Nu-ILB: What books have you purchased lately?

JR (&tb), yeppers.

I bought a 1947 Teach Yourself Russian book. It is kinda gorgeous. I do not really plan to learn Russian but I hang out with all these Slavicists and actual Russians and I felt, you know, obliged. Except then one of the actual Russian profs laughed at its old-skool pedagogical technique, which I think might actually be better suited for someone like me.

Although then I noticed that it waits until lesson, like, 10 to give you verbs, and then it gives you the entire verb system at once, seemingly. So maybe it is a bit crazy.

Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch in a brand new, remaindered hardcover copy that I found on Alibris for $11.00, which price includes the shipping.

Selected Satires of Lucian as translated into English by Lionel Casson, hardcover, no dj, unmarked, for $8.95 at Powell's.

Rising Up and Rising Down: Some thoughts on violence, freedom and urgent means ny William T. Vollmann. This is a one volume abridgment of a seven volume work, as a remaindered trade paperback, for $7.95 at Powell's.

Trails of a Wilderness Wanderer by Andy Russell, used hardcover, $1.00. This is just some random book I ran across in a used book store, published in 1971, when wilderness wandering books were enjoying a small vogue.

The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975, used paperback in fairly decent shape, $8.95.

The Writings of William James: A comprehensive edition, edited by John J. McDermott. New trade paperback, 850 pp., for $16.95. I just felt the need to have more Wm. James available on my shelf to read when I want a brilliant and practical writer to spend time with.

My copy of Chomsky's "At War With Asia" (ordered from Haymarket Books, no less) arrived with the parcel package ripped open. Does that mean I'm under surveillance?

Yes. We will be watching you until you post your reaction to reading it.

Those are decent prices, but not the stunning prices I've come to expect from you, Aimless.

Sometimes you just hafta pay for yer books.

It's a shame. A damn shame. A dirty, rotten, no-good, stinking, lowdown, goddamned, filthy, crying shame, if you ask me. But what can you do?

(he shrugs and, with elbows pulled in, displays his palms at waist level turned upwards, while wearing a chagrinned look)

Lately I've been reading The Exception by Christian Jungersen. I really like his no-nonsense writing style; it's the kind of thing that gets ridiculed, I think, for being not sufficiently "literary," but -- so long as it is his genuine style and not just an excuse for lazy writing -- the straightforward clarity in his prose is refreshing.

Also, he knows how to build drama and tension into a novel. Really, the book is about how even fundamentally good people can turn on each other -- and do such evil things -- in difficult situations. It's very good.

The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, used hard cover, $3. I bought this so I could be hectored by a generally humorless atheist into disbelieving what I never believed. No, actually, I am curious to see if he is creative enough to break a single clod of new ground in the ages-old arena of religious controversy. Probably not, but you never know. When I'm done I'll sell it or give it away.

The Goshawk, T.H. White, used paperback, 50 cents. Animal story.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972, Hunter S. Thompson, used paperback, 50 cents. I lived through this back when it happened the first time. I am a masochist to want to go back and recall it with any vividness. I should be kicked in the head.

I am told that the answer is "no" to the Dawkins, but maybe you'll find something.

I am reading a book from the 50s about the history of the book before the printing press. Its title is something similar to that. It is the sort of book from the 50s that likes to talk about today's "primitive" people, and how the "Oriental man" is "naturally suited" to singing. Still, some good stuff in there, and nice (if black-and-white) pictures.

For birthday/Christmas:

Nine Hundred Grandmothers by R.A. Lafferty (lover of the Russian Queen)
Nadja by André Breton
Platform by Michelle Houellebecq
The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian by Robin Lane-Fox
The Further Adventures of the Queen Mum by Harry Hill

I got just one book for Christmas: Justin Paton's <i>How to Look at a Painting</i>. It's fabulous so far, and very kiwi. Excellent for homesick old me.

Received for Christmas:
So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State - Forrest Church

Today I bought Atlas Shrugged and The Story of a Nobody by Checkhov.

I knew that looked wrong, Chekhov.

