I was AWOL from blogging last night because Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie arrived for me at the library and, well, had to dive in! You understand. I’ve been waiting my turn for this since the beginning of October when it was published. But I have been anticipating reading this third and final book in the series since I read the second book back in February.

When the first two books in a trilogy are really good there is always the fear that the third book conclusion might go awry. But I am feeling confident that it will all end spectacularly. Within half a page I was into the book and didn’t want to put it down. Hooray! If only I could have called off from work today and stayed home to read. But what do you say? Sorry, can’t come work today because I am reading a really good book? I so rarely get sick that if I tried to lie and say I was ill, no one would believe it especially when I turned up the next day looking hale and hearty (though perhaps a little tired from staying up late to finish the book). Besides, I am bad at telling lies anyway and the guilt ruins it all.

Before I go off to read more of this amazing book, I have to tell you about the little pile of other books that came along with this one.

Last week on a gardening blog with holiday gift suggestions, one of the items was a book called Gardening for Geeks. As a geek and a gardener I had to borrow it from the library! But that’s not all.

Now, I’ve had a library card in the Hennepin County library system for as long as I have lived here. I have been requesting library books online for as long as there has been the ability to do so. Why, why, have I never noticed the “related books” stream of book covers? Probably because it is lower down on the page, below the fold so to speak, and I never had occasion to scroll down. For some reason when I was requesting Gardening for Geeks I scrolled down and found this glorious thing!

And then I went crazy.

Oh, that looks like a good book. I’ll request that. That looks good too! Oh yes and that one. I wonder what that one is about? Request. Request. Request.

I now have a tidy pile of gardening books on sustainability, maximizing your food harvest, and DIY green projects that will very likely make me want to install my own solar panels and create wind turbines that also serve as trellises for pole beans. I already really want to build a solar food dehydrator, I don’t need further encouragement.

Since I will have two weeks off very soon I tell myself that I am just stocking up for vacation. And I am. But I also have to remind myself that we need to finish building the chicken coop with its green roof before undertaking any additional projects. Looks like I will be studying up and making a future project list! Bookman has been warned.