Last Book You Bought and Why

[novlist*star*]

I bought Emma novel by Jaen Austen
WAY?
Because I want to knwo more about this great novelist style..

[Lioness_Heart]

The House on the Strand by Daphne Du Maurier. I've been slowly orking my way through her novels, and this one seemed perfect for me because it's also about time travel :)

[thelastmelon]

My boyfriend is buying Cat's Eye (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_Eye_%28novel%29) by Margaret Atwood for me today. I've been close to buying it several times for a few months now, but never did it. And today I noticed it was on the list of suggested extra-books to read for my class starting in August, so I thought that it'd be good to combine school and fun. :)

[Sweets America]

I bought two books:
- Desolation Angels by Kerouac because I love his writings and I am going to work on it
- Labyrinths by Borges because Islandclimber recommanded it to me and when I read the beginning on the net, I was really tempted to read the rest.

[ampoule]

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff by Christopher Moore for book club, Prose and Cons. It's about Jesus and his childhood friend, Biff.

[Pyrrho]

Goethe - The Sorrows of Young Werther
Why? Have to read it for a seminar.

[aeroport]

Dune - Frank Herbert
The Black Swan - Mercedes Lackey

I started reading the Lackey book several years ago, and I cannot remember why I stopped, as I was really enjoying it. I thought of it the other day at work (at the library) and tried to find it, but could not; thus, the purchase.
Dune I've been meaning to read for a while now; another one that I didn't finish originally.

[aeroport]

I have that on my shelf, but have never real it. Was it good?

I just bought the Library of America edition of Walt Whitman's Poems and Prose.

I love the Library of America editions and Whitman is my favorite poet.

Honestly, the furthest I've gone with Trollope so far is The Warden, which is short and, if you haven't read it, one that I'd recommend. Perhaps I'll read this one before the summer's over... At the moment it occupies the 'Unread Huge Victorian Novels' section of my shelf. :blush:

[Idril]

I loved The Way We Live Now but then again, I'm an unabashed Trollope fan. His novels are long, except for The Warden but they really are quick reads, his prose flows so nicely, the plot is always moving, the characters, for the most part, keep developing. A great Victorian author!

[kasie]

It may not be your type of book, though. You should buy exactly what you want. :)

I've made a note of the title - thank you, Antiquarian, and yes, you were quite right, it was in amazon.uk, so why it came up with Title Not Found when I first searched for it, I don't know!

I have used my birthday gift to buy:

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - the Royal Shakespeare Company edition. My original Complete Works is falling to bits (well it is about forty-five years old and much thumbed!) and this edition is printed single column to the page and the annotations are on the page beneath the text so you don't have to turn to another page for the glossaries etc. I live close enough to Stratford to be able to make several visits a year, so I thought it would be useful to be able to do some pre-visit reading of the text/version that I will be seeing.

Shakespeare's Language - Frank Kermode

Shakespeare's Words - A Glossary & Language Companion - David Crystal & Ben Crystal.

What makes you think I might like the works of Shakespeare?

[Niamh]

The Woman In Black by Susan Hill

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

Hidden Food Alergies; is what you are eating making you ill?

The Sea by John Banville

The Book of Murder by Guillermo Martinez

Ma He sold me for a few ciggarettes by Martina Long (for my mam but i'm going to read it also)

Charming man by Marian Keyes (for my mam and i will NOT be reading it.)

[slobone]

I bought a whole pile of old whodunnits for 50 cents each at a used book store -- Rex Stout, Ngaio Marsh, Michael Innes, Ian Fleming, Agatha Christie...

[NickAdams]

I use to work at a book shop and I still get a 50% discount, free if the books are from outside, so I get books daily and have the habit of kissing and not telling (to many lips to remember:brow:).

I purchased two books from the Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares collaboration: Chronicles of Bustos Domecq and Extraordinary Stories.

That was yesterday. Today I bought Mircea Eliade's Shamanism.



Flannery O'Conner, The Collected Works (Library of American Edition - these are her four novels)

Have you read the introduction to the edition? I have the Signet edition, I think, but I love LOA books. They are advocates of the author has the final word, so I was curious how much restoration was done.

[CarlyQ22]

hello everyone, this is my first post and i hope to talk w/ all of you in the future!! i just bought The Brothers Karamazov today and am very excited to read it!

