Still Midnight (or, how to buy a book from the UK)

Did you know that you can get your hands on books that are released in the U.K., but not in the U.S.?  I had no idea, until yesterday.

Yesterday, you see, I discovered that Denise Mina has released a new crime novel.  Ever since I was introduced to Denise Mina through my friend Miss Lemon, I've devoured all of her novels.  They are uniformly intense, wickedly funny, layered, and occasionally gruesome crime stories that often play out in dodgy neighborhoods of Glasgow, Scotland.  (And, I should note, not for youngsters.)  I may not be the likeliest candidate to fall in love with books about female characters in Scotland, but, well, I have.

All of which is to say: when I found out that she's released a new novel, called Still Midnight, I of course had to have it.  Problem: it's not out in the U.S. until spring 2010. 

That's a painfully long wait.  And yet, I thought I would have to tough it out, believing for some reason that it was impossible to get books from the UK over here.  Nonetheless, I sneaked over to the Amazon UK site and, with some trepidation, tried to buy it.  Just to see if I could get away with it.  And . . . I could!  Turns out they totally let you buy books from the UK.  You have to pay an abnormally high shipping fee (I think it was like $8 to get Still Midnight to DC), but I was happy to do it in this case.

I'm not sure where I got the idea that this was impossible to do, but it was firmly fixed in my mind.  Anyway, for any of you who are desperately desiring a book from UK that hasn't been released in the states yet, go ahead and pick it up from Amazon UK.