Nu-ILB: What books have you purchased lately?

The Free Southern Theater: A Documentary of the South's Radical Black Theater, with Journals, Letters, Poetry Essays and a Play Written By Those Who Built It Starts with an account of an NYC fundraiser, hosted by Harry Belafonte, then back to the often-dangerous boondocks, where this Mississippi-founded troupe brought the shows--- audiences were really on top of Waiting For Godot, for instance. Things get suitably complicated (and stay somewhat perilous) in New Orleans, where we also get the most microscopically detailed descriptions of everyday people in the 60s I've ever seen. Actors should always have to go out and write this stuff down; every composition student should. These guys weren't students, just staying sharp, on a working afternoon off. Then on to Planet Texas....really an amazing cache of testimonies, written as or soon after it all happens.

"Radical Black" is a late tag for this initially integrated company and repertoire. Always necessarily adaptive, The FST was transformed as outside pressures came to include those of/from the increasingly besieged Civil Rights-to-Black Liberation struggle.

Ironically, as part of my project to divest myself of some of my books, I took five volumes away to sell and ended up coming home with:

The Changing Light at Sandover, James Merrill, used hardcover with dust jacket in very good condition, for $20. After trading the other books, that came to a $3.50 cash outlay. I was intrigued by the recent comments about it on ILB and, magic peacock notwithstanding, I decided to take it home for a spin.

"Monoceros" by Suzette Mayr, after attending her reading this morning. Excerpts she read sounded incredible; sad that it'll be a few months before I have time to read it.

I found a readable used copy of Independent People, by Halldor Laxness, for $1. Of course I bought it.

Helen Vendler's Emily Dickinson book.

John Ashbery, "quick Question"

Just starting Jhumpa Lahari's "The Namesake" a few years after buying it off a remainder table.

Just having one of those bored-at-work amazon-browsing overdoses.

Charles Simic's selection from Thomas Campion
Invisible Republic, Greil Marcus

After hunting round "The Faber Book of" for 'used and new from £0.01':
The Faber Book of Contemporary American Poetry
The Faber Book of Soccer

A Theologico-Political Treatise and a Political Treatise by Spinoza, have wanted a copy of this around for a while.
District and Circle and Electric Light by Seamus Heaney. Thought I'd check in with him & again these were 'used & new from £0.01'.
Biographia Literaria, bcz I decided it was VITAL I reread this. Haven't picked it up.

I should stop now. That's enough books.

Read this from the library, now got my own: Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed The World by David Maraniss. Title is a bit bombastic, and maybe backwards, but anyway this Olympics was pivotal, and the book is multidimensional as hell, yet no probs w clarity. Also, doesn't try to explain too much, so there are def subjects for further study. Why was weightlifting anathema, with Cali Olympics aspirants resorting to secret workout sessions and homemade weights?

i'm broke rn but found a 2$ copy of christine delphy: a materialist analysis of women's oppression

For a long time, conventional wisdom said that weightlifting, for athletes other than weightlifters, would cause one to become "musclebound" and as inflexible as a fire hydrant.

I should've thought of that, thanks (maybe why the author didn't bother to explain it)

Apex Hides The Hurt by Colson Whitehead - ZO has set me off on a Whitehead spree, I imagine ('cept THE INTUITIONIST, cuz I've already read that one).
Gould by Stephen Dixon - This was free. The blurb on the back mentions Calvino. Anyone wanna rep it?

My younger brother brought his twin brother Muscle by Samuel Fussell for his birthday, about the professional bodybuilding world. Looked quite good.

I like the author/title rhyme. Unusual.

I traded in some books yesterday and came home with:

Collected Poems, Yvor Winters, in a well-thumbed but readable paperback copy with a few pencil notations, for $4. A modest collection, but every poem reflects Winters' concern with clarity and concentration. He obviously was a relentless self-editor.

The Bab Ballads: With which are included Songs of a Savoyard, W.S. Gilbert, in a lovely, fully illustrated 1950 hardcover printing, for $8. The fruit of a piercing wit and a worthy mind.

shit dudes i went to the mit bookstore on friday and looked t a bunch of shit. i want to get the new-ish zizek, less than nothing, but it's mad expensive.

not really a purchase but: http://www.amazon.com/Shallow-Rewards-Commentaries-2005-2012-ebook/dp/B007AMN8OG

(it's free right now)

I feel virtuous. My bookshelves actually have a tiny bit of open space once more. Today I sold about 25 books and only bought two:

Troilus and Crisyde, Geoffrey Chaucer, in a used hardcover from Everyman's Library, good condiiton, for $5.50. This is not a modernized version, but the middle english with plentiful marginal notes for easier reading of the thorny bits.

Psmith, Journalist, P.G. Wodehouse, in a new hardcover marked down from $13.95 to $8.95. One of his better efforts, imo.

Envy you, reading that for the first time

Noticed Faction Books while on an errand yesterday - loved it, old school piled-high collections of books, comics, vinyl etc. Had no time to properly root around, but quickly picked up:

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/ciu/c4/92/bcd5c27a02a0382641a88110.L._AA300_.jpg

and a 70s copy of The Man Who Fell to Earth (novel, that is). Also heard about the owner's UFO encounter.

Aimless, Friday, March 2, 2007 6:52 PM (6 years ago)

This thread is now middle-aged, in dog years.

Glenn Patterson - "The Mill for Grnding Old People Young"
Margaret Atwood - "The Handmaids Tale"

Third in a series of xp books read early, purchased lately: following Sarah Barnwell Elliot's Some Data and The Free Southern Theater's The Free Southern Theater (plus Maraniss's Rome 1960), finally got Jeff Nuttall's Bomb Culture, with consideration of his fellow Goon Show fans the Moors Murderers, for inst, amidst the mists of hang-time w RD Laing, Alexander Trocchi and many others, as the 60s get 60s-er, skoob towers and all.

