Here's how Book Outlet traps you: you remember that it exists.
Chances are, this is happening around the same time that you notice a book on your Goodreads that you've been meaning to pick up lately. Innocently, you check to see if it's offered on Book Outlet. They're selling a hardcover copy for under $7?!! This book was released within the last two years, and they're practically giving it away!
Now, of course, you have to see what else they're selling.
Two hours later - and twenty seven tabs closed on your laptop browser as you've been weighing and measuring each of the titles that originally caught your eye, ranking them into lists of what you genuinely want to read before counting them alongside their Goodreads average, finally only placing them into your cart when you know for certain they're in your "must haves" - you're cheerfully informed that your order has been placed.
Clearly, your girl has some issues with making the most of what she has already. I'm rolling over 100 books deep in my TBR shelves, make at least one trip to the library a month, and now, I'm eight books richer! Somebody sedate me.
Not that this takes away any ounce of the excitement I feel over the books I ended up purchasing, of course! Let the haul commence:
Reasons to Stay Alive, Matt Haig
Novelist Matt Haig's first nonfiction work details his experiences with depression, including his near-attempt on his own life at 24 years old while standing at the edge of a cliff.
I've had my eye on this book for a while, but have waffled a little bit in the past, due to decisions over whether it's the first book of Haig's I should try approaching. It's a Sunday Times bestseller, but Haig is already an accomplished novelist, and his other titles have floated across my TBR list at various times, too. My reservations about picking this one up have actually risen again after purchasing... the book itself is formatted quite spaciously, and the content inside is very accessible, so it will be a quick read, at the very least. Maybe use it in a readathon?
You Should Have Left, Daniel Kehlman, translated from German by Ross Benjamin
Detailing the contents of a writer's notebook, over the course of seven harrowing days he spends renting a house in the mountains of Germany with his wife and daughter, as he attempts to generate a screenplay while quickly going insane.
One of two different translations on this list, which is a new and exciting concept for me, as I think the last translations I've tried in the past couple of years have all been poetry-related. And I haven't read a novella in a hot minute, either. In fact, the real reason this one was on my radar was two-fold: 1. I saw it on someone's bookstagram account and it looked neat, and 2. A negative review of it on Goodreads described it as a "majorly streamlined version of Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves," which is one of my favorite Horror novels of all time. Here's the thing, though: House of Leaves succeeds, in my view, because of its impressively engrossing and comprehensive world-building... so how is a pared-down version of the concept going to read, especially in such few pages?
The City of Brass (Daevabad #1), S. A. Chakraborty
An eighteenth-century con woman and thief somehow accidentally sets free a dark djinn warrior, leading both of them to flee across Egypt, seeking Daevabad, the lost City of Brass. However, even if they manage to find it, there is no guarantee that they will be welcome there...
So, Book Outlet isn't the only place I like to pick up my reads at a significant discount: Tacoma is home to quite a few authors, book bloggers, bookstagrammers, and more, and for some reason, all of their old, past-publication ARCs end up appearing on King's Books $1 discount table. This is where I ended up committing a major bookish faux pas late last year, when I picked up a copy of Kingdom of Copper for a buck, when I hadn't even purchased, let alone read, City of Brass yet. Now, I have both, and plan on reading them this summer!
I Miss You When I Blink, Mary Laura Philpott
Found on multiple "Best Books of the Year" lists for 2019, this collection of essays from notable writer Philpott follows as she achieves the touchstones of a happy marriage, a fulfilling job, a beautiful house, and even children, only to find that she's... still not as happy as she'd thought she'd be.
Reason #1 I actually ended up definitively clicking "purchase" on this Book Outlet order. I have tried to purchase this book from, literally, FOUR different bookstores in the past year, and every single time, they've been sold out. I was totally willing to pay full price and everything, even though it was a recent release and hardcover! So, shout out to Sunriver Books, Paulina Springs Books, and Barnes and Noble - twice! - for helping me save a ton of money.
(Oh, and of course it's only in the course of writing this post, that I open it up and recognize it's a SIGNED COPY. And I got it for under $7!)
The Last Romantics, Tara Conklin
A novel about the power of family and stories, in which a writer, when asked about the genesis of her most powerful work, details the inspiration she found in her relationship with her siblings, in the house where they grew up together.
This novel was a fan favorite of some of my favorite bookstagrammers in the past year, which is the primary reason I picked it up, despite the fact that I don't actually know that much about it... nor do I read too many pieces of contemporary fiction. Also, I keep getting this title confused with The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin, which was also highly reviewed this past year, and I figured if I just suck it up and read one of them, I'll be able to tell them apart more easily.
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Stuart Turton
A twisting thriller that has been likened to Gosford Park / Downton Abbey in conjunction with Groundhog Day / Quantum Leap - aka, so many good things - where a mysterious party is destined to end in a brutal murder, that repeats itself each night, unless someone can solve the crime.
I know, I know, I know what you're going to say: "Savannah, it's Seven AND A HALF. Not just seven." Sure, in the US release. As it turns out, I must have gotten my hands on a UK edition, where the number really is seven (the title was changed in order not to cause confusion with another popular recent title, Taylor Jenkins Reid's The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo). The best part of buying this book on Book Outlet, is that I actually just gave a different copy to my best friend for her Christmas present, too, so now we can read it together!
Vita Nostra (Метаморфозы #1), Marina and Sergey Dyachenko, translated from Russian by Julia Meltov Hersey
Originally published in Ukraine in 2007, this book - following a girl, who ventures to a maddening, mysterious school, after being confronted on the beach by stranger while on vacation - is one of the best-selling Russian Fantasy novels of all time.
And it is a thick, tightly-formatted behemoth!
I heard about this read from a YouTube video of recommendations recently, and I was immediately intrigued. I had encountered it nowhere else, in any context, but something about the fact that it was translated from Russian really grabbed me, as well as the astonishingly dark and foreboding descriptions in its reviews. It only has about 4,000 ratings on Goodreads at the moment - with a 4.11 average! - and to say I am totally excited to go in completely blind to this crazy Fantasy novel is an absolute understatement. Plus, Lev Grossman did a blurb for it, so you know it has to be at least a little awesome.
Paperback Crush: the Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction, Gabrielle Moss
A quirky, nostalgic history of a sub-genre that has been, for many, a cultural touchstone of girlhood. From sick lit to horse lit, to all-girls schools and babysitting clubs, to terrifying stalkers and angel boyfriends, these books represent a unique perspective on girl-power at a crucial stage of growing up.
The #2 reason I knew I had to actually follow through with this book order!
I have been searching for this book for months - after hearing about it, I think, on an episode of one of my favorite bookish podcasts, Sh*t She Read, in which readers revisit books from their youth - and I could not believe that I was not only lucky enough to find it on Book Outlet, but that it was the only one left in stock! This thing is thick, and comes very close to venturing into coffee table book territory... which is where you might be able to find it this summer, which is when I plan on reading it (in honor of the time of year when you could most likely find me read these kinds of books!). Best of all: there's a section dedicated to R.L. Stine's Fear Street.
I have been searching for this book for months - after hearing about it, I think, on an episode of one of my favorite bookish podcasts, Sh*t She Read, in which readers revisit books from their youth - and I could not believe that I was not only lucky enough to find it on Book Outlet, but that it was the only one left in stock! This thing is thick, and comes very close to venturing into coffee table book territory... which is where you might be able to find it this summer, which is when I plan on reading it (in honor of the time of year when you could most likely find me read these kinds of books!). Best of all: there's a section dedicated to R.L. Stine's Fear Street.
What books have you hauled recently? What's been your biggest Book Outlet score? Let me know, in the comments below!
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