Nu-ILB: What books have you purchased lately?

That's the middle one of the Shelby Footers, isn't it? I bought them for my dad a while ago. I remember thinking that he was maybe a bit pro-Southern... the stuff in the first book about how Jefferson Davis would only punish any of his slaves after they had been convicted by a jury of their peers struck me as being a bit O RLY. And in the volume you have he never even mentions Joshua Chamberlain at the battle of Gettysburg.

Sorry, that's my inner nerd coming out.

The Figes book is great crack. Maybe I should read it from cover to cover some time.

IR buy with birthday book tokens:

William Dalrymple's The Last Mughal, about the last Mughal Emperor and the Indian mutiny. I get the impression that this book will be a bit sadface. I've been meaning to read something by Dalrymple for a while, and am currently on an India kick (having just finished Mike Dash's Thug

Alan George's Jordan, a book about the country of Jordan. I am not *that* interested in Jordan, given that it is a boring country made up of leftover bits of other countries, but I found Alan George's book on Syria very interesting.

two textbooks!
the resettlement of british columbia: essays on colonialism and geographic change by cole harris
and a double issue of bc studies from 1997/98.

We had a Vancouverite poet read tonight, and I liked her work. N@talie Simps0n.

I seem to be on an east Asian religion bender lately. Yesterday I bought:

The Diamond Sutra, translated by Red Pine, with extensive commentaries, from Sanskrit and Chinese. Trade paperback in excellent condition. It was US$14.00 at Powell's, but I had $13.50 in trade and I used that.

The Book of Tea, Okakuro Kakuzo, used hardcover in a slipcase, a bit warped, but in decent shape. This is one of the older Tuttle editions that were printed in Japan. I owned this long ago and I don't exactly consider it indispensible, but it was nice to find a cheap (US$3.00) copy in OK condition.

i do not know that poet, but will recognise her name now if i see it!

i had a good day at value villiage:
-"night of the shooting star" by dan vipond. a 1970's conspiracy/thriller, set entirely in the canadian wilderness!
-"fellowship of the stars", a 1974 sci-fi anthology focused on "the friendship between humans and beings from other dimensions"
-"the tent peg", by aritha van herk. western canadian lit, about misfits ending up in the yukon.
-"survival: a thematic guide to canadian literature", by margaret atwood. a classic and a steal at $1.99
-"roadside empire: how the chains franchised america" by stan luxenburg. from 1985, all about the historical development of franchising in the US and the subsequent effect on cultural expectations.
-"act of faith: an illustrated history of the reform party" - a 1991 history of the western-based PC splinter that became canada's official opposition by 1997 and, in a vague sense, is currently in government.

I bought 2 Coetzees today, 'Waiting for the Barbarians' which is one of my favourites, and 'The Life and Times of Michael K' which I've not read before. Also 'Pale Fire' because I don't own a copy and was feeling rich.

Also 'Pale Fire' because I don't own a copy and was feeling rich.

Damn good excuse.

I prefer to think of it as a rationale.

A remainder-fest:

Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse, and Parasites Like Us (can't remember either author, but looked promising)
Mark Salzman: The Soloist, The Laughing Sutra
Robert Frost:Early Poems
The Letters of Sacco & Vanzetti
Somerset Maugham: Mrs. Craddock, The Razor's Edge
Hesse: Siddhartha (I'll probably regret this one, even at $3)
Hannah Arendt: Between Past and Future
DH Lawrence: England, My England and Other Stories
Iris Murdoch: The Good Apprentice, The Bell
Pynchon: Vineland
DuBois: The Souls of Black Folk
Conrad: `Twixt Land and Sea
Garland: A Son of the Middle Border

I visited my favorite cheapie bookstore today and came away with:

One Man's Meat, E.B. White, a collection of essays from the WWII years and just prior. A 1944 "new and enlarged' edition, hardcover with dust jacket, in good shape, $3.

Saints and Strangers, George F. Willision, in a 1945 hardcover edition, $1. This is a history of the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony, starting from their days in England, up through exile in Holland and the voyage to North America. It seems to paint a pretty realistic picture of them.

The Golden Casket: Chinese Novellas of Two Millenia{, tr. into English by Christopher Levenson, from a German translation from the original Chinese. (Whew!) This is a used Penguin paperback in marginal condition and I don't think it ever sold very well, because I've never seen it before today. It seemed worth a tumble for 50 cents.

Beauty and Sadness - Kawabata Yasunari
The Stain in the Snow - Georges Simenon
Breakfast with the Ones you Love - Eliot Finushel
Alphabet of Thorn - Patricia McKillip
Varieties of Disturbances - Lydia Davis
Call Me By Your Name - Andre Aciman

Lonely (or is it Lovely?) Bones. Seems to be good.
Fast Food Nation (for less than 3 dollars!)
Cheap ass chicken recipe book (less than a dollar!)
Children Recipe book

I traded a bunch of books at Powell's yesterday and used up some of my credit to upgrade my paperback copy of The Dream Songs by John Berryman, to a used hardcover copy. It is a first printing (which I don't care about) in standard condition, and was heavily marked in pencil by the previous owner, so it was marked down to $15 from an overly optimistic $30. I have been busily erasing the pencil markings.

