Colleagues: an apology

I get the feeling I'm stretching the bounds of consideration towards my colleagues, particularly those involved in carrying and sorting the post. Today's haul included three very big, heavy boxes from a certain none-too-principled online book behemoth, and a parcel from an independent bookshop. I shall moderate my purchases before hernias develop.

What came in today?
Finally, Nicola Barker's Burley Cross Postbox Theft because she wrote Darkmans and can therefore do no wrong - ask Cynical Ben if you don't believe me;
Adam Roberts' New Model Army, set in a war-torn near future UK: he's a writer bursting with great ideas and he has a lovely turn of narrative, as he should, being a professor of Eng Lit and Creative Writing. The premise reminds me of J. G. Ballard's Vietnam-in-the-UK short story, 'The Killing Ground', discussed here and Moorcock's A Cure for Cancer;
Alan Warner's The Stars in the Bright Sky, sequel to his warm, funny, lovely The Sopranos (not the gangsters but a bunch of Scottish schoolgirls);
China Miéville's The Kraken - I enjoy his work but I'm never entirely convinced that there's much more going on in The New Weird than entertainment and a gothic imagination;
Scarlett Thomas's The End of Mr Y, because I heard her read at All Tomorrow's Parties a year ago and was impressed;
Mike Berners-Lee's How Bad Are Bananas: the carbon footprint of everything, because I'm wracked (that's how you spell it, kids) with guilt. If there's a chapter on books, I'm ignoring it;
a signed copy Jonathan Coe's The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, because I've read his other books and they're acute, funny and wise;
Robert Wilson's Julian Comstock: a Story of 22nd-Century America because I'm a sucker for dystopian future novels (even though the present is dystopian enough for anyone: Gwyneth Jones Bold as Love series is the best of all and - huzzah -  she's back online, but Wilson's book looks fascinating. There's definitely a post-nationalist or new nationalist wave breaking)
and finally,
Dan Rhodes's Gold because I heard that it's funny and Welsh-related.

Obviously, I've got looming multiple research deadlines, so these books will merely be extra bricks in the wall I'm going to build in the office to shield me from colleagues' scorn.