[NickAdams]

No, Nick I haven't. I haven't received that book from Amazon yet. LOL I have Flannery O'Conner's short stories, but I've never read her novels.

I'll let you know what it says when I receive the book. :)

Thanks.

[aeroport]

I loved The Way We Live Now but then again, I'm an unabashed Trollope fan. His novels are long, except for The Warden but they really are quick reads, his prose flows so nicely, the plot is always moving, the characters, for the most part, keep developing. A great Victorian author!

I'm thinking this would be a healthy compliment to my Summer of James. Thanks. :)
*begins*

[wessexgirl]

I've just received my order today for 6 books from the Rougon-Macquart series by Emile Zola. They are:

The Kill
Pot Luck
The Belly of Paris
L'Assomoir
Nana
The Masterpiece

[Eggys]

Les Miserables- Victor Hugo. About 30 pages into it, loving it so far.

[aeroport]

When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
Pretty amusing so far. :)

[papayahed]

The Oddessy
A Winter's Tale


guess why?

[slobone]

American Sea Writing - A Literary Anthology, pub by Library of America. Just found it onsale and bought it at the LOA website. Beautifully made book. Sixty-eight entries, 671 pages.
Three cheers for the LOA. I look for their volumes whenever I'm in the library, and I'd buy them all if I could afford it. I'm on their mailing list, and those anthologies look really tempting...

[Idril]

I'm thinking this would be a healthy compliment to my Summer of James. Thanks. :)
*begins*

Great! You'll have to let me know what you think of it.

[Niamh]

The Oddessy
A Winter's Tale


guess why?

I have to get the oddyssey. Have winters tale. Try pick Book up on way to work tomorrow.

[Beautifull]

The Host by stephenie meyer. i just got it today at approximately....3:00P.M., it is now...6:38P.M.

[Niamh]

have a proof of that since march. Still havent read it though.

[Niamh]

The Odyssey!

[Adopt]

Ira Levin's: The Boys from Brazil

[Gracewings]

How the Irish Saved Civilization

[Nightshade]

Balthasar gracian's atr of worldly wisdom, and a second hand ( exlibrary copy) of Thw world commuter great journeys by train

[wessexgirl]

Hi. I just wanted to agree about how good Trollope is. I started collecting his works years ago, but haven't got them all yet. Too many books out there to read, so little money or time :) Anyway, he's brilliant at writing characters, with a light comedic touch. I can just see the unctious Reverend Obadiah Slope in my mind, along with the snooty and disdainful Mrs Proudie, and the many other excellent characters which people his novels. He writes with a lovely satirical eye about those bedrocks of the Victorian British Establishment, the Church and Parliament. I'd highly recommend him to anyone who likes a good story, well-told, with a bit of humour thrown in. He's not all about humour though. Take The Way We Live Now, or He Knew he was Right. There are some tragic characters in there too. A truly great author.

[Idril]

Take The Way We Live Now, or He Knew he was Right. There are some tragic characters in there too. A truly great author.

Yes! He Knew He Was Right is such a chilling novel. Trollope just has this wonderful way of weaving and creating, one part of the plot is at it's peak while another is just beginning while another is winding down, something is always happening, keeping you intrigued. And while his style is certainly Victorian, he has a bit of a bite to him, things aren't all roses and sunshine in his books. They always have a happy ending...for the most part but that doesn't take away from the often critical tone of the novel. And he writes tremendous dialogue, there have been some conversations in his books that have just overwhelmed me with their brilliance. Wessexgirl, have you read any of the Palliser Series? If not, I would highly recommend it, the novels in that series are some of Trollope's best...some of them are quite mediocre as well but the good ones make up for the not fabulous ones.

[Idril]

Idril, I have The Way We Live Now, but I've never read it. It seems so intimidating. LOL I just bought The Eustace Diamonds because it sounds very interesting. Have you ever read that one? Now I want to get He Knew He Was Right if it's chilling. I love a good, well written book that can be described as "chilling" at times.

I know it looks intimidating but really, they are such easy reads. I can get through one of those 800 page books in less than a week because they just flow so nicely. You know, it's Victorian so the sentence structure is complex, with all those commas and asides and the language is very formal but if you're already familiar with that style, you won't have any problem.

