'The Royal Game' is ace, and 'Egil's Saga' is good neck-hewing, mighty-thewed drama, too.
― James Morrison, Wednesday, 25 June 2008 23:11 (sixteen years ago) link
today was the last day of the big four day west tisbury book sale. first day, full price. 2nd day, half price. 3rd day, half of that. 4th day, FREE. an entire school gymnasium filled with books. man, i tell you, if i owned a used book store on cape cod, i would be down here with a u-haul truck on free day. people were bringing in dollies and carts and you name it. anyway, i'm getting pickier in my old age, but i still found good stuff to take home. this was the first year that i didn't go early on the first day all breathless like i used to. i went yesterday with the kids and let them grab as many books as they could fit into shopping bags and i perused the cheap videos and got some of them.
here's what i bagged today for FREE!!!!!!:
curtis white - the middle mind (looks like it's right up my cranky alley.)
sylvia townsend warner - selected stories
alfred kazin - starting out in the thirties (always wanted to read this. still need a copy of a walker in the city.)
angela carter - shaking a leg - collected writing (i always pick up angela carter paperbacks and someday i will read them! i think i just like the idea of angela carter.)
hrold brodkey - the world is the home of love & death - stories (i was a big fan of stories in an almost classical mode. his stories can kinda tire you out though. the intensity and feverishness never really lets up.)
angela carter - burning your boats - collected short stories
alice munro - the progress of love (nice 1st ed. hardcover)
theodore sturgeon - god body
john cheever - the stories (super-clean hardcover copy of the massive 1978 collection.)
women of wonder - the contemporary years - science fiction by women from the 1970's to the 1990's (very cool collection! and now i want the previous 40's to 70's volume.)
klaus kinski - kinski uncut
marianne wiggins - bet they'll miss us when we're gone - stories
harlan ellison - an edge in my voice (huge collection of his newspaper/magazine column writing. WAY more harlan ranting than ANYONE would ever need, but i couldn't resist it. good for dipping into the mind of a lunatic.)
mavis gallant - in transit - stories
alfred kazin - an american procession (american writers 1830-1930)
john le carre - a perfect spy (i've never read any le carre. philip roth calls this book "the best english novel since the war" on the back cover. so, i figured it was a good place to start.)
jincy willett - jenny & the jaws of life - stories (reissue of the 80's collection with a forward by david sedaris who calls it "the funniest collection of stories i've ever read." so, there you go.)
stella gibbons - cold comfort farm (julie burchill calls it "very probably the funniest book ever written." so, there you go. love the movie. never read the book. looking forward to it. was it m.coleman who nominated it on the funny book thread?)
gary soto - buried onions
elizabeth bowen - the last september
dorothy allison - cavedweller
brian moore - the great victorian collection
ann beattie - perfect recall - stories
jonathan cott - conversations with glenn gould
edmund wilson - axel's castle (i've read it, but i couldn't remember if i owned a copy.)
richard bausch - the fireman's wife - stories
elizabeth hardwick - a view of my own - essays
e.b. white - writings from the new yorker 1925-1976
claire messud - the emperor's children (i remember hearing this was good. it's in large print though! have you ever read a book in large print? i never have. i guess you get used to it.)
peter devries - let me count the ways (started reading this a month ago and i got a hundred pages in and there were 20 pages missing from the book! a printing error. so, it just so happens that the only devries book at this sale happened to be the same book WITH the missing pages. now i can finish it.)
bill hicks - love all the people - letters, lyrics, routines
richard yates - young hearts crying
kate atkinson - behind the scenes at the museum
paula fox - desperate characters (i've read it, but i'd like to read it again.)
― scott seward, Monday, 28 July 2008 18:09 (sixteen years ago) link
wow!
recently purchased from dudes selling books in front of library (where i do about 95% of my book shopping):
balzac - pere goriot zola - therese rayquin wharton - summer gide - the counterfeiters
― impudent harlot, Monday, 28 July 2008 18:34 (sixteen years ago) link
I just ordered "The Conquest of the Incas" by John Hemming.
― o. nate, Monday, 28 July 2008 19:13 (sixteen years ago) link
Holy fuck, Scott, I can't believe you got those free. Some amazing stuff in there--the Jincy Willett is one of the best books of short stories I've ever read.
