New Book Accumulations

I almost wrote book "acquisitions" in the title, but that would be misleading. The term acquisition regarding books in the publishing industry normally refers to a publisher acquiring a new book from an author, i.e. making an offer for publishing a book and having that author accepted.

Nothing like that going on in this writers life. But I continue to accumulate books to go on already filled bookshelves in our house. I quite buying used books for a while, or bought them at a very slow pace. For a while I didn't even go to places where used books were being sold, as my powers of resistance are fairly low were book buying is concerned.

Over the last month I picked up the following books.

• The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 1
• A Manual For Writers
• Jews, God, and History
• Handbook of the Pentateuch
• The Adams Chronicles
• the search for JFK
• War Letters (from American wars)
• Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain
• Mart Twain: Letters From The Earth
• Foxe's Book of Martyrs
• Great Voices of the Reformation
• Assumed Identity, by David Morrell
• The Haldeman Diaries

I'm not quite sure yet how I will work these into my reading pile. I'm not quite half-way through the reading pile I established last August, and will probably go a book or two into the second half before I make any changes. I bought the two Mark Twain books because I enjoyed his Letters from Hawaii so much, and in truth I've read little by Twain except his major books for children (Tom, and Huck). I have enjoyed the two David Morrell novels I've read, so couldn't resist buying a third.

A Manual For Writers is more of a reference book, sort of a poor man's Chicago Manual of Style. I've already used it for reference a couple of times. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha book is probably nothing more than an academic affectation for me. I read about 25 pages in it over the weekend and found it enjoyable, but I'm not sure I got much out of it. I'm not going to read any more at this time. Well, maybe I'll just finish the introductory material of 1 Enoch. But then I'd have to read at least five or ten chapters of 1 Enoch. But I can't do that and write articles for Suite101.com and track freelance queries and research and send out more and start reading Steinbeck.

What's a writer to do?