Nu-ILB: What books have you purchased lately?

Went to a charity shop for the first time in ages and found a hardcover of John McPhee's Annals of the Former World. $6.

Just a bunch of gifts and Oxfam finds (* = already read, is good to have a copy):

J. Rodolfo Wilcock - The Temple of Iconoclasts
The Argonauts - Maggie Nelson*
Driss Chaibi - The Simple Past
Natalia Ginzburg - Family and Borghesia
Gerald Murnane - Tamarisk Row
Mario Levrero - The Luminous Novel
Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep
Nammalvar - Tiruvaymoli (Endless Song)
Shakespeare - Anthony and Cleopatra
Jocelyn Brooke - The Image of a Drawn Sword*

Here Comes Everybody James Fearnley
POgues accordionist's memoirs of the time he spent in the band. From auditioning for guitar in the Nipple Erectors to leaving a whilie after Shane had been fired. I found it quite compelling. Wound up being the book i read almost immediately after buying it which is like 2 weeks ago.
I'm not sure to what extent I was afmiliar with the history of the band. I didn't take the opportunity to see them in their early days which I should have done. May have seen them at Brockwell Park if at all. I did buy records from Shane in Rocks Off , met him at a Nick Cave gig a while later and even got to armwrestle him backstage at the Brixton Rollercoaster gig for which he gave me £10 to buy a drink after i missed the free bar.
Sorry to hear about quite what a state and liability he was to work with. He was quite a decent songwriter at one point.
Also interesting to hear about the ratio of Irish players in the band which I had assumed were mainly 2nd generation Irish Uk immigrant and seems to b efar less so.
Great book anyway I thought. I know i saw this around for ages in sales in HMV and FOPP and thingsbut don't think I had teh urge to buy it until I found it in a local charity shop.

Secrets of the Press ed by Stephen Glover
Allstar cast of newspaper journalists give some insight into how things are done within the press of the turn of the millennium and a couple of decades before. I've read a couple of the essays and found them pretty interesting. Good to get a picture of how the world works or is it more worked. At least at one time. I do like things like this.

The Guilty Feminist: From Our Noble Goals to Our Worst Hypocrisies Deborah Frances-White
THe book related to a podcast I listen to frequently. I've been meaning to pick up a copy for a while but hadn't seen it around physically. Then managed to see 2 copies in different shops in one week. THis was the cheaper of teh 2 and does seem to be reasonably new.
It starts with a history/overview of feminism and the goes into further exploration.

Killing Custer: The Battle of Little Big Horn and the Fate of the Plains Indians James Welch
an attempt to look at the massacre that lead to the death of Custer from an Indian perspective and then look into the consequent history of the tribes involved.
James Welch was a Native American author so his perspective should be interesting. So far I've read the introduction and look forward to the rest of the book. He is joined in writing this by the film maker Paul Sekler who made acouple of films on the subject himself.

Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology Francis Frascina (Editor),
Charles Harrison (Editor)
An Open University related text book including a number of essays and articles on the subject. It came out in the 90s. Looks interesting

Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson Jeff Guinn
apparently the best researched book on the late 60s figure. I have read afew books on him and heard his solo lp.
So this looked like an interesting buy in a charity shop yesterday.
May take a while to get around to reading.

Also got hold of Jane Jacobs The Death and Life of Great American Cities from the library
I know i saw a documentary on the writer a while back & probably at least one webinar.
Looks interesting, hopefully give me even more background on a series of Town planning talks i was following last year and will probably continue interest in if webinars continue online. I think this is an interesting perspective anyway and may be one that has been built on since its early 60s initial publication.

The Bang bang Club Greg marinovich & Joao Silva
Snapshopts from a hidden war
Talking about the township war in South Africa and some young photographers who covered it.

The Life Changing Magic Of Tidying Marie Kindo
a mouse eaten copy of the popular book on tidying up from a few years ago. So maybe doesn't automatically work. Well I'm sure i can lose i into a pile somewhere. THough maybe would do some good to read and learn.

Everyt6hing Is Illuminated Jonathan Safran Foer.
a story about a man of teh same name as the author turning up in the Ukraine looking for the man who saved hjis father accompanied by a bad translator. sounds interestying.

William Faulkner LIght iN August
cos it was Faulkner, not sure what its about

Maark Little The New America
I thought i recognised the cover from something from last year. Its earlier though

What Ei9nstein Told His Cook 2 Robert L Wolke
Kitchen science book, looked interesting.

The Rage of a Privileged Class Ellis Cose
book on how the m0re privileged classes of the black population are effected by institutional racism and similar

Black Hole; Green Card Fintan O'Toole
book by Irish thinker on changes in Ireland. Earlier than I thought since its from 94.

