My experience with Dart-Thornton's Bitterbynde Trilogy was decidedly mixed. I loved the first two books ( The Ill-Made Mute and The Lady of the Sorrows ). Her prose was at least a little purplish, but the plot was tight, and I loved the way she mixed in older folk stories. The characters were interesting and developed in logical ways.

I thought the last book ( The Battle of Evernight ) was an absolute disaster. The plot was all over the place. She threw out every bit of character development at a critical point in the story. She decided to write an "Author's note" to the paperback version to explain the ending because (paraphrased) "fans had been writing and asking her to explain". I can't help but think if she wrote the story to be consistent with the other two, such a note would not have been necessary.

I read The Iron Tree, the first book in "The Crowthistle Chronicles". I haven't bothered to read the other books in this series, due to the extreme eye-rolling experience I had with the first one.

I did love the first two Bitterbynde books so much though. It was largely my experience with Dart-Thornton that prompted me to stop buying books and to start using my library more. I find I'm less likely to be so annoyed by books I haven't spent hard-earned money on.

So I'm going to try to follow this thread a bit more closely. Now that i have a Kindle, reading is even easier and more addictive than it was before, and impulse purchases are easier than ever, so this could be bad idea. But whatever.

So far this year, I've read mostly Meg Cabot novels. I'm five books into her "Mediator" series, which is actually pretty great. YA Horror/Fantasy about a girl who can talk (and beat up) ghosts. The series feels like it has a lot of Buffy influence, even down to the Watcher character and the inappropriate supernatural love interest. Though with the added wrinkle that only the heroine and the watcher can (typically) see or interact with the ghosts at all. It has the same casual humor and easy flow of all of her books (YA and otherwise), and the supernatural elements provide for some cool plots. I have never read a Meg Cabot novel I didn't enjoy, but I really think that lots of Buffistas might feel that way about this series.

I also read Atonement after seeing the movie, and loved it. And I got some sample chapters of novels that might come next - some Chuck Palahniuk stuff, "Dead Witch Walking" by Kim Harrison, "A Game of Thrones" by George R. R. Martin, "A Perfectly Good Family" by Lionel Shriver, "Saturday" by Ian McEwan, and/or "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer.

I'm reading You Don't Have to be Wrong for Me To Be Right, The World Without Us, You: Staying Young: The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty, and got a subscription to The New York Times for my nonfiction at the moment. Apparently, I read nonfiction in parallel, not serial.

I have a gift card to spend at Barnes and Noble today - I've decided that Gift Cards won't violate my NO New Things rule, as long as I don't go over them.

So, if you had $50 at B&N (at least, I think it's still worth $50) - what would you buy?

if you had $50 at B&N

Sin in the Second City by Karen Abbott

As an employee at B&N, I can tell you that we're having some good sales right now! Buy 2 get 1 free DVDs (I'm trying to talk myself out of getting the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica with this), buy 2 get 1 free of the classic paperbacks (which I plan to take advantage of before the sale ends, so I can build up that area of my book collection), and the end of the blow-out "get rid of everything from Christmas" sale, which was just reduced from $3.33 to $1.66 for one category of clearance and from 50% to 75% off for the other category (which includes calendars).

And a follow-up to Laga's suggestion--The Devil and the White City by Erik Larsen.

Buy 2 get 1 free DVDs (I'm trying to talk myself out of getting the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica with this)

I just bought the second season of BSG and SPN with that! I got a gift card for Christmas from my boss.

I can tell you that we're having some good sales right now!

sweet.

great recs - thanks guys!

I also read Atonement after seeing the movie, and loved it.

Gris, I'm curious - what are some of the major (if any) differences between the book and the movie? My mom read and loved the book, and is leery of seeing the movie, as she doesn't want to "ruin the book" (her words).

Sox, unless you'd like to have your purchase in your hands ASAP, I'd take a look at bn.com. I'm pretty sure you can use your gift card online, the sales are the same, and the discounts are deeper there than in the store. I was just looking at the site for the DVD sale, and I found out that they have a lot of their DVDs for 10% regularly, plus the B2G1F deal, and since it is online, it might be (I'll have to check for this) tax-free with a possibility of free shipping, as well. And, if you have a membership card with B&N, you can use it online as well as in the store for 10% more off.

And, if the online price ends up being the same as or more than the instore one, you can always cancel the transaction at the final moment and head into the store instead.