I have read the Eustace Diamonds, it's part of the Palliser series and it wasn't one of my favorites. It wasn't that it was poorly written, it was just that all the major characters were so entirely unlikeable and that's saying a lot for me because I generally like roguish characters but they were just unpleasant because they were unpleasant, not because of any inner turmoil which makes everything okay! :D :lol: Another thing that worked against it for me but might not bother someone who hasn't read any of the other "Palliser" novels is that it was kind of a stand alone book, not very connected to the characters that had already been firmly established and the book before it, Phineas Finn was outstanding. I had great expectations starting Eustance Diamonds and it was just a very different book so I was a little disappointed.

And yes, He Knew He Was Right is an excellent book, very dark. The "He" in the title becomes such a monster after awhile but you retain a great deal of sympathy for him because he's clearly disturbed and tortured and his life is completely destroyed by his actions...that's what's missing from Eustace Diamonds, in my opinion, that pull, it's just people behaving badly because they can.

[Dark Muse]

Catch-22 ~ Joseph Heller

I, Claudius ~ Robert Graves

The Octopus ~ Frank Norris

Walkers of the Wind ~ William Sarabande

[EricP]

"FDR" by Jean Howard Smith

[BREWNING]

I'm reading The Merry-Go-Round by Joshua Bruening...

You can find it at amazon / barnesandnoble . com

It's worth checking out!

[Sloan]

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

[kasie]

Thanks, Idril, for that assessment of The Eustace Diamonds - it's the only Trollope I've ever tried to read. My English master at school gave me the run of the English department stock cupboard (I think he was delighted to have a voracious reader in his class!) and there was a whole set of that book, so I think it must have been a set book for some exam one year. I couldn't get into it, he was very disappointed because he was a great advocate of Victorian fiction, but there were so many other books in that dusty little treasure room that I never went back to try Trollope again. But as so many Forum folk seem to enjoy him, I'll give him another go. I've seen BBC versions of his books - Alan Rickman was Slope, one of his first OTT slimey characters, wonderful! There was a very good version of The Way We Live Now recently. I think I may even have a Trollope or two in my Books-To-Read-When-I-Retire box, come to think of it!

[wessexgirl]

Hi all you Trollope fans. Idril, I have read a few of the Palliser novels, in fact, they are the ones I was collecting, in very expensive Folio editions, but the cost became prohibitive. I loved "Can You Forgive Her?", which I think is the start of them, and I love the way he questions a woman's place in society in those days. He is very sympathetic overall, and doesn't really judge. If you like Vanity Fair by Thackeray, you may like The Eustace Diamonds, as I agree, Lizzie Eustace is a bit of an immoral character. He Knew He Was Right is an excellent portrayal of a man obsessed, at the cost of his family, his life, and everything. The Beeb did a wonderful production of it a few years ago, which I am now going to buy, as I've been reminded of it by discussing Trollope. Oh dear, more to add to my never-ending wish list! ;)

[Kafka's Crow]

Arthur Ransome's Old Peter's Russian Tales. Time to re-live my childhood!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Peters-Russian-Tales-Arthur-Ransome/dp/1603127399/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213027719&sr=8-3

Time to pass my father's most enduring gift on to my children.

[Jeb0092]

"The Kingdom of God is Within You." Leo Tolstoi

[kasie]

Arthur Ransome's Old Peter's Russian Tales. Time to re-live my childhood!

Oh, KC, how pleased I am to know this is still in print! I listened to the stories on the radio on Children's Hour back in the fifties and my mother took me to the one and only book-shop in town so that I could buy a copy. I think it may have been the first book I bought for myself, other than the Riley Classics that were available in Woolworths for 2/6 (12.5p), certainly the first time I discovered it was possible to order a book if it wasn't in stock. I still have the copy and used it in every class I taught.

[NickAdams]

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam first and fifth versions translated by Edward Fitzgerald.

Alice's Adventures Under Ground (The Facsimile) by Lewis Carroll

The Power of Myth and Myths To Live By by Joseph Campbell

[aeroport]

Human, All Too Human - Nietzsche

[Sarasvati21]

A collection of short stories by Tolstoy.

[Sarasvati21]

I liked Anna Karenina. I like Tolstoy's style.

[Seabird111]

Well, this was actually a gift, but When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris.

