Nu-ILB: What books have you purchased lately?

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

a book by claudio magris about istria

So I went to Baggings Books in Rochester today. I quite liked the High street even more (especially on a sunny afternoon). The build up from one bookshop (can't remember name now) to an Oxfam to Baggins was sorta exciting and the shop itself doesn't disappoint in that's its a maize (make your own fun!) but, sad to report, not got much out of the browse. Only found:

Harry Mathews - The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium, for 2 quid.

Other things in the past month:

Anna Banti - Artemisa
Tagore - The Home and the World

oh, and:

Cesare Pavese - The Political Prisoner

Fooled away a couple hours in bookstores today and bought:

Poems, William Dunbar, ed. Kinsley, a used hardcover in the Clarendon Medieval and Tudor Series, Oxford Press, $4.95. A middle english makar who could be rather witty.

Collected Shorter Poems: 1946 - 1991, Hayden Carruth, used hardcover with dust jacket, very good condition, Copper Canyon Press, $12.95. I was not especially enamored of Carruth in the one poetry book of his I've read, but he has the admiration of poets I admire, so I will give him a good run and see what I find.

Short Stories: volume 2: Friendly Brook and Other Stories, Rudyard Kipling, used Penguin paperback, $2. Kipling's okay by me, when he's not propping up the empire.

The Golden Bowl, Hank James, used Penguin paperback, $2. I expect nothing less than the secrets of the universe from this. YOU HEAR ME, HENRY?!

riddle of the sands - erskine childers

Closing time - joe heller

Yiddish policemans union - michael chabon

Expect good things from all, also

Samuel Beckett - How It Is (Grove Press)

I seem to be in book buying mode atm. Yesterday I found:

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, Edwin Abbott, used hard cover, ex-lib 1963 edition, $1.50. The book that provided ILX's Abbott with her nom-de-net.

Mr. Gatling's Terrible Marvel: The Gun That Changed Everything and the Misunderstood Genius Who Invented It, Julia Keller, used trade paperback, $4. YABWASLTYA (Yet Another Book With a Subtitle Longer Than Your Arm).

Pierre Boulez - Notations

Yiddish policemans union - michael chabon

I picked this up too. Also:

Freedom - Franzen
The Slap - ?
Voodoo Histories - David Aaronovitch

alan furst - spies of the balkans (mainly because the storyline is eerily similar to my wife's father's exodus from greece during WW2 and takes place largely (from what i can gather) in Salonika, which is the city where he lived prior to and in the early days of ww2 (he's 80 years old, or so we think...his information was all lost during the war.)

I got 2 bookstore gift cards for my birthday and ordered the following:

August Rodin, Rilke
The Wine-Dark Sea, Sciascia (a rec from here I think?)
The Book of Disquiet, Pessoa

Loved that Furst.

Mother gave me some money for my b-day so I bought myself a present at the book store (mostly French moderns of course):

Brecht - Galileo
Beckett - Words & Music, Play, Eh Joe
Céline - Castle to Castle
Sartre - The Age of Reason
Gide - Strait is the Gate
Heidegger - What is Called Thinking?
Queneau - The Last Days

Collected Longer Poems, Kenneth Koch, new (remaindered) hardcover, $13.

I also saw that Powell's Books has the Library of America hardcover edition of John Ashberry's earlier poems, up through circa 1980, now remaindered for $19. It's a nice edition, and I will probably pick it up sometime this month.

Are you in Chicago, Aimless?

charity book fair:

4 mark twain hardcovers
dreiser - sister carrie
don delillo - libra
portable hawthorne
le carre - tailor of panama
5 james bond novels in one book

corey, I am in the Portland, OR area and visit Powell's City of Books bookstore about 10-12 times a year. It is one of the greatest things about living here.

Ah I see. There's a bookstore here called Powell's, but it's on the South side so I don't often get to go there. The bookstore near me is great though. I always find something I'm looking for whenever I go.

A 2nd-hand/remainders haul:

4 Wodehouses (2 Mulliner, 2 Jeeves/Wooster)
2 H G Wells - Christina Alberta's Father, The Brothers
Jean Genet - The THief's Journal
Sam Lipsyte - The Ask
Waugh - The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold (already have this, but this was a 1st edition with nice cover, very cheap)
TH White - The Once and Future King

The Golden Bowl, Hank James, used Penguin paperback, $2. I expect nothing less than the secrets of the universe from this. YOU HEAR ME, HENRY?!

Rereading this for a project, I'd forgotten how the old aphoristic magic was still in evidence; the introduction of Adam Verver is masterly.

Is that Genet prose or drama?