Nu-ILB: What books have you purchased lately?

I did exactly the same thing!

Hi fives! It really is a nice object - it's the sort of thing that I'd be delighted to have come across on a bookshelf, the title piquing my curiosity, and then reading and feeling that the slight aura of magic surrounding it was completely justified.

It happened a few times with books from my parents' bookcase (MR James maybe? I probably felt that way about Camus + The Myth of Sisyphus as well) Moments where you look at the title and the appearance (or sometimes the lack of appearance, faded boards, illegible spine) and the curiosity is completely rewarded, you find something imaginative and interesting.

Still happens even with books I've read before actually, I've just realised. I get the same feeling every time I open up my hardback, Mervyn Peake illustrated Treasure Island and read, always without being able to stop, the first half.

just cashed in a ten-dollar credit at a local used book place, picking up excellent-condition copies of:
- Freud, Civilization and its Discontents
- Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture
- Norbert Weiner, Cybernetics

Heinrich Boll - The Lost of Honour of Katharina Blum
Leonardo Sciascia - Sicilian Uncles
Denton Welch - Maiden Voyage
Ariel Dorfman - Hard Rain
Gyula Krudy - The Adventures of Sinbad
Raymond Radiguet - Devil in the Flesh

Heinrich Boll - The Lost of Honour of Katharina Blum
Gyula Krudy - The Adventures of Sinbad
Raymond Radiguet - Devil in the Flesh

Don't know about the others, but these 3 are a treat, the Krudy especially

Yes I first heard of the Krudy in the Translators thread so am quite excited to read it.

Also picked up a copy of a Penguin Edition of three Stanislaw Lem novels - Solaris/The Chain of Chance/A Perfect Vacuum

Haven't read the 3rd of those, but the other two are wonderful. I need to read more Lem.

Ah, Krudy . . If you don't like Sindbad, I don't even want to hear about it.

Haven't read the 3rd of those

Lem channeling Borges. A collection of reviews of imaginary books (including a hostile review of the book itself). Don't have it at hand - appropriately enough - but recall it was fun.

Browsing in Skoob. Picked up The Poetic Image by Cecil Day Lewis and Selected Writings of Leigh Hunt - a very attractive, easy-going writer & poet from what I've read before.

I expect I will eventually sell this, but I just bought:

Novels 1930-1942, Dawn Powell, in the Library of America hardcover edition. Five of her early novels are included in it. Ever since I read Gore Vidal's extended gush over Dawn Powell a couple of years back, I've been curious about her work. Now I can find out whenever the urge hits.

Finally visited the one independent bookstore in my newly adopted city and fell in love. I bought Rilke's Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, the first physical copy I have ever seen for sale anywhere.

haven't bought books in a while so i just got:
celine - death on the installment plan
dickens - bleak house
joyce carol oates - garden of earthly delights
nabokov - invitation to a beheading
gogol short stories collection

Yesterday's Amazon order:
* Fleeting Things: English Poets and Poems, 1616-60 - G Hammond (on a recommendation from my old pal Steve Burt)
* Levels of the Game - John McPhee (on a McPhee jag recently)
* The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems: 1972-2007 - Albert Goldbarth (have loved everything I've read by Goldbarth and a recent Poetry Daily entry tipped me over into actually buying some)
* Bing the Bunny box: includes Make Music, Something For Daddy, Bed Time, Get Dressed, Go Picnic and Paint Day - Ted Dewan (to feed our one year old's sudden booklust)

Philip Jose Farmer - Strange Relations
Edmund Wilson - Axel's Castle
J. M. Coetzee - Stranger Shores: Essays 1886 - 1999

Exchanged, sold and haggled for:

Stawomir Mrozek - The Elephant. The cover doesn't feel as bad it looks.
Comte de Lautreamont - Maldoror and the Complete Works
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Autumn of the Patriarch
Franz Kafka - The Transformation ('Metamorphosis') and Other stories. The translation is by Malcolm Paisley, who, post-Brod, edited a text-critical edition of Kafka's works.
Raymond Radiguet - Count D'Orgel's Ball

Girlfriend inherited 80 boxes of books from an aunt, & I spent the weekend helping her sort through them for stuff she wanted to keep + individually valuable items. Unbelievable number of biographies, snob diaries, etc, but lots of p cool stuff. Nice library, deceased aunt of girlfriend - respect to you.