[Melmoth]

Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race
Bram Stoker's Dracula's Guest and Other Writings

[amalia1985]

1) Mary Stuart by Friedrich Schiller

2) An Irish Mystery by Cora Harrison

3) East Of Eden by Ernest Hemingway

[thelastmelon]

I just bought three books by Agatha Christie:
The Murder on the Links
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Big Four

[Remarkable]

Down and Out in Paris and London~George Orwell

[thelastmelon]

You can't go wrong with Agatha Christie! :)

I'm a Miss Marple fan myself.

I've just started to get interested in the Agatha Christie books. So I'm starting with Poirot, but I will definately read the books with Miss Marple as well. :) I usually read the books in order, so that's what I'm doing. First all the Poirot in order, and then maybe Miss Marple.

[aabbcc]

Racine's Fedra and Camus' Plague.

[JordanW]

Plato - The Republic, and The 5 Dialogues.

[Scheherazade]

http://www.mggs.org/Departments/Library/images/Why%20do%20Buses%20come%20in%20threes.jpg http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0140261494.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/416qGL4d5-L._SL500_AA240_.jpg

[bree]

Yesterday I bought:
Paradise Lost John Milton
Evelina Frances Burney

[Hayley Zero]

The Ringmasters Daughter by Jostein Gaarder. I bought it in this lovely lovely bookstore here in Amsterdam: The English Bookexchange.

[kasie]

A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr I've been watching the re-run of Marr's series on television and enjoying it imensely. Marr was chief political editor at the BBC for years and as such has a first hand knowledge of world affairs and Britain's place in them. He has an air of slightly ironic detachment which gives his interpretation of events a certain authority. I'm looking forward to reading the book now that I have seen the tv programmes.

[wyattmtthws]

Last litt. book i bought:

"Little Women" by Louisa Marie Alcott

Last info book i bought:

"Get Rich" by (i forgot the author..hehe!)
--------------------------
Background Check (http://www.backgroundcheckrecordsearch.com) | Free Background Check (http://www.detectiveunlimited.com)

[EricP]

"Death on the Installment Plan" by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

[wessexgirl]

A set of 10 Modern Classics from Virago

Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann
A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
Blaming by Elizabeth Taylor
All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West
Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim
The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
Union Street by Pat Barker

Plus

A set of of 10 historical novels

Wife to Charles II by Hilda Lewis
The King's Grey Mare by Rosemary Hawley Jarman
Crown in Candlelight by Rosemary Hawley Jarman
The Lost Queen by Norah Lofts
The Concubine by Norah Lofts
The King's Pleasure by Norah Lofts
The Lute Player by Norah Lofts
Crown of Aloes by Norah Lofts
Eleanor the Queen by Norah Lofts
I, Jacqueline by Hilda Lewis

Plus a set of 10 modern fiction

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Eve Green by Susan Fletcher
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard
Miss Garnet's Angel by Salley Vickers

Great bargains. :)

[Dori]

My purchase from bn.com today included:

Faith of My Fathers by John McCain (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?EAN=9781400067923)
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?EAN=9780307237705)
CD - Fight With Tool (Flobots) (http://music.barnesandnoble.com/Fight-With-Tools/The-Flobots/e/602517689787/?itm=1)
CD - Phantom of the Opera Soundtrack (http://music.barnesandnoble.com/The-Phantom-of-the-Opera/e/827969352229/?itm=3)
Tales of Adventures: The Barnes & Noble Classics (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Tales-of-Adventure/Barnes-Noble/e/9781400673889/?cds2Pid=17978&linkid=1185569)*

*Includes:

Arabian Nights by Anonymous
Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London
Four Feathers by A. E. W. Mason
Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling
King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

$93.60 out of my wallet...:D

[Dori]

But $93.60 well spent, I'd say. :) I love those Barnes and Noble classics. The quality isn't bad (well, they're not for a lifetime, but they hold up okay) and they're so inexpensive relative to other editions. I buy them whenever I can. Have a lot of them. Most recent was The Picture of Dorian Gray and Heart of Darkness.

Yeah, I love them as well. I love the covers, the introductions, and the part in the end entitled "Comments and Questions" which offer thought-provoking questions for discussion and provide a bit of commentary taken from various sources. And it was $93.88 out of my pocket (my memory failed me! :p).