Modern Nature Derek jarman
Memoir and book on building a garden after the director discovered he was HIV positive. Looked very interesting.

A Different Drummer William Melvin Kelley
book by undersung black author

The Chestnut Man Soren Svestrup
started watching the tv version of this . Story about a Danish woman detective looking into a serial killer who is leaving a folk doll figure as a signature at his murders.

The Grail Tradition John matthews
thought I would get this and it would give me a decent outline of what had been believed cos I thought the tradition wasinteresting. apparently it gives few citations as to where the info came from and also interweaves everything with new age meditation practises. Still it was cheap and if it does give taht tradition it should be good.

Biased Jennifer Eberhardt
Looking into what creates biases etc

This is Grime Hattie Collins & Olivia Rose
Oral history of recent music genre. Nice find for a couple of Euro

Fashionopolis The Price of Fast Fashion & The Future of Clothes Dana Thomas
book on fast fashion etc . I have some interest in why iit is so bad so this might give me an even more concrete picture of the details.

White Fragility Robin Di Angelo
book I read recently in a library loan version and hoped a cheap copy might turn up in the shop I found this in afte rfinding Ibram X Kendi's How to be an anti-racist there a few months back. THis was even better today I had been in to my dentist which is a few doors down after being in the shop once. For some reason I went back in afterwards to see if they put any more titles out. Not sure if thsi had been put out in the timme I wa sin the dentists or had just missed it on the previous look.

John Fowles The Collector
I read acouple fo his before i think. Remember having him reccomended decades ago and still not picked up on him much. But wanted to pick up something wityh White Fragility.

previous trip was
Why I'm No Longer Talking TO white People About Race Reni Eddo-Lodge
which I'd read as a library loan item about 3 week s ago. But this is a nice looking copy & I did want a copy of my own.
So 1Eur is nice

Climate Justice Mary Robinson
introductory book on the subject

MotherFocloir Dispatches From A Not So Dead Language Darach O Seaghdha
Fun with Irish language etc

THe Book OfThe Thousandand One Nights Richard Burton
1950s edition of the Victyorian adventurer's translation compiled at 370 pages from a longer work.
I'm not sure who thsi is for. THought it might be a children's work but illustrations have titls in them and i think there may be more sex in this version than the bowdlerised later popular versions. Not read it yet.

For my birthday yesterday I received five books, all of which are non-fic and four of which are somewhat obscure titles purchased at a charity bookstore for a couple of bucks. My wife gave up on selecting books for me at least two decades ago, so I bought all five books and gave them to her to keep until my birthday.

The Moro Affair, Leonardo Sciascia, is the least obscure book on the list and cover his thoughts regarding the assassination of the Italian PM.

Treason by the Book, Jonathan Spence, about an 18th century Chinese conspiracy.

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, Richard Wrangham, much speculative paleo-anthropology theorizing about fire, food and cooking in human origins.

The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean, looks to be a bunch of entertaining stories all loosely connected to the periodic table of elements.

The Age of Entanglement, Louisa Gilder, recounts the quantum theory of quantum entanglement, which is a truly spooky phenomenon.

The Voice of the Middle Ages in Personal Letters 1100-1500, edited by Catherine Moriarty.

There have been at least another 20 titles I've acquired since the last time I posted to this thread, but I've been too lazy to post to ILB about them, until I've read them and can post in the WAYR threads. Stevolende has been doing heroic work keeping this thread current. Much appreciated.

I got a copy of John Berger's Pig Earth second-hand because I liked Ways of Seeing and The Red Tenda of Bologna. Not sure if I'll read all of it or just the "three lives of lucie cabrol" chapters which seems to be the part people like.

The thread Literary treats - recommend great reads, combined with the NYRB Flash sale this weekend just lead me to order:

Eve's Hollywood, Eve Babitz
The Long Ships, Frans G. Bengtsson
To Each His Own, Leonardo Sciascia
Black Wings Has My Angel , Elliot Chaze

Of these four I've already read To Each His Own, but I wanted a copy for my personal library (and I recommend it). I made a similar purchase of four interesting-looking titles from NYRB during last year's Flash Sale and didn't regret it.

Sophie Colline - Who is Mary Sue?
Baudelaire - Intimate Journals
Domenico Starnone - Ties
Aubrey - Brief Lives
Johann Grimmelhausen - Simplicissimus
Antonio Lobo Antunes - Act of the Dammed

*Collins

Johann Grimmelhausen - Simplicissimus

a+ (which translation, out of interest?)

Mike Mitchell.

got into the habit of buying e-copies of books i already own when i see them on sale just because i fancy re-reading them and prefer the kobo. probably 4 or 5 a month. do androids dream... today, two Gibsons, 2001, slaughterhouse 5... at least it's not contributing to my space problem...