I think you'll find the second book is waaaay better than the first, 'I Know'.

merry xmas, me!

jaroslav hasek - the good soldier svejk
knut hamsun - hunger
irving sandler - from avant-garde to pluralism: an on-the-spot history
muriel spark - everyman library novella collection with the prime of miss jean brodie and the girls of slender means
witold gombrowicz - cosmos/pornografia two-fer
jg ballard - concrete island
richard burton - prague: a cultural history
norman davies - both volumes of god's playground: a history of poland and the heart of europe: the past in poland's present
out-of-print (i think) 4-volume "writers from the other europe" series that has: milan kundera - laughable loves, bruno schulz - sanatorium under the sign of the hourglass, tadeusz borowski - this way for the gas, ladies and gentlemen, and danilo kis - a tomb for boris davidovich
anne tyler - the accidental tourist
italo calvino - if on a winter's night, a traveler
joyce carol oates - because it is bitter and because it is my heart and you must remember this
joan didion - the year of magical thinking
celine - journey to the end of the night
the collected stories of eudora welty
stanislaw lem - solaris
walter m. miller, jr. - a canticle for leibowitz
hannah higgins - the fluxus experience

Are those books you received as gifts, or books you bought for yourself as gifts? Either way: excellent haul. Cosmos is faaaaabulous.

all gifts. and i apparently have two more on the way because amazon is sloooooow

I'm curious about that Fluxus book now. Let us know how it is.

My Name is Red, Orhan Pamuk, used paperback in new condition, $1.99 at Goodwill. It's a Faber edition and when I got it home I found a sales slip from Paris, France. Looks quite interesting, but it will have to get in line like everyone else.

OK, Joe, you can marry me after all.

How many Richard Burtons are there?

My Name is Red is a great book. Deserving of just as much praise that "Snow" has gotten the past few years. It's a good book to sink into, in that it feels mysterious because of its setting and tone as much as because it is, at base, about a murder(er).

Today I bought a collection of Nabokov short stories for a buck at the Strand.

Music for Chameleons Truman Capote
Licks of Love John Updike
A Good Man is Hard to Find Flannery O'Connor
Nine Stories JD Salinger

And a couple other things I can't seem to remember for the life of me.

"jaroslav hasek - the good soldier svejk
knut hamsun - hunger

muriel spark - everyman library novella collection with the prime of miss jean brodie and the girls of slender means
witold gombrowicz - cosmos/pornografia two-fer

out-of-print (i think) 4-volume "writers from the other europe" series that has: , bruno schulz - sanatorium under the sign of the hourglass, , and danilo kis - a tomb for boris davidovich
italo calvino - if on a winter's night, a traveler

celine - journey to the end of the night
"

harlot,this is what i read from your list,and it's all masterpieces.
esp. the east european stuff.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find Flannery O'Connor "

one of the best short stories collection ever written.powerfull as hell.

Uncle Wiggily in Conneticut is one of my favourite stories of all time xxpost

Finally getting around to A Sport and A Pastime. Racy!

Thirding the O'Connor favourite-ing.
Now there's a horrible sentence.

Jack London - To Build a Fire and Other Stories

I'm embarking on some ambitious pre-law reading, using this list as a starting point:

http://www.amazon.com/Favorite-Pre-Law-School-Recommendations-Amazon/lm/3GJSC216GWISB

Ordered first three books:
- Death of Contract by Grant Gilmore
- To Steal a Book is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization by William Alford
- A History of American Law by Lawrence Friedman

also Discipline & Punish by Foucault, which is also from that list buit probably less directly related.

in my amazon cart (which i never order EVERYTHING from but mostly use as to-buy reminder list, select a few at a time:

Matter - Iain M Banks; Hardcover
20th Century Selected Poems - Osip Mandelshtam; Paperback
My Last Sigh - Luis Bunuel; Paperback
Vertigo - W Sebald; Paperback
Selected Stories of Robert Walser - Susan Sontag; Paperback
Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York - Luc Sante; Paperback
I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941 - Victor Klemperer; Paperback
I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1942-1945 - Victor Klemperer; Paperback
Chess Story - Stefan Zweig; Paperback
Notes on the Cinematographer - Robert Bresson; Paperback
H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life - Michel Houellebecq; Paperback

ok i just ordered the banks, the bunuel and the mandelshtam... somewhat at random.