B&N is now offering a library set including 200 B&N Classics for ~$750-$800 (I think).

[EricP]

I downloaded quite a few books today for my Amazon Kindle. I got them all for free, but I'll post them anyway.

"Surplus: Spinoza, Lacan" by A. Kiarina Kordela
"The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin" (various)
"Portnoy's Complaint" by Philip Roth
"How Proust Can Change Your Life" by Alain De Botton
"Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond
"Gilles Deleuze: An Apprenticehip in Philosophy" by Michael Hardt

[sofia82]

Murakami- Kafka on the Shore (translation)
Banville - The Sea
Shakespeare - The MErchant of Venice
--- Julius Caesar

[Janine]

I downloaded quite a few books today for my Amazon Kindle. I got them all for free, but I'll post them anyway.

"Surplus: Spinoza, Lacan" by A. Kiarina Kordela
"The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin" (various)
"Portnoy's Complaint" by Philip Roth
"How Proust Can Change Your Life" by Alain De Botton
"Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond
"Gilles Deleuze: An Apprenticehip in Philosophy" by Michael Hardt

Hi EricP,so you have a Kindle? I just read all about those - an ad came into my email from Amazon the other day.
They sound really cool; the concept is great and so little and lightweight; no more lugging big books around with you.
Unfortunately, I can't afford one presently, but it is a thought for the future. How do you go about getting free downloads for these?


*********

Well, I just went on a buying binge on books.
Dover had another sale and since I was satisified with what I received a few months back,
I decided to fill up my cart with some of the sale books and make up enough to total over 50 dollar,
so I could get the free shipping. Now I have the package to look forward to opening.
I bought a lot; here is the list:

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Agnes Gray by Anne Bronte
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Anne Radcliff (?)
Four Great Russian Plays (various authors)
Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley
And Occurance at Owl Greek Bridge and Other Stories by Ambrose Bierce
Great Short Stories by American Women

In addition - some art/design type books

Ready to Use Celtic Designs
Great Characters from Shakespeare - Paper Dolls
Mikado - Paper Dolls
Gibson Girl - Paper Dolls

I love costume design and these well designed paper dolls are really fun!
Someday, who knows, I may share them with my granddaughter.
I am especially excited about the Shakespeare ones.


From Amazon I bought a book of a famous childrens/adults fairlytale illustrator - Kay Neilson.
I think the book is called
The Fairytale Illustrations by Kay Neilson
His paintings and drawings are marvelous; very decorative. I love that sort of thing.
I especially like his illustrations for"The Arabian Nights". You can find his work online.

I also bought a few DVD's onsale this week. I can't wait to get that order as well.
I didn't have to pay as much since I had a cashback bonus of $25. It was fun spending it! I guess all told I spend about $75.,
but I think I got quite a lot for my money.

[EricP]

Today I picked up two books: "Oil!" by Upton Sinclair, and "Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr" by Nancy Isenberg (which I am currently reading).

[Janine]

Wow, Janine, you did go on a spending spree! Way to go! :) I agree, you got some great stuff and it seems like a lot for the money.

Antiquarian, I thought I did pretty well, although I just missed out on some I really wanted, about 3 weeks ago - another clearance sale. They had some Henry James, I longed to buy and they were really cheap; and there were some others that interested me then, too...oh well...I missed the boat on those. The good ones must have gotten snatched up quickly. The cover art on some of the ones I recieved last time from Dover, were very nice. I was satisified with my order and will be this time, I am sure.


I bought Heart of Darkness recently, too, but I had a Barnes and Noble gift certificate and I used it for one of their classic editions. Also got Dracula and a volume of Kafka with that certificate. I love the Barnes and Noble Classic series. The books hold up well, aren't expensive, and have beautiful cover art. The three I got are actually hardcovers and I think they were only $7.95 each.

I can also download "Heart of Darkness" from my library site free. I can put it directly into my little MP3 player - my Creative Nano Stone. It is so tiny I can cart it anywhere with me easily. It will be fun to read the text and listen to the novel on audiofile. Presently, I downloaded "The Winter's Tale" on the player and should be listening to that right now.
I've never read any Kafka.:(

I read "Frankenstein" now, I think 2 times and listened to half (so far) on the audiofile; Kenneth Branagh is narrating but I had to settle for tapes. I haven't read "Dracula" yet, but someday will do so. I recently bought "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" - that should be interesting and it's very short. I read tons of Arthur Connon Doyle's mystery stories and loved them. I also delved into his "The White Company" tales. They were quite interesting.