Anyhow, my rewards, from what I can remember (we reboxed the keepers, now I must wait for them):

5-vol Greek Anthology (old Loeb)
Philosophy of Solitude - John Cowper Powys
Geography III - Elizabeth Bishop (faber pb)
Mercian Hymns - Geoffrey Hill
On the way to Electro-War - Kurt Doberer (couldn't resist the title)
Annals of Chile - Muldoon
Autobiographies - Yeats (nice hb to replace my pb)

Some other bits too. Found myself with a strong urge to rescue single volumes of poetry (she was a Poetry Book Society member from what I could work out), even if I had them in a larger collection; also to replace things I have and like. Maybe this ties in to the ageing & conservative taste thread.

A few things in there that I really enjoyed holding for a bit - a beautiful 1912 Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by MR James, Auden's Epistle to a Godson inscribed to a couple of his collaborators (felt a bit giddy when I opened that and realised - he's more or less my favourite poet and it was a trip to see his autograph, then figure out whose copy it was).

Nice haul. Slavering over the MR James here.

My turn -

Bobo's Book of Coin Magic.

Used to take it out of the local library on a more or less permanent basis as a teenager, practicing endlessly to get to the standard Not Very Good.

Later bought it then sold it with a load of other conjuring books when I was desperately poor.

Came through yesterday and I sat down excitedly to practice a couple of my old legerdemainic chops, realised a) they're really difficult b) I absolutely can't be arsed.

Might practice a couple of the easier ones to impress nephews or something.

Makes me wonder who's going to inherit my stuff. No kids, nephews or nieces. I guess the sidewalk.

My Life In CIA by Harry Mathews
The Conversions also by Harry Mathews, autographed at that, a pleasant detail I discovered afterwards.
Remainder by Tom McCarthy - a very good sign, when you're compelled to actually buy a book after reading it for free.
In Hazard by Richard Hughes - ditto
W or The Memory of Childhood by Georges Perec
Little Kingdoms by Steven Millhauser - whose work I either find brilliant or precious. It's certainly a gamble and, with the world "Little" in the title, you know I'm a man who loves to gamble.

Feel these should almost be polled -

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/books/weird/index.shtml

Some of them are a bit meh, but there are lolz to be had, only recognise a few of the titles (The English, Are They Human is a known because it prompted Wyndham Lewis' horribly titled but more-sympathetic-than-it-sounds-wouldn't-be-bloody-hard The Jews, Are they Human).

Oh @ that link.

Juan Rulfo - Pedro Paramo
Yasunari Kawabata - Snow Country
Murakami - What I Talk About when I Talk About Running (for a friend)
Mario Vargas Llosa - The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta
Casare Pavese - The Political Prisoner

(Llosa and Pavese => Can't resist books about failed revolutionaries)

Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
The Bullpen Gospels - Dirk Hayhurst

I just bought an old William Sleator novel for a dollar. Never tire of that dude.

I bought used copies of Edward Dahlberg's "Alms for Oblivion" and Thomas Browne's "Religio Medici".
Also new copies of Marilynne Robinson's recent collections of lectures and Robert D Richardson's William James bio.

Forgot to update my address on Amazon, so they were all sent to the wrong place. Augh!
The Dahlberg I finally received thanks to the seller re-shipping it after getting it in return. The Browne + new books apparently are well lost.

So, what I'm saying is that I got a copy of Edward Dahlberg's essay collection "Alms for Oblivion". Yay.

Would be interested to hear about the Marilynne Robinson lectures - as a card-carrying irreligious sceptic I'm not sure they would appeal. I adored Gilead, and I've just picked up Home but it is not the immediate delight that the former was.

Just got a bunch of Le Guin - all the Earthsea (have read the first three but not for some time) and Left Hand of Darkness.

Found cheap but new over the weekend...

