Nu-ILB: What books have you purchased lately?

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This Nu-ILB thread is the direct descendant of <a href="http://www.ilxor.com:8080/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=55&threadid=759">this Old Stylee ILB thread</a>. It is where we post the titles of books we have purchased recently.

As for me, this is a partial list of my book purchases of the past couple of months while ILX was undergoing its recent transgender surgery:

The Apes of God, by Wyndham Lewis, in a Penguin Modern Classics paper edition, for US$0.50. I amy not read this, but for the price I couldn't refuse to buy it.
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Another Penguin paperback, for US$1.29.
The Olive Tree and Other Essays by Aldous Huxley, in a hardbound 1936 edition from Chatto and Windus. I have enjoyed many os Huxley's essays in the past so this one may also satisfy me.
A Steele Rudd Selection from University of Queensland Press, paperbound, for US$0.50. An aussie writer from the old school. Short stories. Who knows?
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles, Vintage paperbound, for US$1.00. Never read him, but he has an interesting reputation and seems worth a buck to have a look-see.
The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers by George MacDonald Fraser; a history by author of the Flashman novels, paperbound, US $1.00.
The Pursuit of Power by William H. McNeill. A history of weaponry, tactics and who gets the upper hand and why, as compiled by a rather brilliant historian. Paperbound, US$3.00.
The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton, hardcover, US$1.00. A recent read from the library I decided to add to my permanent collection.

I'm sure I've overlooked a few, since ILX has been out of commision a great deal since Dec. 1, 2006 and I haven't kept strict track of what I bought in the interval.

What have you shelled out for lately?

― Aimless, Saturday, 3 March 2007 02:52 (2 years ago) Permalink

Let me try that link once more, but nu-ilx stylee: [Removed Illegal Link]

― Aimless, Saturday, 3 March 2007 02:54 (2 years ago) Permalink

Arggh!

― Aimless, Saturday, 3 March 2007 02:55 (2 years ago) Permalink

Surely, links back to its own threads aren't illegal -
[Removed Illegal Link]

I've been adhering to my self-instantiated edict of "Don't Buy Any More Books, What Are You Thinking, You Have to Move AGAIN In September". The library has been filling the gap, in a way. I put all the interesting titles I come across on Hold, and twice a week I check to see how many of the 6,573 other patrons who are also intent on these books have given up.

― Jaq, Saturday, 3 March 2007 04:14 (2 years ago) Permalink

HAHAHAHAHA! Nu-ILX can't link to itself????!!!! What hath Keef wrought?

― Jaq, Saturday, 3 March 2007 04:15 (2 years ago) Permalink

Move again? What?

― Casuistry, Saturday, 3 March 2007 08:41 (2 years ago) Permalink

I know, it completely sucks. When I leased this place, I was assured it would remain a rental, so I thought we'd be here for at least 2 years. But, they put it on the market the first week of Feb. and we will have to move at the end of Sept. Another giant book clear-out, whoohoo. We are thinking of going to a much much much smaller space for a year, then hopefully buying something. So, it will be a case of thinning down the library dramatically.

All of the art is in a closet. I can't see the point in hanging anything. Why even bother unpacking?

― Jaq, Saturday, 3 March 2007 15:04 (2 years ago) Permalink

Jaq, do they let you bring a hand truck full of cartons of books onto Amtrak? Or two hand trucks, maybe? If so, you should bring down a few hundred of your culls and sell them at Powell's.

― Aimless, Saturday, 3 March 2007 18:42 (2 years ago) Permalink

Not bought, but Bookmooched:

Pascal-Pensees
Laclos-Les liasons dangereuses
Jim Thompson-The Getaway
Evan Wright-Generation Kill

― C0L1N B..., Saturday, 3 March 2007 20:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

Gerard Woodward's 'A Curious Earth' and Jim Crace's 'The Pesthouse' are winging their way from the Book Depository to me at the moment. Yesterday I bought a couple of tatty old SF classics, Wilson Tucker's 'The Lincoln Hunters' and Edgar Pangborn's 'Davy'.