The books you bought at B&N sound really nice and hardcovers are truly nicer to own; but I can settle for paperbacks for now at such a cheap price. I love going to browse at B&N and of course, I always do find something interesting to buy; I hardly ever come home empty-handed. I love their classic books, too...and their artbooks...and their bargain books, etc. I love going there and staying for hours. I always get a Starbucks, of course.;) Yum!


I hope you enjoy Villette. I really did. I think you will since you like Jane Eyre.

Antiquarian, wasn't it you who recommended it to me awhile back? I would definitely enjoy another Charlotte Bronte book. I loved "Jane Eyre".

I think I saw a movie based on "Agnes Gray", but I may be thinking of something else. I think I know someone who read it and said it was good. That should round out my Bronte sister's reading, don't you think?


I love "An Occurrance at Owl Creek Bridge," but I read it online recently. I don't have a hard copy.

A week or so ago I saw a movie based on Ambrose Bierce and his short stories - it featured 3 or 4 of the best ones from the Civil War. I liked them all and thought they were quite different, very psychological and almost ghostlike. On the featurette, they talked about this particular one; in the film it was featured. They said that it had also been adapted into a famous episode of "The Twilight Zone". That really intrigued me. I especially would like to read Bierce's ghost stories. I think they would be fascinating. There should be some in this collection. In the film Campbell Scott (he plays the author) read some segments and that was enough to convince me to try reading his short stories. I found the writing fluid and deep.


I love the Gibson Girl look. :) When I was little, I wanted to look like that. LOL

Same here, Antiquarian; however, you have the thick hair for the look and I don't. I used to love to put my hair up, when I was younger (when I had more of it;) ). I guess I thought I did look like a Gibson Girl. :lol: You also have that picturesque height on your side and a slim figure. From now on I am going to think of you as a Gibson Girl!


Enjoy! :) And let us know what you're reading and how you like it.

Anti, it will be awhile before I get to those new books. I still have the other ones I bought a few months back, to tackle and I read super slow. But eventually, I hope to read all that I bought.:)

It will be great fun opening the new box full of books. Now where to put them....that is another story....eek!

[kasie]

...... I've run out of room for books, DVDs, and CDs, too. I need a bigger house. Maybe someday, right?

Antiquarian, you have surely heard of Peter's Principle? (Work expands to fill the time available?) Well, it works for books too - no matter how much space you have, it gets filled up with books and you wonder how you managed before. :D I keep intending to downsize - but where would I put all the books? (Don't anyone dare say 'Oxfam'!)

[EricP]

Hi EricP,so you have a Kindle? I just read all about those - an ad came into my email from Amazon the other day.
They sound really cool; the concept is great and so little and lightweight; no more lugging big books around with you.
Unfortunately, I can't afford one presently, but it is a thought for the future. How do you go about getting free downloads for these?


I love my Kindle and would highly recommend it to anyone considering purchasing one. I've found several websites that offer free ebooks. Because the Kindle only recognizes .azw and .txt files, I sometimes have to convert the files to .txt before loading them onto my Kindle. Here are the websites I most often use:
http://www.truly-free.org
Most of the books are already .txt files, which is convenient. This site also offers many copyrighted, post-WWII books that are not available on most other sites.

http://manybooks.net/
This site has a great selection and all books are available compatible formats, so no conversions are necessary!

http://allfreedownloadlinks.com
All books here are .pdf files, so converting them is a must. The selection for philosophy books, however, is definitely worth the extra trouble! The site has many recent books from university presses.

There are plenty of other websites as well. Just search around and you'll find them! :D

[asilef73]

The Mandarins - Simone de Beauvoir
The Coming of Age - Simone de Beauvoir
After Dark - Haruki Murakami

[JBI]

I just picked up,
Bloom's The Best Poems of the English Language: from Chaucer through Frost
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes, translated by Edith Grossman
Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson
The Canterbury Tales Chaucer in the original language (though edited typescript to remove the thorns and such from the alphabet).

