Books, books everywhere, but not one to read!

I haven't read a non-vampire book since April of this year. Actually, my streak goes back to October when I read all of Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series. Yes, that's the series the HBO show True Blood is based on. Then I read them again right away. When you're plowing through a book series at warp speed, you miss a bunch of shit that you didn't digest the first time around. A second reading was much more leisurely and thorough. When the ninth book in this series, Dead and Gone, came out in May, I dropped whatever I was reading at the time to read this. I happened to be wading my way through Breaking Dawn at the time and due to my shaky post-partum mental state, I don't really remember much but disappointment with this ninth installment. I think I'll have to reread this before I make my judgement. Plus I'll still totally buy book ten next May.

I'm sure I read a few books in there that had to do with regular people, but the only one that really comes to mind is 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson. It was a really good book, it was young adult however. I certainly don't remember anything too racy in there(damn). The author is on twitter, and she's hilarious. I definitely recommend following her. She just announced on twitter that she's writing a sequel to that book, so I'll definitely buy that when it comes out. That book was definitely one where I needed to know what happened to the characters after the book ended.

I'm currently finishing up Jennifer Lancaster's fourth book, Pretty In Plaid. Her previous three books, Bitter is the New Black, Bright Lights, Big Ass, and Such a Pretty Fat, were hilarious. I've been working on this fourth book since it came out in May. I started reading it over Mother's Day weekend and just couldn't get into it. So I put it aside and finally finished Breaking Dawn. Then I got distracted by a new vampire series that I found through this website that let's you read the first chapters of tons of books for free, Book Daily. They are adding new books all of the time. I really like it since I can get a sense of the book before actually buying it.

That new vampire series I read is the Undead series by MaryJanice Davidson. This is a really fun series centered around a 30 year old woman named Betsy Taylor that gets killed by a car and wakes up a vampire. She is pretty self centered and super funny, so her exploits as the new "Queen of the vampires" are really hilarious. After I finished the last book available in that series, I picked up Pretty in Plaid again. Once I got through a few of the early years chapters the book got much better. The snarky, bitchy Jen we all know and love comes through and I'm really enjoying the book now.

Which brings me this dilemma, what do I read next? I don't plan on rereading the Twilight Saga books until October. I want those to be fresh in my mind when the New Moon movie comes out. I have about 50 books that I haven't read yet. Here's a picture of just one of the bookshelves in my office. I have two more that are this packed as well. I've read about half of the books on these shelves. Plus, I think there's another box of books around here somewhere from when we moved the office into our basement before baby C came along.

Any suggestions on what to read next? My sister got me a giftcard to Barnes and Noble for my birthday, so I'm totally prepared to go and buy something. Any new series that you guys have read that you've liked? Even standalone books would be good, since I'm waiting on David Rosenfelt's next book, New Tricks. Holy crap, that comes out on August 6. Leave your suggestions in the comments section.