I also picked up a nice harcover edition of The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pisan and translated by Earl Richards. It was only $7.

Earlier this week I picked up a used copy of Ernie Pyle's posthumously published Home Country for $1. It's a just cobbled-together rehash of his journalism from before WWII, but I enjoy Pyle's style and observations, just as his millions of loyal newspaper readers did, so it's fine by me. He was another of those Indiana boys who mastered typing, like Vonnegut.

Bookmooched recently:

Jose Ortega y Gasset - History as a System
Christopher Lasch - Revolt of the Elites

Impulse bought Someday I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman and that Miranda July book, borrowing the new Arthur Philips and Consider the Lobster.

I do like that Book of the City of Ladies.

I think I am off to the Strand now.

I bought one of those Aberystwyth detective novels, in the hope that my unread book mountain will assume critical mass and blow up the world.

Oh, and I also bought Gore Vidal's memoir, Palimpsest, which was on sale at the Strand Annex.

Yesterday:

JR by William Gaddis, in a used in-new-condition Penguin paperback edition, $4.99. Constant favorable effusions by ILBers led me to buy this book.

Plutarch's Lives VII: Demosthenes and Cicero, Alexander and Caesar in a used Loeb classical library edition, $2.99. I cannot pass up any Loeb edition less than $5. I just can't.

Picked up Cronopios and Famas by Cortazar and Calvino's The Baron in the Trees on some old store credit I forgot I had yesterday.

Not a purchase, but my mommy was in town last week and left me a couple of her books:

Wild Latitudes by Barbara Else (a Kiwi)
The Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens (which was actually her Christmas present from me last year, but which I am more than happy to get back)

my university gave me book tokens:

philip dick, 'four novels of the 1960s'
- notes (tho no introduction, hrmf) from jonathan lethem. i already own all the actual novels. but it's a library of america edition of philip k dick, hey.
daniil kharms, 'incidences'
dee goong an, 'the celebrated cases of judge dee'
- looks bizarre. an 18th-century historian's detective novel version of seventh-century chinese legal cases, englished in the 1940's by a dutchman.
david foster wallace, 'infinite jest' (10th anniversary 10 dollar ed)
- i don't know why i felt i needed a second copy.
tove jansson, 'moomin: the complete tove jansson comic strip'
- one wonders if they'll publish her brother's.

i picked up incidences at random, i didn't realise he was on here already. huh.

Found an old paperback of Elaine Dundy's "The Dud Avocado".
To quote the cover: "The blithe and bubbling bestseller about an American girl who goes to Paris to be naughty-- and quite often succeeds!"
Well!

Also picked up a bunch of old science fiction paperbacks for a bonus-gift for my father. Intend to wrap a stack (well, five) of them in newspaper and tie it up with some old string to make a nice hobo-gift. I got a raise at work today, so clearly I'm intoxicated by money!

When you read it, do tell us if it succeeds in being "blithe and bubbling", while yet remaining readable. This is a difficult feat, worthy of homage.

I've read a few chapters of it and so far it does succeed at that- it's like Holly Golightly telling her story in the first person. Although maybe that is a cause for worry, that all will not end well.

The NYRB classics just released a new edition of Dud Avocado last month.

i have been on an austerity program and not buying and trying to read some of the hundreds of friggin' books that i own and haven't read. which can be difficult now that there is an ace book store next door to my house! but it must be done. EXCEPT i did buy books for the store. i needed some new color in the place and i bought three boxes of wholesale books for the front window. its back to school season after all. soooo, i did cop a few for myself. the last Joe Ide crime novel. the last Nick Petrie crime novel. a nice hardcover of Oil! by Upton Sinclair. 2 and 3 of Vernon Subutex (i haven't even read 1 that i've had forever.). What Are You Going Through and A Feather On The Breath Of God by Sigrid Nunez because you guys keep talking about her. and the latest S.A. Cosby crime novel.
there. not too greedy. bought around 80 books for the store. some fun stuff. some art books. some music autobios. sly. richard thompson. raekwon.

and then i look on a shelf and notice that i already own that nick petrie book. so, the one i got today goes back to the store.

I got my maiden xpost S.A. Cosby: his latest, All The Sinners Bleed, from library, and was disappointed, esp. considering all the awards that his books have won and been nominated for, incl. this one---about which, in case that's what you actually paid money for, I'll just say don't expect too much---and maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised!

oops, you said his latest.

George Eliot - The Lifted Veil and Brother Jacob
Christopher Isherwood - Goodbye to Berlin

free library find yesterday: an old school panther paperback of john o'hara's a rage to live with a very young looking ben gazzara on the cover

I have pre-ordered a large book by Bioy Casares on Borges, but it will not be published until next year.