my latest book selections: 3 e-books, 1 print book.

Bryony And Roses - T. Kingfisher - I'm so behind on T. Kingfisher's stuff, but I wanted to have this on hand anyway. Nine Goblins won me over that completely. Plus, this is a "Beauty and the Beast" retelling, and I tend to be drawn to those.

A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate Remark - Harry Connolly - I don't read much urban fantasy anymore, but this had a few aspects that appealed to me. One, it's a standalone. Two, Marley, the heroine, sounds awesome. She's older than the average female urban fantasy protag, and she's a pacifist. Three, I read some of the excerpt, and Marley won me over when her nephew came to ask her for a love potion and she was all "You mean a rape spell? Because that's what love potions are."

Tiffany Girl: A Novel - Deeanne Gist - I rely on Wendy the Super Librarian for my Christian romance recommendations, and Deeanne Gist is one of two authors I tried and loved after reading her reviews.

The Dark Wife - Sarah Diemer - A f/f retelling of the Persephone and Hades myth. Based on what I read in the excerpt, it doesn't seem like there's going to be much emotional depth (Persephone goes from "I love Charis, what Zeus did to her is horrifying and awful" to "Hades is enchanting" awfully quickly). Even so, the premise grabbed me.

For the record, my 2015 shelf space count is now at -1 5/8 inches. Oops.

It's all good, though, because I had a fabulous day. Chocolate mousse, books, a couple hours of reading with no one and nothing bothering me, and baby guinea pigs (one litter was only 3 days old!). Here are the books I bought:

The Coelura - Anne McCaffrey - The last time I read this was many years ago. I remember it feeling a bit dated even back then, but I also remember enjoying it.

Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel - Jacqueline Koyanagi - This one caught my eye back when Grim posted about getting her copy.

vN - Madeline Ashby - A total impulse buy. The publisher description makes it sound like the heroine is maybe half android, half something else. I'm not sure how that works, but I'm intrigued.

Obsidian and Blood (Obsidian & Blood) - Aliette de Bodard - This is three books in one, and so dauntingly thick I almost put it back. Maybe I should have, considering how slow my reading speed is anymore. It sounds really interesting, though. The back of the book says "File under: Fantasy; Magical murder; Aztec mystery; Human sacrifice; The gods walk."

The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya - Nagaru Tanigawa,Noizi Ito - This is a Japanese light novel. I've watched the original anime, plus a couple of the spinoffs, and I own (but haven't yet read) the first book in the series. This is the third, a collection of short stories.

Rurouni Kenshin, Volume 1 (Voyage to the Moon World - Novel) - Kaoru Shizuka,Mark Giambruno,Cindy H. Yamauchi - Another light novel. I don't have high hopes for it, based on my experiences with other shounen manga-based novels, but it was cheap and should be a quick read.

Volumes 4-6 of Dawn of the Arcana - I own volumes 1-3 and have only read volume 1 so far. The artwork is nice, and it has the potential for some really twisty politics and romance. I think this would be a nice one to binge read, and now I can.

Black Gate Volume 1 - Yukiko Sumiyoshi - I know nothing about this one, but it's a 3-in-1 omnibus edition, which gives me plenty to judge it by. I flipped through it and the artwork looks okay.

Aron's Absurd Armada Omnibus, Vol. 1 - MiSun Kim and Aron's Absurd Armada Omnibus, Vol. 2 - MiSun Kim  - Another one I know nothing about. It's in full color and consists almost entirely of 4-panel comics.

Vampire Academy: The Graphic Novel - Richelle Mead,Emma Vieceli,Leigh Dragoon - Okay, so graphic novel adaptations of English language novels almost never work for me, but I flipped through this one and thought the artwork actually looked really nice. It looks like it covers the entire first Vampire Academy book.

I plan to keep track of the amount of shelf space I free up (with donations or selling stuff to used bookstores) vs. the amount new purchases take up, starting today. I have no idea how long I'll manage to keep this up, but I think it'll be interesting (or possibly horrifying) to see how the numbers work out. Naturally, e-books will have no effect (hurray).

Today I donated 5 5/8 inches (sorry to you metric folks) worth of stuff to my library. Which is not a lot, considering that there's a used bookstore shopping trip in my near future.