― James Morrison, Sunday, 4 March 2007 22:23 (2 years ago) Permalink

Adolfo Bioy Casares Asleep in the Sun
Yuri Olesha Envy
William Faulkner Collected Stories
Orhan Pamuk The White Castle
William H. Gass The World Within the Word
Daniil Kharms Incidences
Tadeusz Konwicki A Dreambook for Our Time
Felipe Alfau Chromos

― wmlynch, Monday, 5 March 2007 19:03 (2 years ago) Permalink

Khhhhhhhhhhhharms!

― Casuistry, Monday, 5 March 2007 19:05 (2 years ago) Permalink

Aimless, I'm considering the Powell's possibility. If we truly felt strong enough to show some restraint once we were there...

― Jaq, Monday, 5 March 2007 19:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

I have to try this link again. I think I left the quote marks in. this Old Stylee ILB thread

― Jaq, Monday, 5 March 2007 20:24 (2 years ago) Permalink

Yes, that was it. Shouldn't post while drinking; don't want to impugn Keef at all.

― Jaq, Monday, 5 March 2007 20:25 (2 years ago) Permalink

Perfect restraint would be inhuman. Since it would be quite doubtful you could leave with even half as many as you sold, the net result would still be in your favor. I counsel you to do it.

― Aimless, Monday, 5 March 2007 21:10 (2 years ago) Permalink

Well, we'd have to have something to read on the train.....

― Jaq, Monday, 5 March 2007 21:46 (2 years ago) Permalink

Lace Villages
The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz
Fashion Babylon
Stitch 'n Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker (Stich 'n Bitch Crochet)

First one is for my mum. The rest is junk, really, except the Happy Hooker one which focuses, not on prostitution, but on crochet.

― nathalie, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 12:45 (2 years ago) Permalink

I've been Bookmooching instead of purchasing books lately. Just recently mooched:

The Nurture Assumption - Judith Harris
Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom and the Making of History - John Diggins

― o. nate, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 16:06 (2 years ago) Permalink

Diderot on Art Vol. 1: The Salon of 1765

― C0L1N B..., Wednesday, 7 March 2007 05:18 (2 years ago) Permalink

Land of Spices Kate O'Brien
The Echoing Grove - Rosamond Lehmann
House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
The Plausibility of Life - Marc W. Kirschner, John C. Gerhart, and John Norton
Collected Poems - Philip Larkin
Goldberg: Variations - Gabriel Josipovici
Captain Blood - Raphael Sabatini

― Arethusa, Friday, 9 March 2007 01:35 (2 years ago) Permalink

Geoffrey Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales (original-spelling edition)
Robert Musil - The Man Without Qualities
J. M. Coetzee - Inner Workings: Literary Essays 2000-2005
Ngugi wa Thiong'o - Wizard of the Crow (Huh, I only just realized that he's the guy that wrote "A Grain of Wheat." I feel slightly silly for buying this, as I haven't read the copy of "The Devil on the Cross" that I got a couple of years ago. Guess the hype got the better of me.)

― Øystein, Friday, 9 March 2007 12:37 (2 years ago) Permalink

Got a couple things in the mail, an advance of Palahniuk's new one ("Rant", not that excited but it was free) and Jonathan Lethem's "How We Got Insipid" (old short stories).

― Jordan, Friday, 9 March 2007 19:23 (2 years ago) Permalink

Okay, due to birthdays, gift certificates, and Valentine's Day, we've had a decent infusion of books lately.

Cupcakes from the Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Byrn
Field Guide to Cocktails by Rob Chirico
Knitting Loves Crochet by Candi Jensen
Bare Bones and Grave Secrets by Kathy Reichs
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality by Pauline W. Chen
Best Food Writing 2006 edited by Holly Hughes
Doing It Right by Maryjanice Davidson (the author is a long time friend and is constantly giving me copies of her latest stuff - I'm sure this will be fluffy and fun)
Poster Child: A Memoir by Emily Rapp (another writer friend - I read the manuscript for this one last summer and it is excellent)

I also bought a physiology text book, which I'm spending the most time with book-wise.

― Sara R-C, Friday, 9 March 2007 22:27 (2 years ago) Permalink

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach - that's excellent. Fascinating all the way through.

― James Morrison, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:47 (2 years ago) Permalink

I asked for that one after seeing it mentioned at ILE somewhere! My SIL gave it to me for my birthday and said I could never make fun of her husband's wish lists again (his list is always entirely made up of obscure books about the Holocaust because he's a German history prof). I've only made it to chapter four or so in Stiff, but so far it is really great.

