Stacking the Shelves--The Christmas Edition

 

Stacking the Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts, and of course ebooks! The meme is now hosted by Reading Reality.

Well it was another week! With Christmas and a few vacation days, work was just a blink of the week! They let us off early Monday, and then we had Tuesday and Wednesday off, so I used vacation days for the rest of the week. The holiday was very nice. But even after the holiday I am still left with shipping woes. I will likely be calling one store about a gift that is STILL sitting in GA. I had asked to cancel it Monday and get a refund because it was supposed to be a gift! I ordered it on the 14th for crying out loud, I met the store's "order before this date for Xmas delivery" and yet it is STILL sitting at the very first UPS drop off! I mean come on. They kept wanting to "look into the issue" and I was like you were supposed to do that over the weekend when I first called! But apparently they did not. So they said they'd issue the refund, but would still "look into it" and the refund would be issued in 2-3 days and then take another 3-5 to post. So I figure if I don't see it in my account on the 6th I'll be calling again! And if that wasn't enough I am STILL waiting on my December 17th book release order! It is STILL sitting at the same USPS location that has had it since the 18th I think it was? Just sitting there. It arrived, but still waiting to receive it. Had to wait until after the holiday to talk to someone on that and they're sending a replacement. Hopefully it doesn't go through that same PO, but I don't know. Unless they actually use UPS and not UPS Sure Post or whatever they call it when they hand it over to USPS. Supposedly that will come by the end of next week. So something tells me it's the same shipping speed/method as they originally sent it and I swear if it gets delayed at the same PO I am going to be livid! This is the same PO that still has my UK Spectacular mind you. I am getting highly suspicious that a book thief works there as NONE of my other packages get held up like my books do. I feel like there's something to that and I am not being overly paranoid.

But onto my haul which is mainly my Christmas haul and the few books I picked up at the B&N sale--which seriously, when did they decide to do this 1/3 business instead of 1/2 off? I don't know how many times I had to pull out my calculator to determine if said books were good deals or not. And the worst part was...all of the books I wanted to pick up weren't even in the store. Mainly my 12/17 book...nowhere to be found and another December release, I think it was the 10th? But I was like seriously?! You don't bother putting new releases out in the store just because the author isn't at the level of SJM or Yarros? Really?

Sorry for the ranting. It's been a month, what can I say? Also another book took some serious hunting to find as I looked everywhere, then I asked for help who checked all the same spots and then had to get another person to check the back. So yeah. It's been a month that's for sure!

Chasing Eternity by Alyson Noel--keeper copy
It Will Only Hurt for a Moment by Delilah S. Dawson--this one was one of the half off ones online, but I was able to pick it up at a store for the half off price! So that was a win!
Batman Resurrection by John Jackson Miller--so while I'm not a huge comic book buff, I will say I love Batman! I remember watching the Michael Keaton movies first and they are still among my favorites! So this sequel to the first movie that takes place before the second movie definitely caught my eye, so I decided to buy it at the sale! THIS is the one that took an army to find!

Then my Fairy Loot book came in, once again, unannounced. I do not know what is happening with FL's emails lately as I never get any notifications about shipping or confirmations of orders anymore and it's driving me insane! The December YA pick was a little lackluster. First off, the title was not one I knew of and the subject matter is getting a little overdone. I hate when publishers print to trends, throwing all these books with the same subject matter gets tiring. I guess because I also only like the subject manner to some extent. It's not my passion genre, so yeah. Plus the cover changes and what not to this were also meh. As well as the naked hardcover. Starting to think I am not a fan of this particular cover style.

Then I also got Rosie Thorns' Spectacular endpages epilogue stickers! When I saw her post that she created two endpages desgins for the book, I was intrigued! That the publisher only did one is expected I suppose but I was psyched that she created these sticker add ons that I can put over the existing ones!

Pretty sure I'll use a B&N edition that both she and Stephanie signed to add to the specialness. Just got to wait for when I feel like I have a steady hand! Lol.

Then a surprise package from Macmillan showed up at my door this week and I immediately got excited!

A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall (ARC)
fuzzy socks
a star ornament
a navy scarf
a dragonfly pin
Hot Hands warmer

THANK YOU Flatiron Books!

Then a few of my bookish Christmas gifts were:

My sister got me a candle that has a Caraval fragrance 
mini Caraval books

She also got me this light up sign for my shelves!

Then my mom got me this cute little mini bookshelf box thing with tons of tiny books! I remembered seeing this when I was shopping for my Secret Santa. Apparently it is to help reduce stress or something, but when I see people shake it up and dislodge the books it gets me highly anxious and stressed out. Not sure how Amazon can bring this up in "gifts for book lovers." But still, I don't have to shake it up and there are a ton of books in it that you can't even fit them all on the shelves.

Then I had picked this out at a local artsy shop! It's a cute little bookworm plaque with a standee to display him on! I also had picked out a Christmas and Halloween sign, but they weren't bookish per se! This will the everyday plaque once I find my home and can display my shelves properly!

Then in my post Christmas shopping, or it might have been right before the holiday, I saw this in a Books a Million email, but when I clicked on the link it told me "page cannot be displayed" or something to the fact that no item can be displayed. Which in a surge of anger I turn to Google and found it on B&N's site for cheaper and it was the same size and everything else AND I got free shipping! AND the PO didn't hold it. Guess they could tell the weight that it wasn't a book, as B&N's name was all over the box!

It's a book charcuterie board! It's not super big but since I'll be entertaining for one it's the perfect size! Lol.

And that was it for me this week! Maybe in the new year I'll finally get that December 17th book. Only time will tell. Stay tuned for next week's mail woes.

What all did you get this week?