― James Morrison, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 00:22 (sixteen years ago) link
it's a circle game. it's a library sale and on the last day all the other libraries on the island get first dibs and they cart off loads of books for THEIR sales, and the people like me, dragging home all these books, end up giving them to the thrift store (well, i don't that much, but most people do) or donating them later for next year's sale!
i should actually get some stuff together for the thrift store. stuff i won't read again or will never read.
this woman i work with brought two big boxes of books in to work to make room for all the books she knew she would end up getting at the sale. she just put them out for people to take. i ended up taking home, like, 20 of her books a couple of weeks ago!
(it's a bookish place)
― scott seward, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 00:52 (sixteen years ago) link
people are still sad about the bunch of grapes bookstore here burning up. people loved it. i never buy new books, so my feelings aren't as strong. i'm just glad nobody was hurt. it was a handsome book store though. if i weren't so cash-deprived i'm sure i would have bought stuff there.
you can watch it burn if you happen to be a bibliofirebug:
http://vineyard.plumtv.com/videos/main_street_fire_vineyard_haven
― scott seward, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 00:59 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.mvgazette.com/images/photocache/gallery_photo/2284.jpg
http://www.mvgazette.com/images/photocache/gallery_photo/2282.jpg
― scott seward, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 01:03 (sixteen years ago) link
I went to Value Village and got 2 Poirot books, an old mm ppbck of Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward, and Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay. Awesome.
― franny glass, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 19:30 (sixteen years ago) link
Those photos are sad.
― James Morrison, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 22:32 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah. they are.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 01:10 (sixteen years ago) link
I found the used bookstore near campus that has the nice scholarly titles.
R.L. Ullman, Ancient Writing and its Influence Marie de France, Fables Mitchen and Robinson, A Guide To Old English various, Medieval Literary Criticism George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things
― Casuistry, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 03:07 (sixteen years ago) link
Swamp Thing Vol 2: Love and Death, Alan Moore/Stephen Bissette
― Niles Caulder, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 10:27 (sixteen years ago) link
first edition hardcovers of raymond carver's cathedral, where i'm calling from and what we talk about when we talk about love
two alice munro collections
descent of man by t.c. boyle
ultramarine by raymond carver
― Rubyredd, Sunday, 17 August 2008 17:41 (sixteen years ago) link
got that new george pelecanos and junot diaz's 'drown' through my hookup
― Jordan, Thursday, 21 August 2008 17:02 (sixteen years ago) link
If anyone likes the Sopranos, go buy "Close" by Martina Cole. I got it as a gift and it's mesmerizing.
― Finefinemusic, Thursday, 21 August 2008 17:07 (sixteen years ago) link
Edward Dahlberg - Because I Was Flesh Mark Crispin Miller - Boxed In: The Culture of TV Basil Bunting - On Poetry Harry Mathews & Alastair Brotchie - Oulipo Compendium Egil Skallagrimsson's Saga Gilgamesh & Atrahasis (single volume)
― Øystein, Thursday, 21 August 2008 18:15 (sixteen years ago) link
I've been book-shopping at my usual cheap bookstores. It's time to 'fess up.
The Spoils of Poynton, Henry James, in a used Penguin Modern Classics paperback, for 50 cents.
On the Shortness of Life, Seneca, in a used Penguin 'Great Ideas' paperback (prob. just one of his many published letters) for 50 cents.
Short Stories: volume 1; A Shahib's War and Other Stories, Rudyard Kipling, in a Penguin Modern Classics used paperback, for $1.99.
The Collosus of Maroussi, Henry Miller, a Penguin used paperback for $1.99. Purchased more for the Greek content than for the Henry Miller authorship.
What is Poetry, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, good condition used paperback for 50 cents. Might be a dud. Too cheap to refuse.
― Aimless, Friday, 22 August 2008 01:31 (sixteen years ago) link
"Edward Dahlberg - Because I Was Flesh"
Yay!! My Hero!
er, dahlberg is. but you too!
― scott seward, Friday, 22 August 2008 05:02 (sixteen years ago) link
becoming a writer - dorothea brande empire falls - richard russo mind of clover: zen buddhist ethics - robert aitken
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 22 August 2008 06:12 (sixteen years ago) link
Yay!! My Hero! Woohoo!
er, dahlberg is. Oh...
but you too! Woohoo!