― Sara R-C, Saturday, 10 March 2007 19:38 (2 years ago) Permalink

Voltaire: Letters from England
Greg Bear: Darwin's Radio
E M Forster: The Hill of Devi

― James Morrison, Sunday, 11 March 2007 07:42 (2 years ago) Permalink

Greg Tate-Flyboy in the Buttermilk
Amos Tutuola-The Palm-Wine Drunkard
Raymond Queneau-Excercises in Style
Gregory Wolff-Black Sun: the Brief Transit and Violent Eclipse of Harry Crosby

― C0L1N B..., Monday, 12 March 2007 01:49 (2 years ago) Permalink

narcissus and goldmund – herman hesse
drop city – t.c. boyle
omensetter's luck – william gass
divine invasion – pkd
survival, evasion, and escape – FM21-76, department of the army field manual

― 冷明, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 06:51 (2 years ago) Permalink

I unexpectedly found a copy of Jackson Mac Low's Stanzas for Iris Lezak in Vancouver yesterday for an excellent price (and in Canadian moneys)!

― Casuistry, Monday, 19 March 2007 21:23 (2 years ago) Permalink

In Seattle and from Bookmooch:
Kobo Abe-Woman in the Dunes
Douglas Hofstadter-Le ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the music of language
Paul Goodman-Empire City
Warren F. Motte-Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature
Michel Houllebecq-Lanzarote

― C0L1N B..., Monday, 19 March 2007 22:55 (2 years ago) Permalink

Norman Rush - Mating (not sure I actually want this, but it was a rather cheap used copy, and I got drawn in by that "National book award" chocolate coin that's glued to the cover)
Jean Baudrillard - Amerika (Danish translation)
Baruch De Spinoza - Ethica (Norwegian tr.)
Terry Pratchett - Soul Music
Terry Pratchett - Men At Arms
Terry Pratchett - Witches Abroad (I'm starting to think I might build a complete Pratchett collections by frequenting the used books store down the street)
Jon Jakob Tønseth - Von Aschenbachs Fristelse
Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations (German original + English tr. side-by-side)
David Hume - A Treatise of Human Nature
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian

Phew. Off to the couch with me!

― Øystein, Saturday, 24 March 2007 17:34 (2 years ago) Permalink

Just ordered...
* The new Ian McEwan
* 'It Rhymes With Lust' by Arnold Drake, allegedly the first proper graphic novel, a noir muystery from the 1950s
* 'Missing' by Walter de la Mare

― James Morrison, Monday, 26 March 2007 03:35 (2 years ago) Permalink

So there was a sale on theory this week at my school's book store and I went hog wild:

Jaques Derrida - Dissemination, Acts of Religion, Margins of Philosophy, Writing and Difference, Spectres of Marx
Slavov Zizek - The Sublime Object of Ideology
Michel Foucault - Society Must Be Defended, Madness & Civilization
Gilles Deleuze - Anti-Oedipus, What is Philosophy (with Felix Guattari); Nietzsche & Philosophy
Guy Debord - The Society of Spectacle
Georges Bataille - The Tears of Eros, The Accursed Share (Vols. II & III)
Judith Butler - Gender Trouble
Jaques Lacan - Ecrits
Walter Benjamin - Illuminations, Reflections
Jean-Luc Nancy - Being Singular Plural
Giorgio Agamben - The State of Exception, The Coming Community
Roland Barthes - Image - Music - Text
Jean Baudrillard - Simulacra & Simulation

So far I've read a lot of the Benjamin essays and most of Dissemination, plus paged through The Tears of Eros. I have so much more to read, though!

― max, Monday, 26 March 2007 15:29 (2 years ago) Permalink

Now do that twice a week, and you'll be Josh before you know it.

― Casuistry, Monday, 26 March 2007 17:09 (2 years ago) Permalink

also homeless

― max, Monday, 26 March 2007 17:31 (2 years ago) Permalink

it's always a little difficult in a foreign country, but i think i did alright:

mr. muo's travelling couch - dai sijie
lovesick blues: the life of hank williams - paul hemphill

― jergïns, Monday, 2 April 2007 14:25 (2 years ago) Permalink

Dead Souls (Penguin Classics) - Nikolai Gogol; Paperback

The Pursuit of Oblivion: A History of Narcotics, 1500-2000 - Richard Davenport-Hines; Paperback

Criminal History of Mankind - Colin Wilson; Hardcover

These are in my Amazon.co.uk basket awaiting to be ordered. HURRAH!