Fantagraphics had a 1/2 off spring cleaning warehouse sale and I got 3 Krazy Kat & Ignatz compilations, 5 Love & Rockets collections, Ellen Forney's I Love Led-Zeppelin and the graphic adaptation of Paul Auster's City of Glass.

Score!

I am trying not to buy books, sadly.

just bought Lush Life and the Savage Detectives, started the latter.

the ol' bookshelf is getting a little crowded, i think it's time to part with some things.

Always picking them up on the cheap. Only way to live.

Friederich Durrenmatt - The Execution of Justice
Germaine Greer - The Female Enuch
Durgnat on film
William Empson - Some Versions of Pastoral
Robert E.Howard - Conan The Usurper
Nietzche - The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner
Trotsky - The Young Lenin and A Life
Andrea Dworkin - Letters from a Warzone
William Vollmann - The Rainbow Stories
A copy of the I Ching
Three Negro Plays

A week ago I visited my favorite charity bookshop and picked up:

Poems of William Cullen Bryant, a used hardcover 'blue-cloth with gilt decorations, printed on superfine India paper' edition, issued in the Oxford Standard Authors series, for 50 cents. (I'm not a big fan of Bryant, but at that price I'll bite, especially since it takes almost no shelf space.)

A Homeric Dictionary, used paperback. It covers a lot of the specialized or archaic words Homer used, such as ones describing the ship's tackle. 50 cents.

Mr. Sammler's Planet, Saul Bellow. Used paperback in good shape, 50 cents. Reading material for a camping/hiking trip.

Six volumes of Robert Browning's poetry. Parts of the Ohio edition are stupidly cheap (£5 a throw) at the moment & I've only ever had the eye-bleed double-column collected before now. Almost feels wrong to be reading him on a decent page.

Waiting on these from Bookmooch:

Edward Abbey - Desert Solitaire
Michel Houllebecq - Elementary Particles

love finding older hardcover sci-fi books at the thrift store for some reason. though i don't know when i'll get around to reading them all. anyway, found really cool stuff last week (mostly book club editions, but what the hell, for a dollar i'm not picky) got some non-sci-fi stuff too:

element 79 - fred hoyle (this looks CRAZY)

freezing down - anders bodelsen (great cover! danish writer. never heard of him. don't think he was specifically a sci-fi writer)

74 annual world's best sci-fi (DAW)

no one belongs here more than you - miranda july (i know people hate her and love her and hate her? i don't know much about her. the dave eggars quote on the back where he says that lorrie moore fans will want to rub this book all over themselves almost kept me from buying it. eww!)

the werewolf principle - clifford d. simak

ursula k. leguin - the lathe of heaven (such a nice copy! dust jacket and everything)

one step from earth - harry harrison

chocky - john wyndham

a collection from 1959 called *science fiction showcase* with phil k. dick and richard matheson and lots of other biggies

the worlds of clifford d. simak

the ophiuchi hotline - john varley

brothers of earth - c.j. cherryh

in the ocean of night - gregory benford

the persistence of vision - john varley

all the traps of earth - clifford d. simak

the ice people - rene barjavel

nova - samuel r. delany

up the walls of the world - james tiptree jr.

the ring of charon - roger macbride allen

beasts - john crowley

also a larry brown book i've never read. but he ain't sci-fi he's downhome cookin'.

I just ordered The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara, trade paperbound, from Amazon for $18.15.

the new one, right? i have the old collection with the larry rivers cover. the new one has lots more stuff in it, i think.

right, the new one.

There's a new collected? I heard about a new selected, but... hunh!

My mistake. The publication date for the Collected Poems in paperbound is Mar 31, 1995, Not "new" by any sensible measure. The Selected Poems has a pub date in 2007.

I enjoyed Lytle Shaw's book on Frank O'Hara, "The Poetics of Coterie", although the last few chapters (on his art writing) didn't do much for me.

Scott's got some good ones in that haul: I loved Crowley's 'Beasts', Wyndham's 'Chocky', Le Guin's 'Lathe of Heaven' and Varley's 'Opiuchi Hotline'.

i will start with those then!

(after i finish the larry brown book i'm reading. shouldn't take me long.)