I want to do the opposite, have copies on shelves of ones I've only read on the kobo. No good bookshops round here unfortunately, but I did today pick up a Penelope Fitzgerald in Oxfam. (The Gate of Angels which I haven't actually read yet, was hoping for The Blue Flower.)

i do have a complete set of penguin classics Dickens that I've only read the Project Gutenberg versions of but i know that's an extravagance. the intros were informative at least (although you can often read the intro via Amazon's look-inside feature)

have just noticed ocr errors in my new digital copy of The Accidental Tourist. "Sony!" offered as an apology.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, by John Koenig. Seems like it is some kind of bestseller now, so expecting some sort of ILBacklash.

Remembering How We Stood John Ryan
book on the literary bohemian scene in Dublin in the mid 20th century. pen portraits of several writers from teh time. Should be interesting.

Warlock Oakley Hall
1950s Western reflecting the political feelings of the time. Fear of McCarthy and so on.
I think I know the name from somewhere was it filmed. Seemed interesting for a euro anyway.

City of Bohane Kevin Barry
dystopian sci fi novel by local author. I have his Beatlebone around somewhere too , maybe other stuff.
I bump into him t openings and things so think I need to read him.
Plus i heard he's really good.

Camera Lucida Roland Barthes
Philosopher's views on photography. Apparently his final book.

THree Novels of Old New York Edith Wharton
I think I may have picked up a copy of teh Age of Innocence after seeing the mid 90s film .
& sill haven't read it. But thought i might be tempted now.
Not like I've actually bought another stack of books since the olast things i added to this list and neglected to add tehm here or anything. Or amybe it is exactly like taht.

plus new book out of teh library
Ain't I A Woman bell hooks
Been meaning to read her fro a while and never see them in charity shops which I hope will change.
She was somebody who was recommended during the recent TULCA arts festival and I had this ordered as an interlibrary loan before that but seems like copies of this are disappearing and still listed within the system.

Damian Catani - Journey to the Extreme
Natalia Ginzburg - The Dry Heart
Wolfgang Hilbig - The Interim
Mario Vargas Llosa - Conversations in the Cathedral
William Congreve - Incognita

Went overboard over the last couple of weeks leading up to Xmas.
Walked half way around town a couple of times to hit charity shops.
Got some interesting stuff and so on.

cutting and pasting from Goodreads doesn't seem to be working too easily, there's another 2 or 3 x this from the last couple of weeks

Unwritten Laws: The Unofficial Rules Of Life As Handed Down By Murphy And Other Sages

Rawson, Hugh

Bubble Of American Supremacy

Soros, George

Bessie

Albertson, Chris

A Girl of the Limberlost (Limberlost, #2)

Stratton-Porter, Gene

American Indians: Folk Tales & Legends (Wordsworth Myth, Legend & Folklore)

Cunningham, Keith

The House by the Lake: A Story of Germany

Harding, Thomas *

Out of the Fury: The Incredible Odyssey of Eliezer Urbach

Weigand, Edith S.

The Group

McCarthy, Mary

Conversations with Friends

Rooney, Sally *

And They All Sang: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey

Terkel, Studs

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Sagan, Carl


The Shorter Pepys

Pepys, Samuel

Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air

Holmes, Richard

A Yellow Raft in Blue Water

Dorris, Michael

A Day in the Country and Other Stories

Maupassant, Guy de



Rack, Rope and Red-Hot Pincers: A History of Torture and Its Instruments

Abbott, Geoffrey


Walter Winchell: A Novel

Herr, Michael


Sacred Hunger (Sacred Hunger #1)

Unsworth, Barry


The Awakening and Selected Stories

Chopin, Kate


A Personal Anthology

Borges, Jorge Luis

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

King, Stephen *


The Big Sleep and Other Novels (#1, 2, 6)

Chandler, Raymond


(TV HEAVEN)Complete Cult (Collins)

Condon, Paul


Weep Not, Child

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o


Strangers on a Train

Highsmith, Patricia

The Complete Parkhurst Tales: Behind the Locked Gates of Britain's Toughest Jails

Parker, Norman


Superbad: The Violent Rise and Fall of the Black Mafia

Griffin, Sean Patrick

Got the new 33 1/3 volume on Avalon in my Xmas stocking.

Got a copy of Morning of the Magicians by Louis Pauwels earlier this week.
I don't remember having seen one in years of charity shop scouring.
Also got stacks of books from various other places on like 3 occasions this week.

Also got a copy of Sir Robert Frazer's The Golden Bough after having bought a copy about 20 years ago taht I never got through. May still have it somewhere .