― nathalie, Monday, 2 April 2007 14:55 (2 years ago) Permalink

Good haul this weekend, all used except for the Harry Matthews:

George Saunders-Pastoralia
George Saunders-Civilwarland in Bad Decline
Clifford Geertz-The Interpretation of Cultures
Balzac-Histoire de la Treize
Mitchell Duneier-Sidewalk
Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan-Crossing the BLVD
Marguerite Duras-The Ravishing of Lol Stein
William Vollmann-The Rainbow Stories
Harry Matthews-Cigarettes

― C0L1N B..., Monday, 2 April 2007 15:30 (2 years ago) Permalink

From the Country of Eight Islands: An Anthology of japanese Poetry, edited and translated by Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson, used hardcover with a nice dust jacket, U. of Washington Press, 1981, US$15.00.

Letters From My Windmill, Alphonse Daudet, used Penguin paperback, US$1.29.
Eyeless in Gaza, Aldous Huxley, used paperback with a eye-gougingly hideous cover, US$1.29.
The Sons, Franz Kafka, used paperback collection of four short stories, US$0.50.
Pragmatism and other Essays, William James, used paperback, US$0.50.

― Aimless, Monday, 2 April 2007 17:15 (2 years ago) Permalink

Letters From My Windmill, Alphonse Daudet, used Penguin paperback, US$1.29.

That's ace. Also read his 'In the Land of Pain', which is absorbing stuff about his suffering from syphilis, translated by Julian Barnes.

― James Morrison, Tuesday, 3 April 2007 01:10 (2 years ago) Permalink

catherine bush, claire's head

― derrrick, Tuesday, 3 April 2007 08:34 (2 years ago) Permalink

On the weekend I bought a teeny little 100-page book of WH Auden poems selected by John Fuller. And the latest issue of 'Descant', which is good for before bed.

― franny glass, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 00:37 (2 years ago) Permalink

2 weeks pass...

I have been buying books, even as other ILBers have been cutting back on the habit. Luckily for me, I also sell them.

The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans, with commentary and verse by John Daido Loori, new hardbound, $40(!). Also known as the Mana Shobogenzo. I so rarely buy new expensive books that this is a radical departure for me. I've been eyeing this for months. This is quite simply the best collection of Zen stories and commentary I have ever seen. Better than The Blue Cliff Record. Highly recommended if you are interested in Zen.

Life With Father by Clarence Day, used hardcover, $1. An old warhorse from a much different world than today.

― Aimless, Sunday, 22 April 2007 17:24 (2 years ago) Permalink

This was the weekend of the Seattle library booksale. The withdrawal pains were severe, and early morning attendance at the EMP pop conference did not offer much relief.

― Jaq, Sunday, 22 April 2007 23:13 (2 years ago) Permalink

I can't remember'em all. But I do remember buying:

martin amis' money
adventures of sherlock holmes
ballard's crash
paluhniak's haunted
fowles' the collector

and a few others. shit, i can't remember!

― nathalie, Thursday, 26 April 2007 11:58 (2 years ago) Permalink

Also, Max is where I was a few years ago. :-)

― nathalie, Thursday, 26 April 2007 11:59 (2 years ago) Permalink

Uh, another post, sorry:

drop city – t.c. boyle

any good? i noticed this at the store.

― nathalie, Thursday, 26 April 2007 11:59 (2 years ago) Permalink

Peter S. Beagle - The Last Unicorn (huh, the back cover of this has NO text. No blurbs, no brief summery, no "by the author of"... nothing! The unicorn on the cover has a goatee. The tree on the cover looks like it's made of potatoes)
Terry Pratchett - The Light Fantastic
Terry Pratchett - The Colour of Magic (I suspected earlier that I should be able to build a complete Discworld collection through used books stores. Looks like I was right. I've yet to find any of the recent books though)
James Knowlson - Damned To Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (I tend to steer clear of biographies, but the blog [Removed Illegal Link] made me want to read this)
Thukydides - The Peloponnesian War (I'm not going to go look up how that's spelled in English)

― Øystein, Saturday, 5 May 2007 13:19 (2 years ago) Permalink

Bloody hell. The link was supposed to be to the blog Anecdotal Evidence: http://evidenceanecdotal.blogspot.com

― Øystein, Saturday, 5 May 2007 13:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

Skipping 425 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

In fact, is that Bert Lloyd's book? I meant to read it ages ago, but never got hold of it.