Going away for a month and a bit to Italy (I probably won't be able to post here for then) and these are the only books I am bringing. a bit scary actually, only 4 volumes. Oh well, I guess I'll have the so called best poems memorized, and Dickinson down solid, as well as a better rounding in Cervantes and Chaucer.

[JBI]

I feel in love with the Edith Grossman translation of Don Quixote. I hope you like it.

I've read an earlier translation, but I got all these books used (and they look almost new, probably only one read through each) so I didn't have much choice, and this looked like the best one the small bookstore had (and it had an introduction by Bloom, so I figured he must have considered it a decent translation). Glad to know it actually is an excellent translation, as I will probably be reading it more than once, and literally be tearing the pages apart with notes.

[Jozanny]

I have not picked up any virgin texts for some months now, since I left off with a non-fiction reading group @ Yahoo, which was then doing The Third Chimpanzee, which I have been ambivalent about finishing. I know Jared Diamond is the latest PBS mooncalf, but he is just not as exciting when dealing with evolutionary science as I once found Desmond Morris to be.

Not that I can really put my finger on why. Literary comparisons I can do fairly well, not so much popular science-- but the store was having a 3 for 1 deal at the time, and I picked up Kundra (sigh) and Brave New World, which I hated, in so far as I dare hate over rated classics, and despite a compelling Christopher Hitchens apologia for Huxley, I sold my copy, used, somewhat rapidly, and only half-read.

Maybe true satire died off with Swift's senility.

I have been slowing down with my personal library. One of the few times I purchased something fairly hot off of an NYT review, was Alice Hoffman's Blue Diary--which was everything NYT said it was-- and yet, is it something I'll ever read again?

Rereading is my true test of how fanatical I am about an author. Cloud Atlas meets that test. David Mitchell simply blew me away, I mean blew. His fiction was the most difficult exercise my poor mind ever encountered, and as a weary, embittered intermediately successful author, (in terms of byline exposure in print) when I closed that book, I was ready to snarl and throw my edition against the wall out of sheer livid envy.

I had conceived of a similiar post-modern chapter game years ago, and now?

That is the cost of procrastination (sigh).

[lit_head]

Ulysses - James Joyce
A Journey to the Centre (i am Canadian for me its 'Centre' LOL) of the Earth - Jules Verne

[andave_ya]

I'm taking a whole bunch of my mom's old books from Lebanon home with me - cast your eyes on these beauties :D

The Great Gatsby
The Aeneid
The Confessions of St. Augustine
The Old Man and the Sea
Brave New World
The ABC Murders
The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories
Animal Farm
Waiting for Godot
Christian Liberty
Notes on Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Oresteian Trilogy
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Last Days of Socrates
The Theban Plays
Utopia

[Hypercrit Htd]

The Holy Bible, NIV version. It surprised me how different it were from other version but it interesting to think about various translation as sometime translation say more about what people want than about what they need.

[Lioness_Heart]

For an after-exams treat I bought myself Being Elizabeth Bennet By Emma Campbell Webster. It's a cross between a book and a game: you have to make decisions and answer questions, and the choices you make determine which page you go to next. You add up points for intellegence, fortune etc, and are aiming to 'marry well and for love'. It's really good fun and totally engrossing, and is written in a Jane Austeny style with a modern humour. I would certainly reccommend it to any Austen fans!

[mtpspur]

Bought The Complete Mr. Moto Film Phile--A Casebook by Howard M. Berlin so I could read up on the films. Am currently reading Last Laugh Mr. Moto (the fifth of six novels) by James P. Marquand and hope to get the eight Peter Lorre movies on DVD in the very near future and have a marathon viewing. I like Charlie Chan in small doses but I enjoy the energy of a Mr. Moto who does not hesitate to use deadly force when necessary. TCM ran Thank You Mr. Moto (the second one recently and reawakened my interest in the character. Note book/movie character are very different in presentation.