― Øystein, Friday, 22 August 2008 12:54 (sixteen years ago) link
Bought a used 5-volume collection of Norse sagas. Shame I bought Egil's saga just a couple of days ago, as this contains the same translation. Also got Carmen Laforet's "Nada".
― Øystein, Saturday, 23 August 2008 14:47 (sixteen years ago) link
I went to Powell's Books where I traded in some books I didn't want to keep - and came home with:
Complete Novels of Flann O'Brien, in the new Everyman hardcover edition, $25. This purchase was just an upgrade, from some fusty old paperbacks I already owned to a new hard cover.
Collected Poems: 1943-2004, Richard Wilbur, a new (remaindered) paperback edition for $8.98. A middling good poet. He doesn't get too far from the concrete, which I like about him. He is pleasant, too, but that only gets you so far. Passion is unfortunately rare in his work. Wit does make some appearances.
― Aimless, Monday, 1 September 2008 01:25 (sixteen years ago) link
christina stead - the man who loved children tom mccarthy - remainder jason lutes - berlin: city of stones woody allen - without feathers chris adrian - the children's hospital
― t_g, Tuesday, 2 September 2008 09:28 (sixteen years ago) link
I bought the set of six for $15 at the book festival todayhttp://www.postmodernlibrary.com/
I liked the concept (even though I could probably just use the internet to the same effect) and the aesthetic, and I was impressed with the guy's idea in an entrepreneurial way as well.
― Everything is Highlighted (Hurting 2), Monday, 15 September 2008 00:44 (sixteen years ago) link
Notting Hill Comic and Book Exchange made me happy. Compact OEDII for £30. Eyebleed city! Also Wedekind's Lulu plays (trans Stephen Spender) & Journey to a War by Auden/Isherwood for a couple of pounds each.
― woofwoofwoof, Monday, 15 September 2008 08:58 (sixteen years ago) link
Just had to put all my books into storage because I am currently of no fixed abode. The only solution was... to buy more books, cheap as possible.
The Fashion in Shrouds - Margery Allingham (one of the supposed queens of '30s and onward detective story fiction, for those who don't know)
Very strange style. Remarkably stilted. Something about the way psychological observations keep on intruding into the dialogue. Also contains things like 'mental' used in a sort of modern way -'My dear girl, forgive me. I was thinking aloud. I forgot you were in this. I'm mental.'
And this advice to an upset woman, from Albert Campion himself:'What you need, my girl, is a good cry or a nice rape— either, I should think.'
Makes your eyes water don't it.
Also
Mere Christianity by CS Lewis, from a series of wartime lectures on the radio. A sort of step by step guide as to why you should believe in God. Of historical interest mainly. Some of the presuppositions sound odd to the modern ear, certainly not for cultural relativists.
Got a volume of selected Keats and became mildly obsessed with Ode to a Nightingale. Contains both the rather silly 'blushful Hippocrene' (sounds like a pompous twerp at a dinner party - 'Spot of the blushful Hippocrene, Ratsey? Not bad if I do say so myself), and also 'Bacchus and his pards' - I say, you ARE a poet, Keats old chap aren't you?
But also the beautiful 'tender is the night', 'Now more than ever seems it rich to die,/To cease upon the midnight with no pain.'
So I kept on reading it over and over like a moonstruck victim of calf love.
― GamalielRatsey, Tuesday, 16 September 2008 18:50 (sixteen years ago) link
Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace, in a well-used paperback edition that was printed in Great Britain (Abacus) and somehow found its way to my local thrift book shop, for 50 cents. I think this copy could survive one more reading before starting to shed random leaves.
Practising History: Selected Essays, Barbara Tuchman, in a used paperback, for $1. I like her approach to history at least half the time.
The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins, in a used Penguin paperback edition, for 50 cents. There is an off chance I will read this and like it. I am willing to give it a try.
― Aimless, Saturday, 18 October 2008 01:22 (fifteen years ago) link
C'mon, Wilbur is front-rank, a master of restraint.
Robert Lyons Danly, ed., In the Shade of Spring Leaves, the Life and Writings of Higuchi Ichiyo, A Woman of Letters in Meiji Japan. Completely unknown to me, but it won a translation award.Edward P. Jones, The Known World.Pio Baroja, The Restlessness of Shanti Andia. Also completely unknown to me.
That last one was, uh, "free", never mind why.
