 Hello everybody, E here, welcome back to the very final book haul of 2018. This is December's book haul, and we are going to be here for a while. I have loads and loads of books. I think I have over, I have at least four stacks of five, so I have over 20 books. And we are going to go from the least expensive to the most expensive. I am going to put something in front of it. So with absolutely no investment, right off the bat, these are books, these were gifts that I got in December. The first one was from my friend Sarah, it was over Newton, I had a problem saying it in the actual video. It is hot out here, I have been running the heater, so don't mind the glisteningness. Over Newton by Isabelle Carmody. I will probably get to this one in the spring, again this was sent by my friend Sarah. Next up, a book that was sent from a viewer by the name of Mitchell, or Mitch. This was The Night Parade by Ronald Malfee. I am really looking forward to this one. In fact, this might be my first read of 2019. I am just trying to get through Bear Skins by James A. McLaughlin right now, and then I am going to jump into this one. Bear Skins isn't a bad book, don't get me wrong, and I say I am trying to get through it. I am reading it in an e-book and it is not a very pleasurable experience for me reading an e-book. Next up, the rest, not the rest, but the next three books are from my friend Terry. She sent me Meg Woolitzer's Sleepwalking. I guess I could put these up closer for you guys. And then she also sent me Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad. And then she sent me this one, which is The Credimentalist by Eugene Izzy. And then one more, which I put in the wrong place, Macbeth by Yonezba. I am really looking forward to this one too, this is probably my second read. I am going to try a January TBR this time on the channel. I don't know if I will be able to do it or not, but I am going to give it a try, mainly because usually when I try to do a TBR, especially on the channel, I just don't, I don't do very well with it. Not that I don't like the books that I read, it's just that I normally just, I'm such a situational reader, like a certain mood has to strike me before I end up picking up a book. It is hot out here, I'm glad I turned that heater off. Next up is a gag gift from a buddy Landon, Dreamcatcher by Stephen King. I cannot stand this book, and Landon absolutely loves this book, and nobody knows why. I'm just picking on you Landon, yeah that one. And then last, this one actually did, it wasn't really a gift, but I'm going to throw it in on the gifts anyways. I had, if you guys remember from last month's book haul, I picked up the Witches of Eastwick on Amazon, and it wasn't the copy I wanted. So my buddy Jen Bernardini offered to send me this one if I bought her the Kindle version. So I bought her the Kindle version, and this isn't exactly the one that I was talking about, but it is a super rad book club edition that I am very, very happy with. It's got some cool artwork on the back. Okay, so now that's out of the way, I'm going to move this up here, move this right here. Next up we have the books that I have for review. These are books that were sent to me either by authors or by publishers for me to review in the coming months. First one I'm really looking forward to is the continuation of Bubba Hotep and the Cosmic Bloodsuckers. My buddy Josh Jakuba, I don't know if I'm saying your name wrong or not. Jab Kuga, I did say it. That's a Jakuba, that's not right. Jab Kuga. This is book, yeah it's issue four and it says, E happy holidays to you and your family, J. I'm super excited to get into this one. I've already reviewed the first, I guess the first three issues. Next up, I'm going to get your last name wrong, so I apologize. J.B. Santa Benes sent me his novel The Magician, which looks pretty good. It's got a very leisure press vibe to it, I don't know if you guys remember leisure press, but it's got a really cool cover, illustrated cover. The back has got some artwork going on, a lady with a crystal ball or something. I'm not sure. Next up was something that I actually requested from the publisher after enjoying watching you by the same author. This is Then She Was Gone. Sorry, stumbled on that by Lisa Jewel. I asked, I told my connection at Atria of publishing Simon and Schuster. I told, I think her name's Ariel. I told her I enjoyed, loved watching you. That sounded wrong, but I enjoyed that book. She asked me if I was interested in her last book. I said yes. Now, in my review of watching you, I said she has done like 16, 17 novels before watching you. Most of those from what Ariel told me were chiclet. So I will probably only be reading her thrillers. Not that I don't mind, not that I hate chiclet or anything, but that's not, you know, one of my genres. And usually I tend to dislike it more than I like it. Last, but not least, before the reviews, Skybound Books, which sent me, what was it, The Electric State by Simon Stollenhog, sent me this one, The Obsolete by Simeon Mills. It seems to be about androids in a high school and the, they are pretending to be kids and they don't want to be singled out. I think it's, there's allegory and metaphor for racism and xenophobia is I think is what is going on. Okay, so that's everything for review. Next up, we are going to, and why did that second of the first ones I did for the gifts? Because I have actually no, literally no investment in that. And the reviews, I'm spending my time. So next up, books that I got at the library. Some of them were quarter trips throughout December. Some of the time it was a quarter of a book. Some of the times it was fill up a bag for a dollar. And most of the time when we do that we get the kids a lot of stuff because their children's books are always expensive. So we ended up getting some YA for autumn and then some board books for Chris. If you would like to see those book hauls, let me know down in the comments below. But okay, first we have the shallows. I am taking a break from social media right now, mainly because of this book, trying to prove this book wrong. But we're going to go into that more when I actually review this book. It was the finalist for the Pulitzer Pulitzer Prize. It is what the internet is doing to our brains, the shallows. So yeah, I got this one for either a quarter or it was, and it doesn't really matter. I didn't spend more than a quarter for it. Next up we have, I got two books by this author, Jay McInnery. I think I'm pronouncing that right. This is Story of My Life. Very dark cover. Sorry, y'all, my nose is itching. Story of My Life. It's very 80s. This is not, kind of looks like a babysitter's club kind of book. It is not, I think it's literary fiction. It's by Vintage Contemporaries, and I know I've said this before, but anything by Vintage I will pick up. And