Winter has definitely arrived in Chicago — it’s 15 degrees (without the wind chill) and snow is on the ground. There is nothing more appealing than curling up on a comfortable couch with a good book — and possibly a blanket and a cup of hot tea. A roaring fire would be nice too, but we are having a problem with our fireplace. The chimney doesn’t seem to be drawing properly; every time we light a fire, the house gets very smoky. So I’ve just called our local chimney cleaning service, called  (I am not kidding) Ashwipe Chimney Sweeps. Anyway, I’m not going to be able to squeeze in much reading time over the next couple of weeks. There are Christmas presents to buy and wrap, meals to plan and cook, parties to attend, kids coming home on vacation. The bookstore would probably like it if I showed up and worked. And did I mention that my daughter is getting married three days after Christmas?

One of the best things about working in a bookstore is the endless supply of ARCs (advance readers’ copies) that we have piled in our basement. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but we actually keep them in the bathroom. The store isn’t very big, and that’s really the only place they fit. I also have a backlog of electronic ARCs on my IPad. I have ARCs for books that will come out in June — no sense reading those now, because chances are I won’t remember the books very well by the time they’re published. So I try to read books that are either just published or soon to be published. Sometimes something comes along that has to be read immediately, because it’s so compelling — it might be a book that a friend or colleague absolutely loved, or one that called my name and displaced the others on my stack. Then I forget all about publication dates and read what I want.

I have a pile of books I’m looking forward to reading in January and February. (Nine of them will be published during those months, and one — Book of Ages — is already out.) Any bets on how many I end up reading?