I have also bought today, The World of Jonathan Swift, with essays by Pat Rogers, Irvin Ehrenpreis and Geoffrey Hill, for £5 and The Judas Window by Carter Dickson for a friend who's just had a baby and who was requesting detective fiction of that period while she's on maternity leave. £3.

Must stop.

― GamalielRatsey, Sunday, 11 October 2009 13:32 (1 month ago) Permalink

got mildly drunk last night and was thinking about how old goriot was such a great book imo and why don't i read more balzac. so i got these three cheap on amazon: colonel chabert, cousin bette, the wrong side of paris.

― steamed hams (harbl), Sunday, 11 October 2009 13:33 (1 month ago) Permalink

I gave a large part of my library (in reality less than 10%, and probably quite a bit less) the boot last weekend. Paul McCartney's Many Years From Now arrived yesterday, which I have assured myself is to be the last new arrival this side of Christmas.

― Ismael Klata, Sunday, 11 October 2009 14:05 (1 month ago) Permalink

As the other participant, must say the London book-shop + pint expedition was a good Sunday afternoon. Came away with a slim volume of Swinburne (didn't have a portable selection before), The Cambridge Companion to John Dryden and the best of Elizabeth David (driven by slightly delusional logic: 'I like cooking. I should cook more. This'll bring an inspiring element of literary snobbery to kitchen, then I'll cook more.' RONG. )

― woofwoofwoof, Monday, 12 October 2009 10:11 (1 month ago) Permalink

Gilbert Highet, Poets in a Landscape. Boring title, great book. I see NYRB will bring out a new edition this spring, but I bought the amazingly solid, built-like-a-tank 1957 Knopf edition, the kind they don't make anymore.

― alimosina, Monday, 12 October 2009 15:17 (1 month ago) Permalink

Incidentally, having mentioned John Atkinson Grimshaw upthread - three of his paintings are in the window of Robert Green, a fine art dealer on Bond Street, if you're in London and happen to be passing.

― GamalielRatsey, Tuesday, 13 October 2009 16:21 (1 month ago) Permalink

it is the bert lloyd book, and i haven't read it yet. ho hum

― thomp, Tuesday, 13 October 2009 16:34 (1 month ago) Permalink

"Uranium Frenzy: Boom and Bust on the Colorado Plateau" by Raye Ringholtz
"The Boat" by Nam Le
"In Praise of Barbarians: Essays against Empire," Mike Davis
"Complete Short Stories," Graham Greene
"Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle east, and the Caucasus" by Robert Kaplan
"The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia" by Lutz Kleveman

― derrrick, Thursday, 15 October 2009 06:12 (1 month ago) Permalink

charity book fair!

harvard classics: plato, epictetus, marcus aurelius (i doubt i'll ever read this) and don quixote part 1
balzac - lost illusions
dorothy l sayers - 4 novel collection
stephen king - nightmares and dreamscapes
franzen - the corrections
the civilization of the middle ages
stephen jay gould - the mismeasure of man

― abanana, Friday, 16 October 2009 11:43 (1 month ago) Permalink

I really, really enjoyed The Corrections. I thought it might be a struggle at first, but it turned into a real pleasure.

― Ismael Klata, Friday, 16 October 2009 11:48 (1 month ago) Permalink

Dropped in on Portobello Road Oxfam Shop over lunch. Zoom by Simon Armitage, Earthquake Weather by August Kleinzahler.

― woofwoofwoof, Friday, 16 October 2009 13:03 (1 month ago) Permalink

Sold a bunch and bough for Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Tales (plus half a pint's worth of beer money), which sounds way more appealing than Gulag Archipelago, although yes I'll probably end up reading a volume and hating myself...

― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 17 October 2009 13:52 (1 month ago) Permalink

hating myself...

It goes with the territory, amirite?