here's another one, Brightness Falls by him. Same author, Jay McInnery. Also published by Vintage. Next up I have, again from the library, Texts by, what is it, Essie Hinton. Yeah, this is the author of The Outsiders, which is a great book, pretty good movie too. One of the only Tom Cruise movies I enjoy. Mainly because he's not in it much. I don't like, I do not like Tom Cruise. All right, next up is, uh, Frederick Bachman's Britt Marie was here. I got this, of course, because Bachman is hit or miss with me, and it was only, you know, a quarter, or it was part of the dollar bag. So I'm not going to take a huge chance on him. I'm not going to throw a whole bunch of money at him, but definitely something that I am willing to give him a chance. Next up, something, again, at the library. So this is probably a donation, but this is a Book of the Month Club selection. Still Lives by Maria Hummel. Hummel? Hummel. Whatever. This one just piqued my interest because of the gorgeous cover, and I've seen it around, seen it all over the place. Actually, I keep bumping into it, so maybe that's fate trying to tell me to check it out. I've never heard of the author. I don't even know what the book's about, but it's super short. It's like 270 pages. Might as well give it a chance. And then the last library book I have is something I'm taking off the sticker because it's going to annoy me. It looks like an 80s horror thing, and I'm going to end up making more of a mess than I should, trying to get that off while I'm talking to you guys, but it's other side. See that? That is a telephone, not a typewriter, but J. Michael Straxinski. Straxinski. Yeah, look at this utter pimp. Look at him. He's a mustache and everything, man. He is a straight up pimp. This is like Dean Coons' older brother. This guy, I bet you he is fantastic. This extraordinary novel takes us into a shadowy world beyond the supernatural. Dum, dum, dum. Yes, yes, yes. And one more face wipe before we jump into the final pile of books. I told y'all we were going to be here for a while. I am super excited about some of these. I'm going to get rid of these two on top. These are Book of the Month Club selections for December. No exit. The review for this will be up tomorrow. Spoiler alert, I didn't care for it at all. Next up, I got an absolutely remarkable thing by Hank Green. If you guys watch my Book of the Month Club, it's one of my funniest videos ever, I think, where I ramble on and on about John Green thinking this is a John Green book, when this is actually a Hank Green book. But I'm going to get to this hopefully in January also. Again, if you guys want to see the TBR videos from me, let me know down there in the comments. I don't usually stick to them, but I can try. Maybe there'll be more incentive for me to actually stick with a TBR and get things done if I actually call myself out every month. This one was something that I saw on, is one of those fortuitous, serendipity, whatever. I saw this cover, this cover right here. I saw it on Instagram, and then I hopped over to Twitter and a completely different person was talking about it on Twitter. And then I go over to Amazon and I found it on sale. This is Andres Barba, translated by Lisa Dillman. I'm not sure Barba, where he's from. I think it's Hispanic. I'm not sure. Let's see here if I can see if I can find that translated. Yeah, translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman. I'm going to read the back of this to you. And you can probably understand why I grabbed this. Life changes at the orphanage the day seven-year-old Marina shows up. She is different from the other girls. At once an outcast, an object of fascination. As Marina struggles to find her place, she invents a game whose rules are dictated by a haunting violence. Written in hypnotic, lyrical prose, alternating between Marina's perspective and the choral we of the other girls. Such small hands evokes the pain of loss and the hunger for acceptance. That choral we, I'm hoping that it alternates between this little girl and like a POV of just the other girls as a whole. As like their own organism. That would be amazing. Not literally their own organism, but as we look at the little girl and we all cringe or whatever. It's super short, it's only 105 pages. But it feels amazing. I love the cover. I didn't know how great it felt, but yeah, it feels really good. Finally, I have finally completed my Mitokami collection with the final three books I needed. I now have all of his books that have this like rainbow theme kind of deal to abstract art or whatnot, whether it be Cubis or Circles or whatever. This is The Elephant Vanishes, which I've already read, but I didn't have this version of it. I had the e-book version. So I got this one. I got this one I'm super excited for. Underground, the Tokyo gas attack and the Japanese psyche. This is some of his nonfiction, but I really wanted this cover. They are going away pretty soon and I'm stoked that I got my hands. I had enough money to go ahead and grab enough extra money to go ahead and grab these. And then finally, which I have this in hard cover, but here, here the wins thing. And if you flip it, pinball 1973. So I don't remember the, I never remember the year. I was going to say 1979, but it's cool because if you read pinball, it's one way. I don't know if you can tell, try to get it in there. But then if you go back here to win, it's upside down. So you literally have to flip the book. Here the wins thing pinball. So it's not, it's upside down. If you just turn it that way, you have to actually flip it. So yeah, my collection is finally complete. One of these days, I will show you guys my complete collection. I do, there are two more books that I need from him. The secret library and one about music. I can't remember what it's called, but it's one about music. And once I get those two, I will have all of Murakami's stuff and I can finally do what I've been wanting to do, which is the Murakami theorist series. So yeah, please leave your own December book calls down there in the doodly-doo. Dustin, my man, I don't, were you here for November? I can't remember if you were or not. But everybody please, especially if you have a video of it, let me know down there in the comments below. Link me to it and let's share each other's hauls. Let's talk about what you've got. What are some of your favorite books that you bought this year? I'd love to know that stuff too. Your favorite book of the month buy. And if I had to go with my favorite book of the month club buy this year, it'd probably be, I don't remember. I can't remember. Maybe the David Joy one that I haven't even read yet. I was just happy to see it there. But anyways, until next time. I have been E, you have been U. This has been the last book call and video of 2018. I will talk to you guys later. Bye bye.