Shortly after I came home from work today the doorbell rang and a postman delivered not just one amazon packaged but two. For some crazy reason one was shipped from Italy while the other was from Germany. The ways of amazon is miseries. Inside was four books out of the five I had ordered, the last one is on its way. But anyway, yeah books!

I was actually just ordering one book a few weeks ago, but it was so cheap it seemed silly not to order some more and there were some books I wanted.

I have read the Harry Potter book and Circle of Magic – Sandry’s Book before, I just want to own them so they can go on my bookshelf for next time I want to read them, which happens. I actually think it might be time for a re-read of Circle of Magic. However the other two books, and the one I ordered that has not arrived are new reads for me.

As part of my reading goals for 2014 I want to read at least one book/story by a number of prominent female authors, among them James Tiptree Jr. I tried to read one of her books last year but had to give up. However people tell me that Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr. is very good and the cover is amazing so I am giving her another shot. Listen to podcast is inspiring me to educate my self a bit on the history of the field and knowing about the big women in the field is pretty important to me. And I figured out earlier this month that I had actually read Ursula LeGuin as a teenager, so I can cross her off my list.

I want to read more Scandinavian fiction so when I heard about the Swedish urban fantasy book The Circle by Mats Strandberg &Sara Bergmark Elfgren I put it on my wish list right away. Now I have it sitting in my bookshelf waiting for me to pick it up. I have heard a lot of good things about it and it has been translated into a number of languages which is always a good sign. I have not read anything by either before, but I am looking forward to see what Swedish fantasy look like.

The book that has yet to show up is the anthology Chicks in Chainmail, which sounds horrible, but a lot of the authors I admire has reviewed it very favourable so I am giving it a chance. It is supposed to be really funny epic fantasy that plays with the genre conventions, which to me sounds like my kind of book. But I am still looking forward to that showing up. So you can look forward to some reviews of some older short stories once I get my hands on that. Thanks to Tansy Rayner Roberts for mentioning it in her post On Influence earlier in the month.