― Aimless, Saturday, 17 October 2009 17:26 (1 month ago) Permalink

I enjoyed The Gulag Archipelago, though it had turned into a bit of a slog by about page 500. Persevered, and then couldn't believe it when I got to the end only to find out it was the first part of a trilogy.

― Ismael Klata, Saturday, 17 October 2009 20:04 (1 month ago) Permalink

Office haul of free books: We, Three Tales by Flaubert, Essays of Elia (awful feeling I have two copies of this already, but this is a prettyish Hesperus thing), Pushkin's Tales of Belkin, a small biography of Pushkin and Kitty Hauser's Bloody Old Britain, about pioneer of aerial photography.

― woofwoofwoof, Tuesday, 27 October 2009 12:03 (3 weeks ago) Permalink

Popular Fallacies was excellent, off that, I should get Essays of Elia out of the library again.

I went in the LRB bookshop and saw lots of NYRB titles at 20% off, so I got Platonov's The Foundation Pit : the ed has a detailed intro, an appendix with translated passages deleted by the author and 10-15 pages of extensive notes. Love the cover.

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 27 October 2009 13:19 (3 weeks ago) Permalink

Georgics, Virgil, translated by David Ferry, bilingual edition, new (remaindered) paperback, $7.

― Aimless, Tuesday, 27 October 2009 17:28 (3 weeks ago) Permalink

Office haul of free books: We, Three Tales by Flaubert, Essays of Elia (awful feeling I have two copies of this already, but this is a prettyish Hesperus thing), Pushkin's Tales of Belkin, a small biography of Pushkin and Kitty Hauser's Bloody Old Britain, about pioneer of aerial photography.

What wonderful office is this? At mine the free book table is an old Dan Brown and 'Moonwalk: the Michael Jackson Story'.

― When two tribes go to war, he always gets picked last (James Morrison), Tuesday, 27 October 2009 22:45 (3 weeks ago) Permalink

What wonderful office is this? At mine the free book table is an old Dan Brown and 'Moonwalk: the Michael Jackson Story'.

I do the sub-editing for (job-keeping circumlocution time) the customer magazine of a major British bookshop chain. Lots of books come in, but they're mostly of the Brown/Moonwalk variety. This was a good batch.

(I've been tempted to start an ILB thread where I post extracts of unedited shit from the magazine, but professional principle wins out against office boredom & cheap lols.)

― woofwoofwoof, Wednesday, 28 October 2009 10:25 (3 weeks ago) Permalink

Probably wise, but if you ever give in, I look forward to those cheap lols.

― When two tribes go to war, he always gets picked last (James Morrison), Wednesday, 28 October 2009 22:03 (3 weeks ago) Permalink

Bght a Kindle! I think I'll order all the books by Dostoyevski first. For about 4 dollars. :-)))

― Nathalie (stevienixed), Thursday, 29 October 2009 14:08 (3 weeks ago) Permalink

Allow me to crow a bit. A year ago I bought a copy of Infinite Jest for $1. It was pretty banged up, so by the time I finished reading it, it was quite literally falling apart in my hands. Today I bought a replacement copy that is in good shape... for $1!

― Aimless, Saturday, 31 October 2009 00:51 (3 weeks ago) Permalink

latest ones (prolley a month ago):

Balzac, The History of the Thirteen
Balzac, A Murky Business

― RIP Pisces sun, Gemini moon (Drugs A. Money), Wednesday, 4 November 2009 01:45 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

I'm facsinated by Richard Nixon: Alone In The White House (by Richard Reeves). I'm at the part where, in 1969, Pres. Nixon begins to aggressively woo "the politically powerful white middle class" by attacking those "who oppress( ) them with high taxes, spiraling inflation and enforced integration, while rewarding the very poor and very rich." I'm sure this strategy isn't unique, but Nixon -- by actively pursuing George Wallace's constituency -- seemed to raise these wedge-issues into an art form (in ways the GOP has successfully exploited over the next 30 years):

