Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is a weekly post where I talk about the books that have arrived in my house over the last week.

Marcia at The Printed Page is no longer hosting this meme at her blog, she’s now hosting the Mailbox Monday Blog Tour.  This month’s  home is Chick Loves Lit.  Come over and check out what other bookish people had appear in their to-be-read piles, and share your new acquisitions.

Next week, Mailbox Monday will travel on to Bermudaonion’s Weblog. Thank you to Shanyn for hosting August and Kathy for hosting September.

This week, 1 book arrived in my mailbox, and 3 books (or maybe 1 book) came in through other paths.

One review book each week is a good pace.  I feel the book love, but can still make progress on my backlog.

This week’s review book is an unsolicited copy of
A Geography of Secrets by Frederick Reuss .

Two men: One discovers the cost of keeping secrets, of building a career within a government agency where secrets are the operational basis. Noel Leonard works for the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center, mapping coordinates for military actions halfway around the world. One morning he learns that an error in his office is responsible for the bombing of a school in Afghanistan. And he knows suddenly that he is as alone as he is wrong. From his windowless office in DC to an intelligence conference in Switzerland, and back to his daughter’s college in Virginia, Noel claws his way toward a more personally honest life in which he can tell his family everything every day.

Another man learns that family secrets have kept him from who he is and from the ineluctable ways he is attached to a world he has always disdained. This unnamed narrator, a cartographer, is the son of a career diplomat whose activities in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War and then in Europe during the Cold War may not have been what they were said to be. He, too, travels to Switzerland, but his quest is not to release himself from secrecy—it is to learn how deep the secrets in his own life go.

I had reluctantly passed on a chance to request it earlier, but was really excited to see it in my mailbox. I’ve enjoyed every book I’ve read from Unbridled Press, and strongly expect this will not be an exception.

For the other book/books that arrived this week: I bought 3 copies of Mockingjay.

Yep, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins was released this week.

My name is Katniss Everdeen. Why am I not dead? I should be dead.

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss’s family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans — except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss’s willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels’ Mockingjay — no matter what the personal cost.

I’d pre-ordered a copy from my local indie bookstore, and planned to pick it up at their release party on Tuesday evening.  I ended up downloading it onto my Nook at release time, and then bought the audiobook from Audible.com on Saturday.  3 copies, although arguably the paper copy is more for my daughter, and I haven’t been listing her books, even when I’m interested in reading them.

(Yes, I’ve read Mockingjay, although I’m holding off a little on my review. For some early thoughts (no spoilers) on the experience of reading it, see my Mockingjay not a review post.

So, what was in your mailbox this week?