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0374516316.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Never read anything by her, but this looks promisng

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0141182199.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Have read a couple of novellas by him, which I remember liking, but not any details

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0571207154.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Can't go wrong here

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/1847442692.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Sadly, the actual book has the Guy N Smith cover changed to something less sue-able

Ian Macdonald - Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (introduction ended with an "end of society" rant but the actual song-by-song content is good)
John Sladek - Black Aura (mystery; almost a parody of john carr)

Be interested to see how you get on with the Firbank (which novels? Valmouth presumably? Vainglory?). I've tried reading him a couple of times, but really struggled. Nothing against high-falutin artificiality in novels, positively favour heavy stylisation in fact, but it just never clicked. (Didn't find what I read at all funny for a start).

Dropped by Judd 2 yesterday, picked up Robert Darnton - The Case for Books. Decent collection of articles on academic libraries, Google books, digitisation, etc. Respect & admire Bob Darnton (never met the man. Not sure why I insist on calling him Bob), but it's a bit repetitive. Also keep looking at the title and thinking 'The Bookcase'.

V similar feelings to GR on Firbank: I've read two or three, but don't find him especially funny or engaging. Technically & historically interesting, f'sure, but a bit lacking when compared to those who were later to plunder his dialogue chops (ie Waugh).

I saw a copy of Three Novels and was wondering. I didn't get it because I usually dislike three in one paperback (and I only bought a similar three in one collection from Stanislaw Lem because I knew I would never find anything by him for a long time again).

I spent 30 quid's worth of gift WH Smith's vouchers on parts 2, 3 and 4 of the Penguin Proust so now I have all six.

Also: Thomas Bernhard - Extinction
Claude Simon - The Flanders Road

#prematuresenility - just been informed that a book I ordered "has incurred significant damage while in storage and I would prefer not to supply it to you in this condition. Regrettably, I do not have another copy to send." Book was Home by Marilynne Robinson, which I bought new four days ago having totally forgotten that I'd ordered it online.

I bought used copies of Edward Dahlberg's "Alms for Oblivion" and Thomas Browne's "Religio Medici".

oh, this reminded to look for intersting Browne last night. Found a v cheap copy of vol ii of the Robin Robbins (RIP - iffy teacher, fine scholar) edition of Pseudodoxia Epidemica. It's just the notes, but that's cool - I've got a text and there's just a mass of info in there iirc. Thanks!

3-in-ones: I found a used Nelson Algren 3-in-one for $10 on Sunday. Boy did I snap that one up.

Also bought an Agatha Christie. I'm an addict.

Anybody read the new David Toop book, "Sinster Resonance?" I'm super curious about it.

I finished Delillo's "Players" (kinda sub-par), and am now onto Peter Handke's "The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick." I think I need to stop reading books about terrorism and murder.

2 euros and 50 cents for a brand new copy of don quixote seems ridiculously cheap doesnt it? i suppose they cant get rid of it. bought a 'best of sherlock holmes' for the same price.

Gyula Krudy - Life is a Dream
Hubert Selby Jr - The Willow Tree
Bohumil Hrabal - Too Loud a Solitude
Pier Paolo Pasolini - A Violent Life
Boris Pasternak - Safe Conduct (BY THE AUTHOR OF DOCTOR ZHIVAGO cover, the v old paperback has already split in half)

jorge semprun - what a beautiful sunday!
jean-claude izzo - total chaos
leonardo sciascia - the day of the owl & the wine dark sea

i also bought about eight janet frame books

I made a stop at Goodwill's book section a couple of days ago.

Orlando Furioso: Volume 1, Ariosto, translator Barbara Reynolds, as a used paperback in good condition, for $2. A verse translation put out by Penguin in 1975.

Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory, in the standard Caxton edition as reprinted in Modern Library, as a used hardcover for $5.

Poems of the Elder Edda, translated by Patricia Terry, U. of Pennsylvania Press, revised 1990, as a used paperback, for $4.

The Swamp Fox of the Revolution, Stewart Holbrook, Random House, as a used hardcover for $3. Local author with a modest national reputation, who flourished around the time I was born. Wrote entertaining popular histories mostly. Usually very readable, sharp stuff.