― alimosina, Saturday, 18 October 2008 02:56 (fifteen years ago) link
Mishima - After the BanquetKobo Abe - The Face of AnotherA nice looking comp of Hart Crane's poetryCortazar - The Blow-up and Other storiesNathalie Saurrate - ChildhoodGeorge Steiner - On difficulty and other essaysKenneth Tynan - A view of the English StageHarry Matthews - CigarettesMarguerite Duras - The Sailor from GibraltarThomas M.Disch - 334Before the Golden Age 2 (ed. Asimov)
Pity I can't read as fast as I find.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 18 October 2008 16:29 (fifteen years ago) link
'The Moonstone' is great, but Collins' 'The Woman in White' is even better.
― James Morrison, Saturday, 18 October 2008 23:43 (fifteen years ago) link
I got my bookstore fix today at Powell's City of Books and Goodwill. I came home with:
Collected Poems, Mary Barnard, with an introduction by William Stafford, in a used hard cover, first (& possibly the only) printing, published in 1979 by Breitenbush Books. She's a local poet who achieved a minor national reputation. Her best known work was a translation of Sappho. This was in very good shape at $6.95.
White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946-2006, Donald Hall. Used paperback in nice condition for $8.95. He was Poet Laureate of the USA for a couple of years. (These days they hand that title around pretty rapidly, which is a nice bit of publicity for the recipient and helps them sell a few more books of poetry.)
The Great Influenza, John M. Barry, used paperback for $3.99. A history of the 1919-20 epidemic that killed 20,000,000 people. The blurbs made it sound very promising.
― Aimless, Sunday, 19 October 2008 03:27 (fifteen years ago) link
Picked up Louis MacNeice's Collected Poems (the nice hardback edition from last year) for half price in a second hand bookshop, good as new! Ha cha cha! (Gamaliel Ratsey does an ill-advices jig).
Also picked up for a friend's birthday Hag's Nook by John Dickson Carr - the first of the Gideon Fell mysteries, and picked up The Mad Hatter Mystery and Poison in Jest by him for myself at the same time.
― GamalielRatsey, Friday, 31 October 2008 09:45 (fifteen years ago) link
I did some book shopping today as a birthday self-indulgence. I brought home:
Notes From the Air: Selected Later Poems, by John Ashberry in a new (remaindered) hardcover edition, for a mere $12.95. I've been eyeing this for months, but was unwilling to splurge $35 for it. I didn't have to, after all.
Collected Poems, by Patrick Kavanagh, used paperback in very good condition for $6.50.
Poems & Other Writings, by Henry W. Longfellow, used in excellent condition, in the Library of America hard cover edition for $9.95. This is a beautifully printed and designed book that makes it much easier to read L's poetry, which is a needlessly difficult chore in cheap editions.
― Aimless, Sunday, 9 November 2008 02:22 (fifteen years ago) link
in the Library of America hard cover edition for $9.95. This is a beautifully printed and designed book that makes it much easier to read L's poetry, which is a needlessly difficult chore in cheap editions.
what's the deal with library of america editions? whenever i read philip roth, there's that foreword about how his work is being published in definitive library editions etc etc. i looked through some once, and it was like three-books-in-one with really tiny print. is this appealing? is this the same thing?
i am just about to finish the new roth, anyway, and am otherwise trucking through non fiction like manifesta etc
― schlump, Sunday, 9 November 2008 04:41 (fifteen years ago) link
Meridon, Phillipa Gregory
― 100 Days, 100 Nights (Susan), Sunday, 9 November 2008 04:41 (fifteen years ago) link
Novel 11, Book 18 (Dag Solstad)
Edition 69 (Vitezslav Nezval)
The Book of Other People (Zadie Smith, ed.)