Three days later on October 19, at a $100-a-plate Repulican fund-raiser in New Orleans, Vice President Agnew, delegated by the President but reading words he has mostly written himself, began the hard-hitting rhetorical phase of Nixon's dividing of America, saying "The recent Vietnam Moratorium is a reflection of the confusion that exists in America today . . . A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."
* * * *
The next night, at another $100-a-plate dinner that drew twenty-four hundred guests in Jackson, Mississippi, (Agnew) continued, this time with help from Safire and Buchanan back in the White House: "For too long the South has been punching the bag for those who characterize themselves as liberal intellectuals . . . We have among us a glib, activist element . . . nattering nabobs of negativism . . . snobs for most of them disdain to mingle with the masses who work for a living . . . . Americans cannot afford to divide over their demagoguery -- or be deceived by their duplicity -- or to let their license destroy liberty. We can, however, afford to separate them from our society -- with no more regret than we should feel over discarding rotten apples from a barrel."

I imagine Agnew meant to say "For too long the South has been a punching bag . . .," but what's quoted above is the way his words appear in the text. The book is a cold look into policial expediency and calculation.

― Daniel, Esq., Wednesday, 4 November 2009 02:14 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

For my kindle: Dostoyevski (entire oeuvre), Chesterton (same),... Oh and Charlaine Harris

― Nathalie (stevienixed), Wednesday, 4 November 2009 15:03 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

Getting an e-reader looked quite tempting when I was browsing Amazon for Chesterton books and got a damn "lol on kindle u can get his complete works for a buck o_O" message. Of course, it'd be free on other readers.

Err, anyways, my most recent purchases:
Thomas Berger - Who is Teddy Villanova?
Christopher Benfey - American Audacity: Essays North and South
Leonardo Sciascia - Equal Danger

― Øystein, Wednesday, 4 November 2009 15:19 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

Free on Kindle too if you go to manybooks.net.

― tal farlow's pather panchali (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 4 November 2009 15:21 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

i bought books for myself today! i never do anymore cuz i'm always just buying stuff for my store. but the used bookstore around the corner is having a three day sale (50% off everything!) and i thought i'd load up on some sci-fi. their sci-fi section is really big.

here's what i got. a mix of hardcovers and paperbacks:

the ice people - rene barjavel (hardcover)

an alien heat - michael moorcock (hardcover)

the hollow lands - michael moorcock (hardcover)

masters of atlantis - charles portis (hardcover. really wanted this! don't think i would have thought to look in the sci-fi section for it.)

earthworks - brian w. aldiss (hardcover)

satan's world - poul anderson (hardcover)

2 big fat softcover phil k. dick short story collections - the eye of the sibyl and second variety

space tug - murray leinster (paperback)

talents, incorporated - murray leinster (paperback)

the man who ate the world - frederik pohl (paperback)

destiny doll - clifford d. simak (paperback)

and two penelope fitzgerald trade paperbacks that i haven't read: innocence and the beginning of spring

35 bucks for everything. i was happy.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 November 2009 20:33 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

man, if you are ever looking for some andre norton paperbacks that store is the place for you. they must have over 50 norton paperbacks. pretty crazy.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 November 2009 20:35 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

love the aldiss cover

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 November 2009 20:36 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

Everyone I know who loves Charles Portis hated Masters Of Atlantis but maybe you will lead the way to a new appreciation, skot.

― BIG STROON aka the santaclara drug (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 5 November 2009 21:06 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

hmmm, we will see. i just never see it anywhere and i'm always looking for his books.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 November 2009 21:08 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

Haha, I have a copy of that Aldiss book, but with THIS unfortunate cover:
Hoo-boy. I haven't read it yet. Come to think of it, all my Aldiss books have dreadful covers. Most ludicrous must be Who Can Replace a Man?. And then there's Greybeard! (Notice that the bird has a MOUTH! Cuzza atomic testing, y'see)

― Øystein, Thursday, 5 November 2009 21:26 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

Oh, but that's certainly large enough.

― Øystein, Thursday, 5 November 2009 21:26 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

Holy cats! 'Who Can Replace...' has at least a certain demented style to it, but that 'Greybeard' cover is woeful. Although mine just has a generic hover car flying through a desert on the front.

