Nu-ILB: What books have you purchased lately?

Bought the Bill Kreutzmann book Deal
and the NYC music Love Comes To a Building on Fire online last week. Haven't received them yet. Hoping my mail isn't being interfered with, expected things don't seem to be appearing.

It's Monday so will probably get something from a charity shop later.
Also really want to read 1971 by David Hepworth and that Heads book.

amy hempel - reasons to live
gary indiana - three month fever
gary indiana - horse crazy

jc's and mordy's hauls are amazing. envious.

Well Deal's just arrived so going to read that shortly.
Started reading Knut Hamsun's Hunger over the last few days after wanting to for decades.

acquired nice hardback copies of:

alan burns babel: a novel
marguerite duras the ravishing of lol stein

Cicero's Letters To His Friends, volumes 1 & 2, as used Penguin Classics for $0.50 each.

The Joys of Yiddish, Leo Rosten, as a used hardcover, $2. I owned a paperback of this about a decade ago, but sold it. Afterward, I rather missed it.

The Argumentative Indian, Amartya Sen, used trade paperback, $1. Essays.

I have been really enjoying "Mo' Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove".

A 1991 hardback of Magick by Aleister Crowley. A book I wanted to pick up 35 years ago.
Impulse buy but one that I'm glad I saw.

1st hand: August Strindberg - The Defence of a Madman

2nd hand:

Erich Heller - Kafka (this is study on Fontana Modern Masters)
Fernando Pessoa - Poems (on City lights)

I paid $1 for a nice used hardcover copy of New and Collected Poems 1917-1976, Archibald MacLeish, who is not my favorite poet by any means, but he probably wrote many decently readable poems and I'll troll around in this to find some of them.

Louis Comfort Tiffany Masterworks book on his stained glass designs etc. Got cheap from Postscript Books cos they have a sale on.
Also got Glam Rock by Alwyn W Turner which is a companion to a V&A Museum exhibition from a few years back. I like the music but know less about the scene than I should. Must finish Children of The Revolution too which is somewhere around the room.

I Am Alan Partridge or whatever the autobio is called. It was €1 in a charity shop and the show is good and this is by the writers and expands on the character. Not read enough to see if funny or annoying

Invisible Man Ralph Ellison.
I may have already had this but it was €1 so I grabbed it.

The General From The Jungle B Traven.
I read his Death Ship years ago and know about him pretending to be somebody else when john Huston was making the film of hisTreasure of Sierra Madre. Seems to be an interesting writer and character. I was surprised that this was a translation but that could be by another pseudonym of his.

Unforgiveable Blackness a biography of Jack Johnson by Geoffrey C Ward. Got it for 25c in pretty good nick. Coincidentally in the same week, possibly day that I saw Miles Ahead and it could be that its the Miles lp that I know his name from mostly.

Sect Appeal by Terry Gibson. The guitarist's memoir of his time in the Downliner Sect. Which I bought alongside the new edition of Ugly Things. & prompted me to get a copy of the Repertoire cd of The Rock Sect's In their 1966lp with the really early Reed/Cale cover and great droning sound.

Several others since I keep hitting charity shops. So I have a major backlog of books piling up.

Alwyn Turner has a great (thought not updated in years) site about trash paperbacks: http://www.trashfiction.co.uk/index2.html

I Am Alan Partridge or whatever the autobio is called. It was €1 in a charity shop and the show is good and this is by the writers and expands on the character. Not read enough to see if funny or annoying

the book will be funny but this is all about the audiobook. you need the audiobook, trust me.

1st hand: Pere Gimferrer - Fortuny

2nd: Dag Solstad - Professor Andersen's Night
Kenzaburo Oe - The Silent Cry
Alvaro Enrigue - Sudden Death
Denton Welch - In Youth is Pleasure
Friedrich Holderlin - Selected

bought The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin on my way home from work today

Supposedly stellar for genre fiction in Mandarin. I recommend The Killing Star by Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski (and possibly its "prequel", Flying to Valhalla) as a harder-sci take on Cixin's "Dark Forest" response to the Fermi Paradox.

I'll check those out, thanks. Arthur C Clarke "Rendezvous with Rama" was one of my favourite books as a teen, the comparisons to that drew me in. Have you read 3BP?

a reprint of an 1853 complete Stories of the Brothers Grimm which was €1

Sanctuary by Ken Bruen since i wanted to actually read a Jack Taylor novel and this was 25c.

The Penniless Vegetarian a book of vegetarian recipes I should really work through.

réstif de la bretonne le paysan et la paysanne pervertis: ou les dangers de la ville

picked up a copy of memento mori after reading all the spark talk today. also picked up a copy of jon wyndham day of the triffids at the same store

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clark
I really enjoyed teh BBC TV adaptation of this so wanted to read it. So very glad to find it as 4 for €1.50 in a charity shop today.

alongside
The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice,
remember having enjoyed those of her books I read previously so think this could be good. It has been 20 odd years since then though.