Life: A User's Manual (Georges Perec)
― AndyTheScot, Sunday, 9 November 2008 08:51 (fifteen years ago) link
A new translation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin by Stanley Mitchell (see how this measure up to the Charles Johnston one I love)England under the Norman and Anvengin kings 1075-1225, Robert BartlettThe closing of the western mind, Charles Freeman
― Shacknasty (Frogman Henry), Sunday, 9 November 2008 08:59 (fifteen years ago) link
Infinite Jest by David Foster WallaceThe Man Without Qualities by Robert MusilThe Book Of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
(20% off at Waterstones, so I splurged)
― krakow, Sunday, 9 November 2008 11:12 (fifteen years ago) link
got orhan pamuk's "snow" at a hospital book fair for $1
― Jordan, Sunday, 9 November 2008 14:36 (fifteen years ago) link
Schlump, yes, those Roth ones are the same Library of America series. I wouldn't be at all sure about them for novels, but for poetry and other things they're incredible: there just aren't any collections of eg Pound, Bishop, Stevens, Ashbery that can compete. Also the easiest way to get hold of a lot of shorter works by big prose writers, as in the Twain set. Nice, durable editions: paper's thin, and they can be a bit cramped compared to individual volumes, but not enough to be a serious issue for me. I think I'd rather read a paperback of a novel though. The Ashbery Collected Poems -1987 is my latest purchase. Have also shaken the publishing tree for a copy of 2666 by Bolano.
― woofwoofwoof, Monday, 10 November 2008 14:24 (fifteen years ago) link
"Slow Learner", Thomas Pynchon. Had to stop myself getting Vol 2 of "Man Without Qualities" and "The Third Policeman" (better books I know but I've nearly finished G Rainbow and don't want to, kinda)
― Niles Caulder, Thursday, 13 November 2008 03:52 (fifteen years ago) link
Today's purchases:
The March of Folly, Barbara Tuchman, used hardcover, no dust jacket, $1.50. I am not in the mood for unreliable narrators.
A Blistered Kind of Love, Angela Ballard and Duffy Ballard, used paperback, Mountaineers Books Press, $2.50. This book probably is not literature in any sense I would recognize. It has to do with my much-loved hobby - long-distance trekking in the mountains of the western USA. In this case, it describes a thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail - approx 2,650 miles in about 6 months. I need this kind of book to read during the winter doldrums, when the trails I love are buried under snow.
― Aimless, Saturday, 15 November 2008 01:25 (fifteen years ago) link
Donald Barthelme 40 Stories, Gilbert Hernandez Human Diastrophism, Frank Moorhouse Loose Living, Michael Moorcock Behold the Man
― Niles Caulder, Wednesday, 26 November 2008 05:31 (fifteen years ago) link
The Barthelme is great. The Moorcock is clever, mildly pulpy fun. I've yet to really enjoy a Frank Moorhouse: I can see what he's trying to do, it just doesn't really grab me admittedly the books of his I've read were VERY 70s-ish in their concerns and politics, and had not aged terribly well).
― James Morrison, Wednesday, 26 November 2008 06:47 (fifteen years ago) link
Yeah he's a v 60s/70s political/boho sort of guy, it doesn't really bother me (or I don't really notice) when it comes out in the books... have you read Forty-Seventeen?
― Niles Caulder, Thursday, 27 November 2008 01:32 (fifteen years ago) link
I haven't, but just Googled it and it looks really interesting, actually.
― James Morrison, Thursday, 27 November 2008 03:27 (fifteen years ago) link
Housekeeping - Marilynne RobinsonBrief Encounters with Che Guevara - Ben FountainThe Man who made Vermeers - Jonathon Lopez
― badg, Thursday, 27 November 2008 03:37 (fifteen years ago) link
I've had so much good (lucky) charity shop shopping lately that I've been spending too much on books even though I haven't paid over £2 for one. And my single lonely bookcase is both full and under the strain of precarious towers of books stacked on top of it. I think my choicest finds have been 1970s Picador editions of Richard Brautigan's 'Sombrero Fallout' and 'The Abortion' for 50p each, hidden away in a discount tub with tattered self-help guides, romance novels and maps. Maybe my first ever find that would be considered a good one by anyone but myself!
My most recent shop got me 'The Name of the Rose', 'London Fields' (on a six-month old recommendation), and 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius' (on a six-year old recommendation. I'm a bad friend) for £1.50 each, I'm happy with that, at least until I read them and hate them.
― Merdeyeux, Friday, 28 November 2008 03:05 (fifteen years ago) link
Mishima - Thirst for LoveAlexander Trocchi - Young AdamDjuna Barnes - NightwoodOlaf Stapleton - SiriusK.W. Jeter - Dr.AdderG. Cabrera Infante - Three Trapped TigersBoris Vian - I Spit on Your Graves
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 28 November 2008 14:48 (fifteen years ago) link