― When two tribes go to war, he always gets picked last (James Morrison), Thursday, 5 November 2009 23:50 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

awesome charity book sale at my university saw me score 18 v. high quality books (only one with any kind of annotations inside, for example) in the general area of continental philosophy for £23. Total new Amazon price: £450. Shit yeah. Choice cuts include Lyotard's 'Signed, Malraux' (hardcover), Eric Blondel's 'Nietzsche: The Body and Culture' (also hardcover, and a 7100% saving on Amazon's price), and, more sentimentally less value-wise, nice old Penguin classics editions of 'Beyond Good and Evil' and Augustine's 'Confessions' and a cutely shaped Stanford University Press edition of Derrida's 'Of Hospitality'.

― FC Tom Tomsk Club (Merdeyeux), Friday, 6 November 2009 00:19 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

Ha, I had that same edition of Earthworks as a lad. For some reason English sf paperbacks were plentiful in my city at the time.

― alimosina, Friday, 6 November 2009 03:20 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

finally bought wise blood!!!

― Nanobots: HOOSTEEND (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Friday, 6 November 2009 03:36 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

dickens - great expectations (for the winter, which around here is = 50 degrees)
alan furst - red gold
jg farrell - troubles (read halfway through a library copy, it felt like a keeper, so i bought a copy for myself)

― jØrdån (omar little), Saturday, 7 November 2009 06:22 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

Elsa Morante - History: A Novel (de-fucking-lighted to get hold of this one)
Dave Hickey - Air Guitar
Jocelyn Brooke - The Orchid Trilogy
Genet - Querelle of Brest (have read this, but who could resist the novel in the Panther ed. cover in really good condition?)

― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 7 November 2009 17:37 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

Come to think of it, all my Aldiss books have dreadful covers.

I believe it was the NEL edition of The Airs of Earth that had a cover that I liked. I can't find it on the web though.

― alimosina, Saturday, 7 November 2009 19:54 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

Ah yes here it is.

― alimosina, Sunday, 8 November 2009 20:46 (1 week ago) Permalink

Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber
Thank you Library of America for giving me an alternative to brutally priced copies of Negative Space.

― woofwoofwoof, Monday, 9 November 2009 09:49 (1 week ago) Permalink

I thought Negative space was available for, like, 10 quid or so?

But I read about that collection and it seemed way more comprehensive.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, 9 November 2009 12:51 (1 week ago) Permalink

Hey! London! And especially SOuth East London! Which may mean only xyzzz and me at the moment but WHATEVS: I dunno if I can make this because I have to be at a GAME OF FOOTBALL in ESSEX but this has been good before and I see no reason for it not to be good again and with all that goodness sloshing about it's a good cause too: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/events_details.asp?ID=1402 (Blackheath Amnesty Book clearance, this coming Saturday, for those of you who are click-averse).

― Tim, Monday, 9 November 2009 13:01 (1 week ago) Permalink

Oh that sounds excellent, Tim! In case you can make it let me know and we can meet up.

Thanks for the tip.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, 9 November 2009 13:39 (1 week ago) Permalink

Oh, that does sound good. I need to figure out what my Saturday looks like, but I might be able to make that. If so, a drink def a possibility Xyzzzz, if not earlier in the week. Gamaliel, you about?

Negative Space used to be about £10, but went oop & has been £30-50 2nd hand on Amazon/ABE for the last year at least. May have been searching badly, and never got lucky in a bookshop. But yes, the new volume is a more-than-adequate replacement.

― woofwoofwoof, Monday, 9 November 2009 13:57 (1 week ago) Permalink

Bloody working again innit, otherwise I'd be along like a shot. Also, got to recruit myself for The Fall in Oxford on Sunday. A book binge might have proved too much for my frail constitution.

― 'virgin' should be 'wizard' (GamalielRatsey), Monday, 9 November 2009 16:35 (1 week ago) Permalink

So I went and saw woof there.

Picked up:

A volume of classical Russian poetry
Henry Green - Living
Richard Hughes - A High Wind in Jamaica
William Empson - Seven Types of Ambiguity

Elsewhere:

Junichiro Tanizaki - The Makioka Sisters
Walter Abish - In the future Perfect
Germaine Greer - Shakespeare
Janet Malcolm - Two Lives

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 19 November 2009 22:28 (2 days ago) Permalink

The Green, Hughes and Tanizaki are great; haven't read the others (though from all accounts the Greer is completely bonkers)

― Attention please, a child has been lost in the tunnel of goats. (James Morrison), Thursday, 19 November 2009 23:01 (2 days ago) Permalink

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