Secret History by Donna Tartt
Wait For Me by Deborah Devonshire a memoir by the youngest of the MItford sisters. Should be somewhat interesting, not sure if they were all Nazis but could be intriguing anyway.

also got a hardback 2fer of George Macdonald Fraserr's Flashman at the Charge and Flashman in The Great Game he tends to be fun een if the politics are a little dodgy.

from a book sale in a church that had the sf section listed as occult:
Iain Banks - Consider Phlebas and Use of Weapons, to go with my unread copy of player of games
Nicholas Pileggi - Wiseguy, a.k.a. the book goodfellas was based on
Three by Flannery O'Connor (Wise Blood, The Violent Bear It Away, Everything that rises...) i don't like that one flannery story that gets in textbooks, but i like the Huston movie version of Wise Blood.

Finally saw 'Wolf in White Van' in a bookshop, so have bought it and started it and am really digging it

(Bought new, I should add!)

Plus was gifted about 50kg of sci-fi paperbacks from a friend moving house, need to sort through and see what is worth keeping

I decided to clean out some books. I took a bagful to sell at Powell's Books. They bought about 40% of them, but only for $15 in trade. I used the trade slip to buy:

Rome and the Mediterranean, Titus Livius, a Penguin Classics paperback, $4.95. Penguin put out Livy's history of Rome in four volumes. This one was missing from my shelves. I had the other three, now I've the full set.

Aucassin & Nicolette and Other Tales, tr. Pauline Matarasso, another Penguin Classics paperback, $2.50. This one is slender, weighs very little (~100 grams or 3.35 oz.) and will probably end up in my backpack on a multi-night hike in the wilderness this summer, where every ounce counts.

Looking up 'Aucassin & etc' and have never heard of any of the stories in it, and it looks very appealing

Becoming Elektra a 2010 history of the label

nyrb poets ellizabeth willis new/selected, knew nothing of her but why not bc it look intersting

also the new mallarmé translations out last year, under title 'azure', by blake bronson-bartlett and robert fernandez, includes the 1899 'poesies', 'a roll of the dice…', and for about half the volume, selections from mallarmé's big uncompleted 'book' project, which tbh looks like somebody had a bad day in math class

Sold a bunch for:

Tarjei Vesaas - The Ice Palace
Thomas Bernhard - Old Masters (two of my favourite bks)

Antonio Tabucchi - Time Ages in a Hurry

Also:

Joseph Roth - Tarabas
Bohumil Hrabal - The Little Time where Time Stood Still

a dollar each:

paul klee - on modern art
anthony burgess - ninety-nine novels
james joyce - a portrait of the artist...
the fiction of samuel beckett: form & effect
theatre of sleep: an anthology of literary dreams
t.f. powys - mr weston's good wine
synge - plays, poems and prose
zola - l'assommoir
prevert - paroles
faulkner - as i lay dying
a collection of mencken criticism

I bought a couple of used paperbacks at the charity shop (proceeds go to the local public library):

The Go-Away Bird and Other Stories, Muriel Spark, in a 1961 edition, for $1.
Amulet, Roberto Bolano, but it's not a Wimmer translation, so I may find his 'prose style' a bit less familiar, for $1.

Stumbled upon a box full of Simenon at a local library's used book sale this weekend. First American editions of eight non-Maigret hardcovers, plus eight Maigret hardcovers. Kind of overwhelmed and not sure where to begin.

start with a non-maigret: give us the list and we'll guide you! (I like the maigrets fine, and am reading them all, but the nons are usually better)

Just this morning finished reading The Engagement by Simenon - good, but not as purely enjoyable as The Man Who Watched Trains Go By, imho

I've already read a few Maigrets and a few non-Maigrets and have really enjoyed everything so far (favorite is probably The Little Saint). Here are the non-Maigrets I just picked up:

The Nightclub
The Fugitive
Teddy Bear
The Girl With a Squint
The Premier
The Train
The Disappearance of Odile
Betty
The Little Doctor

Assuming The Train is the same as The Man Who Watched the Train Go By, and The Premier is The same as The President, those are both excellent. Don't know Betty or Tne Girl Witna Squint, but there seem to have been lits of different titles for various books over the years and inthe US and UK

yesterday, perhaps in subconscious celebration of ireland's win against italy, i bought:

mike mccormick - solar bones
gavin corbett - green glowing skull

xpost It turns out The Premier is the same as The President, but The Train is not the same as The Man Who Watched Trains Go By.

there seem to have been lits of different titles for various books over the years and inthe US and UK

Yes! I already learned the hard way that The Two-Penny Bar and Maigret and the Tavern by the Seine are the same book.

also known as:

Guinguette by the Seine
Maigret to the Rescue
A Spot by the Seine
The Bar on the Seine

very helpful for figuring out what is what as far as the maigret works are concerned... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Maigret#List_of_novels

apollinaire - the poet assassinated and other stories
leonora carrington - the house of fear: notes from down below
samuel beckett - echo's bones
blaise cendrars - moravagine
alfred kubin - the other side
andrei bely - complete short stories
restif de la bretonne - les nuits de paris
rayner heppenstall - saturnine, four absentees
nathalie sarraute - portrait of a man unknown
alain robbe-grillet - in the labyrinth, la maison de rendez-vous

THird Ear book on Reggae.