Tadeusz Borowski - This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
Kazuo Ishiguro - The Unconsoled
Heinrich Böll - Group Portrait with Lady

i picked up american gods for almost nothing at the car boot on sunday.

Also my mission to obtain all the hitchhiker galaxy series from a car boot is on track. picking up the third in the series from a chap who ended up being upset that it was the only thing he'd sold all day and the only book he didn't really want to sell. i got it for 30p

Hey corey I'd be interested in your thoughts on The Unconsoled when you've read it. I've heard so many competing opinions on it, and I think it sounds like the kind of thing I'd love.

I both sold and bought books today. What I bought:

The Crying of Lot 49, Th. Pynchon, used paperback, good condition, $3.

The Erotic Elegies of Albius Tibullus, translted by Hubert Creekmore, bilingual edition, used hardcover with dust jacket, published by Washington Square Press in 1966, $10. Calling Tibullus's elegies "erotic" in the title was purely a marketing ploy, but the translations are pleasantly fluent.

Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1959-1975, ed. by a committee, Library of America, used paperback, $4.

Garden of the Brave in War: Recollections of Iran, Terence O'Donnell, used paperback, $3. A travel memoir of several years living in rural Iran.

The Yellow Admiral, Patrick O'Brian, used paperback, $3. Heaven help me, I now own 16 volumes of the Aubrey/Maturin series. At least there is an end in sight.

The Rise and Fall of Athens, Plutarch, a selection of lives in a Penguin paperback from 1969, $2. A more modern, more readable translation than the Dryden/Clough version I already own. I read a similar Roman selection of lives last month while camping.

Chances are good I will make another used bookstore run to Powell's tomorrow.

Klaus Mann (Thomas's son) - Mephisto
Raymond Queneau - The Blue Flowers
Raymond Radiguet - Count d'Orgel

I'd never heard of Radiguet before, but the cover mentioned the foreword was by Jean Cocteau. Apparently Count d'Orgel is one of only two novels he finished before he died at the age of 20.

Did visit Powell's this morning. I came back with:

Collected Poems: 1924-1955, George Seferis, translated by Edmund Keeley & Phillip Sherrard, bilingual edition, Princeton U. Press, ex-lib hardcover from 1967, for $7.50. Calloo-callay!

Selected Non-Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges, hardcover with dust jacket, $12.50.

Consciousness Explained, Daniel C. Dennett, remaindered paperback, $9. I checked this out of the library about a year ago, read a chunk, faltered, and returned it. Now I must live with it.

From Amazon:
Queneau's Exercises in Style
Gilbert Hernandez's The Troublemakers
A Gilbert & George exhibition catalog that had been reduced to $3 and change

At the New Museum shop, spent way too long browsing and forced myself to select just one book:
Artaud's Watch Fiends & Rack Screams

which I then proceeded to whisper and stutter through purchasing from the intimidatingly awesome girl working the register (I go all melty for androgynous girls with shaved heads, whatever that says about me) while my dad badgers the front desk staff about where he can get a Diet Coke on the Bowery.

Over the past 48 hours I have perfected the "I do not know this man, who are you, cranky middle-aged tourist, and why are you following me around" face.

Raymond Radiguet - Count d'Orgel

I'd never heard of Radiguet before, but the cover mentioned the foreword was by Jean Cocteau. Apparently Count d'Orgel is one of only two novels he finished before he died at the age of 20.

His other one, 'The Devil in the Flesh', is really ace. I liked d'Orgel too, but Devil is better.

Werner Herzog - Conquest of the Useless
Eric Clapton - Clapton
Yann Martel - Beatrice and Virgil
Clarice Lispector - Hour of the Star
Clarice Lispector - The Foreign Legion
Roberto Bolaño -Monsieur Pain

Aidan Higgins - Langrishe, Go Down
Hannah Green - The Dead of the House
César Aira - Ghosts
John Mcgahern - Barracks
Edward Dahlberg - The Carnal Myth
Edward Dahlberg - The Sorrows of Priapus