& a nice copy of Simone de Beauvoir's The 2nd Sex

From the great Kaboom Books in Houston:

Memoirs of Hecate County, Edmund Wilson (edition upgrade)
In Praise of Older Women, Stephen Vizinczey
In Any Case and Natural Shocks, Richard Stern (whose
What Hath God Wrought, Daniel Walker Howe
The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Gordon S. Wood
Inventing a Nation, Gore Vidal

What Hath God Wrought was one of my big pandemic reads back in 2020, it's very good

I enjoyed that Edmund Wilson, especially "The Princess with the Golden Hair". He should have written more fiction!

In Any Case and Natural Shocks, Richard Stern (whose

all three used

rivka galchen - everyone knows your mother is a witch

patricia lockwood - no one is talking about this

book of vija celmins' drawings published by a parisian art museum in the mid-90s. contains a long interview with vija and an introductory essay by robert storr. most of the drawings are of the night sky

I more or less stopped reading through the pandemic, scraped through a few bits and pieces but it was more of a chore than a joy. Managed to start reading again which means I can start buying more books than I ever manage to read, again. Hooray! Including, in the last 10 days or so:

Maigret Goes South by Georges Simenon
The Sweet Indifference of the World by Peter Stamm
Childhood by Tove Ditlevsen
Youth by Tove Ditlevsen
Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen
Guestbook by Leanne Shapton
Trieste by Daša Drndić
Operratics by Michel Leiris (this last a small (Green Integer) book of very short pieces about opera - I'm not terribly interested in opera but I am interested in Michel Leiris and how he might talk about opera)

If I was a good person I would look up and write down the translators for seven of those eight but I am not, this morning.

I've been hitting the library lately. The only recent one I've purchased lately is The Fall of Babel, by Josiah Bancroft. Honestly, it's a bit of a letdown early on, but I've gone so far on this journey that I'll see it through to the end.

amazon monthly deals for march include War and Peace, i notice. too soon...

It's the Briggs translation, which is v. good

i already have it, i think, albeit unread, waiting for the right year.

but vaguely related, march's reading is Grossman's Stalingrad

I ordered a copy of Rob Shearman's We All Hear Stories in the Dark, a short story collection with the gimmick of being organized as a choose your own adventure book. 1800 pages. Shearman is mostly known for writing some very good Doctor Who audio plays.

Peter Weiss - The Aesthetics of Resistance (Vol. II)
William Shakespeare - Othello
William Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Juan Carlos Onetti - The Shipyard
Christopher Logue - War Music
Antonio Moresco - Distant Light
Vassily Grossman - Life and Fate

swag from an hour spent at the annual "24 hour book sale" after a two year hiatus... $1 a book:

allain/souvestre - fantomas
robbe-grillet - the erasers
gombrowicz - pornografia
pynchon - inherent vice
jim thompson - omnibus
henry miller - tropic of cancer
kafka - the trial "definitive edition"
george gissing - the nether world
thomas hardy - far from the madding crowd
charles brockden brown - wieland/carwin
ann radcliffe - mysteries of udolpho
ef benson - as we were: a victorian peep-show
anthony trollope - an autobiography
ivy compton-burnett - more women than men
stevie smith - over the frontier
lorca - five plays/three tragedies
ibsen - 3 volumes of penguin plays
strindberg - three plays
lawrence - penguin selected poems
yeats - collected poems
oxford classic irish short stories
bowker (ed.) - malcolm lowry remembered
william sansom - proust

Quite a few. Probably too many. But as long as I have a place to store them I'm sure I'll be working my way through tehm.
& may be my main source of exercise waking around the various charity shops in town.
also still getting the books from interlibrary loans

This week I got my preordered download of the audiobook for The Candy House, the new novel from ILB fav Jennifer Egan. I will probably end up getting it in paper at some point, too.

She published (and read) an excerpt from that in the New Yorker. I quite enjoyed the concept. Her last book was very good, if fairly conventional.

I just bought Isaac Asimov: FOUNDATION (1951).

Isaac Asimov: FOUNDATION & EMPIRE (1952); SECOND FOUNDATION (1953).

Pohl and Kornbluth, THE SPACE MERCHANTS.

George Moore, ESTHER WATERS.

the pohl half of space merchants is great

Is it split in half?

Maybe it actually splits into thirds?

The Wisden Book of Cricketers' Lives (I know (nearly) nothing of cricket, but love reference books. I need help)

I am always looking for small, lightweight, used paperback books I can take on backpacks. I found two:

The Abbess of Crewe, Muriel Spark, used paperback in very good condition, $2.
The Singing Sands, Josephine Tey, used paperback, $2.