Last night, I stayed out very late. Although exhausted when I returned home, I perked up as I saw the gigantic box from barnesandnoble.com on my doorstep. Two days ago, I happily spent my AuthorStore's 2006 Best Little Christmas Story Contest prize and the shipment took only 24 hours to arrive.

It being 3 a.m. when I hauled in the box and I being one who enjoys lasting suspense, I didn't immediately rip through the carton. It sat on the dining table until this morning when I could devote myself entirely to unveiling each book, contemplating covers, and thumbing through pages.

Although $50 doesn't go very far in a bookstore these days, I managed to acquire 17 titles due to my rabid love of bargain hunting. The order, including shipping and tax, totaled $54.47. Here's what I got along with a random sentence from the back cover blurb:

• Boy Still Missing by John Searles. "Instantly in lust, he begins a forbidden relationship with this beautiful, mysterious woman." [Note: This book is the only one not included in the box. It will be shipped later from another warehouse.]
• The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosley. "But Charles's fortunes take an odd turn when a stranger offers nearly $50,000 to rent out Charles's basement—and soon, as the boarder transforms the basement into a prison cell, Charles finds himself drawn into circumstances almost unimaginably bizarre and profoundly unsettling."
• Sideways by Rex Pickett. "Sideways is the story of two friends at a crossroads in their lives, going off for the last time to steep themselves in everything that makes it good to be young, male, and single: Pinot, putting, and prowling bars."
• Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin. "It startled critics, stunned readers with its unique and deceptively calm voice, and caused a worldwide sensation."
• Everyday People by Stewart O'Nan. "Centering around Chris "Crest" Tolbert—an eighteen-year-old left paralyzed and haunted by the loss of his best friend after a recent accident—the novel weaves together the lives of friends and family, lovers and strangers, into a rich tapestry of emotions, memories, and dreams."
• The Book Against God by James Wood. "In despair over his failed academic career and failing marriage, Bunting is also enraged to the point of near lunacy by his parents' religiousness."
• The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers. "'Maybe the only writer working...who can render the intricate dazzle of it all.'" —Sven Birkerts, Esquire.
• Little Children by Tom Perrotta. "And there's Sarah, a lapsed feminist surprised to find she's become a typical wife in a traditional marriage, and her husband, Richard, who is becoming more and more involved with an Internet fantasy life than with his own wife and child."
• The Little Friend by Donna Tartt. "Acclaim for The Secret History." [Note: Hmm. I loved Tartt's debut, but it makes me nervous that there's nothing on this book's back cover about itself.]
• Garden State by Rick Moody. "They are out of school, trying to start a band, trying to find work—looking for something to do in the degraded terrain of their suburban hometown."
• My Little Blue Dress by Bruno Maddox. "And it unravels into a multitude of extremely amusing, searingly beautiful strands that eventually lead her, and a troubled young man who befriends her, through the well-upholstered hellholes of modern Manhattan toward a heartrending and hugely satisfying climax that will almost literally blow your socks off." [Note: Who wrote this sentence and why did the publisher allow it to get printed on the book? I have a feeling my socks are not going to be blown off. Literally.]
• Breaking Her Fall by Stephen Goodwin. "But his interrogation of the teenage boys still present doesn't end until one of them crashes into a glass tabletop."
• The Spinning Man by George Harrar. "Then, one afternoon, he's pulled over by police, handcuffed, and questioned about the disappearance of a local high school cheerleader."
• Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. "His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice." [Note: I saw and didn't like the movie. However, I'm hoping it was due to over-acting by Sean Penn, which has ruined many films for me, rather than bad writing from the book.]
• More Than You Know by Beth Gutcheon. "Hannah has decided, finally, to leave a record of the passionate and anguished long-ago summer in Dundee when she met Conary Crocker, the town's bad boy and love of her life."
• Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins. "When Flash's appetite for pleasure implicates the couple in his lawlessness, Fos and Opal seek refuge on Opal's inherited farm on the Clinch River."
• Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman. "Perlman has divided his kaleidoscopic opus into seven sections, each with a new narrator who simultaneously moves the juicy story forward and radically alters everything we've understood so far...a shifting body of rich, ambiguous evidence that forces us to continually assess and reassess, much as we do in life."

I realize that the links all point to Amazon rather than B&N, but I'm not a B&N affiliate and Amazon has better product information and more reviews.

Time to figure out what to read next. Many thanks to Jamie of AuthorStore for hours and hours of entertainment!