Thought my bank card have been declined because I was skint so I rushed home from Tesco and panic bought the following to see if I was solvent:

The Faber Book of Reportage (792 pages for a penny! wow!)
Richard Ford - Independence Day

Turns out that NatWest has just gone into meltdown again. Phew.

Roderick Hudson

Louise Glück - A Village Life
Derek Walcott - White Egrets

two recent books by older/established poets with whom I'm not really familiar—haven't spent much time with either yet, tho I skimmed the Walcott enough to notice the poem dedicated to Obama & entitled "Forty Acres" (!)

(unfortunately, beyond the outrageous conceit of the title, it's not very radical. concluding lines: "... and the young ploughman feels the change in his veins, heart, muscles, tendons, / till the field lies open like a flag as dawn's sure / light streaks the field and furrows wait for the sower." I prefer the poem after it, where Walcott discusses Obama with his barber)

The Man in the Iron Mask, Alexander Dumas, in a used Penguin paperback, $1.

benedict anderson - imagined communities
georges bataille - story of the eye
philip k dick - flow my tears

tbh with story of the eye i thought eh, 1928 borderline porno, this is going to be pretty tame. but holy moley, the piss is flying left and right

standing at a swedish festival

for the longest time i thought that line went "discussing story of the year", with "year" pronounced in a ridiculous accent, and wondered why he would give props to story of the year like that

"tbh with story of the eye i thought eh, 1928 borderline porno, this is going to be pretty tame"

ahahaha

The Nonexistent Knight and The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino
The Baron In The Trees by Italo Calvino
Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick

Two bios by Paul Mariani. One of Berryman and one of Lowell.

multi-xpost — Story of the Eye is okay but Blue of Noon might actually be one of the 20th-century's best novel(la)s

Just bought 7 books, which I really need to stop doing because I'm still acquiring books faster than I'm reading them.

Flann O'Brien - The Third Policeman
Mo Yan - Pow!
Italo Calvino - The Baron in the Trees
Italo Calvino - The Nonexistent Knight and the Cloven Viscount (really weird that R Baez just bought these two books too)
Laurence Sterne - The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Kingsley Amis - Lucky Jim
GK Chesterton - The Man WHo Was Thursday

Third Policeman is an awesome mindfuck.

I'm still working down a trade balance from a sale of books a couple of weeks ago. I used some of it to buy:

the Alphabet, Ron Silliman, as a new trade paperback, $17.98. I read a few pages in the bookstore and this seemed pretty damned interesting, although I expect that at 1000+ pages this huge poem won't really hang together so much as flow onwards, without any obvious purpose other than 'say stuff'.

just bought a couple of collected poems, Amy Clampitt + Hugo WIlliams. Not close relations of a Silliman epic.

Mrs. Redd sent me this. idgi.

http://exp.lore.com/post/46900401798/ah-yes-flowcharting-the-book-lovers-dilemma

b-but, diamonds are always used for decisions.

half price sale at the used book store in town.

kampus - james e. gunn

mutiny in space - avram davidson

the road to nightfall - collected stories volume 4 - robert silverberg

childhood's end - arthur c. clarke

they walked like men - clifford d. simak

through the eye of a needle - hal clement

gender genocide - edmund cooper

the wind from the sun - arthur c. clarke

three hainish novels - ursula k. le guin

starwater strains - new science fiction stories - gene wolfe

a knight of ghosts and shadows - poul anderson

chronopolis and other stories - j.g. ballard

a canticle for leibowitz - walter m. miller, jr

beyond this horizon - robert a. heinlein

the sheep look up - john brunner

the squares of the city - john brunner

the avengers of carrig - john brunner

son of man - robert silverberg

world's fair 1992 - robert silverberg

the dream master - roger zelazny

a short, sharp shock - kim stanley robinson

the way the future was - a memoir - frederik pohl

master of time and space - rudy rucker

city - clifford d. simak

deux x - norman spinrad

Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves, in a beaten-up paperback copy, for 25 cents.

The Pirate King, Daniel Defoe, in a nice paperback copy, for 25 cents.

the most recent books i've purchased are rontel by sam pink and john darnielle's 33 1/3 book, black sabbath's master of reality. i also went on sort of a binge a few weeks ago at this awesome discount used bookstore in my town -- the cranbury bookworm -- and got like ten books, the most enjoyable so far being an anthology of "modern poetry" released by modern library at some point in the 30s. it made me happy to see hart crane included in there and also mentioned in the intro; wasn't aware he got any love that soon after his death.

That Darnielle book is wonderful.

Just ordered Ebert's "Life Itself" (which I really should've bought when it was new), Mark Baumgarten's "Love Rock Revolution: K Records and the Rise of Independent Music" and, as a gift, Jonathan Lethem's "You Don't Love Me Yet."

sweet, those all sound great. the main music book i have had on my to-read list is love goes to buildings on fire, which i got for christmas. re. scott's list: i've always wanted to get more interested in sci-fi because i love philip k dick, but i never know where to start and also, as a former literature student, always feel "guilty" reading genre stuff when i haven't, for instance, read moby dick yet. i've had this list bookmarked for a while. i'd be curious to hear what the real sci-fi readers here think of this site's canon: http://thisrecording.com/today/2010/1/18/in-which-we-count-down-the-100-greatest-science-fiction-or-f.html

pathetically, i'm still stuck on the next book i posted about somewhere in this thread or some other thread.

29. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

He was just never bad, and here he was at his immortal best with an examination of the interconnections between all that is and will be. A true classic with fantasy undertones. Like most masterpieces, its straddling of genre is part of the charm.

?

Ada is the speculative fiction novel, if anything is.