& put aside the biography of Alex chilton.

library book sale this morning.

proust box - vintage softcover/moncrieff/kilmartin (this is kinda what i've been wanting to find. my two volume hardcovers that i've had for years is so unappealing.)

jennifer egan - a visit from the goon squad (i guess i'll be the last person to read it. i still don't want to read wolf hall though...)

laura e. richards - captain january (kid's book from 1892. it looks great. and its a 1892 edition too.)

mary ellen chase - the plum tree (it took 60+ years but the library is finally getting rid of its mary ellen chase collection)

mary ellen chase - dawn in lyonesse (they've been holding on to this one since 1939...)

mary ellen chase - the white gate (i was tempted to buy them all, but i just got three...this is a first edition she wrote in 1954 while teaching here at Smith College.)

eric ambler - the light of day

eric ambler - doctor frigo

lesley egan - the hunters and the hunted (seedy california crime circa 1979.)

edna ferber - so big

edna ferber - saratoga trunk

janet frame - towards another summer (i didn't even know this existed. posthumous. i thought i had it all.)

portable chekhov (in case i need some emergency chekhov while i'm on the go...)

frederick barthelme - natural selection

Always wondered about Ferber, author of Giant and several others made into v. watchable movies.
Recently got a Simenon from the library shop: Aunt Jeannie---didn't know about alt. titles for his, so haven't looked it up yet; is it good?

Also got (new) Luc Sante's The Other Paris. He says that, vs. at least one recent review, it's not meant as a successor to Low Life, about hi-jinks in a neighborhood of very pre-Robert Moses NYC: this 'un has more range, and is as much about working class per se as low lifers. Haven't read it yet so dunno. Looks great though, incl.striking pix.
Splendor In The Short Grass: The Grover Lewis Reader, edited by Jan Reid & Kip Stratton, intro by Dave Hickey. Lewis was a strong longform journo in early Rolling Stone and others---title piece is on location for The Last Picture Show---also incl. short stories, poems and excerpt from unfinished memoir. I still remember bits of the Stone work from orig. publication, and whole thing looks v. worthwhile.

A Man Called Destruction Holly George Warren (Alex chilton bio)
Joseph Campbell The Masks of God :Occidental Mythology
Chaos James Gleick
In Search Of Iraq Richard Downes
Set Your Voice Free Roger Love
When We Were Orphans Kazuo Ishigoro } 25c charity shop
1001 Country Household Hints Mary Rose}" " " "
The Devotion of Suspect X Keigo Higashino
Pattern Recognition William Gibson
How To Be A Woman Caitlin Moran
His Illegal Self Peter Carey

Julian, Gore Vidal, used mass-market paperback, $1. I read it nearly 40 years ago and recall it as worthwhile. Julian was a bit of a prig and an ass, but nowhere near as priggish and assholish as his sworn Christian enemies were. This copy is just to keep handy for when I'm in the mood for some light reading.

from the two used shops in town. (i really need to get out of town though. i'm itching to hit some of the better spots in the area...)

sci-fi stuff:

grass - sheri s. tepper

dilation effect - douglas r. mason

the integral trees - larry niven

galactic cluster - james blish

unearthly neighbors - chad oliver

daybreak - 2250 a.d. - andre norton (original title: star man's son)

the stars are ours! - andre norton

the star fox - poul anderson

destiny's road - larry niven

normal people books:

many inventions - rudyard kipling

the day's work - rudyard kipling (both kiplings from the 15 volume authorized edition of 1893/1899. i totally would have bought all 15 if they had been there...)

the complete poems 1927-1979 - elizabeth bishop

the collected poems - wallace stevens

st. lucy's home for girls raised by wolves - karen russell

don't cry - stories - mary gaitskill

bark - stories - lorrie moore (read most of them in the magazines they appeared in just waiting for that five dollar hardcover nice price...)

the eye of the story - selected essays & reviews - eudora welty

novelists in interview - john haffenden (80's interviews with martin amis, malcolm bradbury, brookner, carter, golding, hoban, lodge, mcewan, murdoch, pritchett, rushdie, storey, tennant, weldon.)

Sex, Drugs And rock'N'Roll Zoe cormer a popular science book on the science of hedonism and tythe hedonism of science which could be fun if remotely accurate, or otherwise for that matter.

Colour Victoria Finlay
I think this is the book I read a few years ago after seeing it recommended somewhere, possibly on here. This is the paperback of a book i thought much thicker as a hardback. Think i was thinking of trying to get the copy back out of the library, so glad i went back intio this charity shop cos I didn't see it there yesterday.

and a book called Wanamurraganya The story of Jack McPhee by Sally Morgan story of a half aborigine maverick guy.

st. lucy's home for girls raised by wolves - karen russell

don't cry - stories - mary gaitskill
Haven't caught up w these yet, but did read Russell's Vampires In The Lemon Grove and Gaitskill's Because They Wanted To---awesome collections.

1st hand:

Lazlo Krasznahorkai - Seiobo There Below
Elsa Morante - Arcoeli

2nd hand:

Kawabata - The Lake
Tomas Transtromer - New Collected Poems