[johann cruyff]

Today I bought these three: Being and Nothingness by Sartre(the copy I once lent to a friend was never returned to me),The Myth of Sisyphus(I never owned this) by Camus,and finally,finally,I found a copy of The Castle by Kafka. It's been a good day.:D

[kasie]

I'm taking a whole bunch of my mom's old books from Lebanon home with me - cast your eyes on these beauties :D

The Great Gatsby
The Aeneid
The Confessions of St. Augustine
The Old Man and the Sea
Brave New World
The ABC Murders
The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories
Animal Farm
Waiting for Godot
Christian Liberty
Notes on Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Oresteian Trilogy
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Last Days of Socrates
The Theban Plays
Utopia

That should keep you quiet for a while! :D

[Dark Muse]

Fire Bringer ~ David Clement-Davies
The Quest ~ Wilbur Smith
A Room With A View ~ E.M. Forster
The Three Musketeers ~ Alxandre Dumas
German Stories and Tales

[Janine]

Fire Bringer ~ David Clement-Davies
The Quest ~ Wilbur Smith
A Room With A View ~ E.M. Forster
The Three Musketeers ~ Alxandre Dumas
German Stories and Tales

Dark Muse, I can only speak for one of those books; I simply loved "A Room With a View". I liked all of the Forster novels I have read. I think I read "A Room With a View" twice (it is short;), and very enjoyable.)

That last book you bought sounds interesting to me. Are they short stories?

[Dark Muse]

Yes I loved A Passage to India, so I cannot wait to read more of Forster's work

The German tales are short stories from a varity of different authors.

[johann cruyff]

I have The Castle, but I've never read it, I'm ashamed to say.

:eek2: Put a hold on everything you're doing right now,and read that book! :)

I've read pretty much everything by Kafka,and The Castle ranks with the very best of his works in my opinion,sometimes it's even slightly better than The Trial.

[Sir Bartholomew]

What Maisie Knew + The Spoils of Poynton by Henry James

[andave_ya]

That should keep you quiet for a while! :D

Haha, and that's on top of the 20plus books I've already got waiting unread! :D

[Chava]

Dina's Book - Herbjorg Wassmo

It was on sale for a dollar, and I liked the cover. It's also been on my to read list for several years.

[naomi moon]

Cent ans de solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carmen Prosper Mérimée.

[naomi moon]

Cent ans de solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I bought it because I was looking for another novel of his, Love in the time of cholera, and I didn't find it, i find this one instead and when I read the introduction, I was immediately seduced, I am enjoying it.

[asilef73]

The Mandarins - Simone de Beauvoir

i loved All Men Are Mortal so i thought i'd give this one a try.

[Lioness_Heart]

Cent ans de solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I bought it because I was looking for another novel of his, Love in the time of cholera, and I didn't find it, i find this one instead and when I read the introduction, I was immediately seduced, I am enjoying it.


What is his writing like? I've been toying with reading some of his work for a while but for some reason never do. Would you reccommend him?

[papayahed]

Sin in the Second City, Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the battle for America's Soul - Karen Abbott

I was in Target rolling by the books when this one jumped out at me, it's the true story of a brothel in Chicago at the turn of the last century.

[Idril]

I was at Barnes and Noble, waiting for my sister so we could have a cup of coffee and I was browsing and I picked up The Stranger by Albert Camus. I just finished The Tree of Man by Peter White and I'm due to go on a trip in a couple days so I didn't want to start a book I would finish on the trip and therefore, have to pack an extra book so I thought this one would be perfect, I can finish it in 2 nights then begin a new book right before I leave, thus negating the reason for packing a second book...see? I'm always thinking. ;)

[stlukesguild]

Last "book"? Lately I've been adding to my library so fast that I can't begin to keep up. Most recently I've added:

Blake: A Biography- Peter Ackroyd
J.M.W. Turner- Peter Ackroyd
The Book of Psalms- Robert Alter tr.
The Selected Poems of Tu Fu- David Hinton tr.
The Classic Theater: Vol. I: 6 Italian Plays- ed. Eric Bentley
Collected Poems- Wendell Berry
Selected Poems- Arthur Hugh Clough
Salambo- Gustave Flaubert
East Window: The Asian Translations- W.S. Merwin tr.
One Hundred Poems from the Japanese- Kenneth Rexroth tr.
One Hundred Poems from the Chinese- Kenneth Rexroth tr.
Narrow Road to the Interior- Matsuo Basho, Sam Hamill tr.

and along with these I've added several art books:

Historic India- L. Schullberg
The First Cities- D. Hambin
Rembrandt: The Richard Harris Collection- catalog of works in an exhibition
La Basilica di San Marco- Diego Valeri
The Northmen- Thomas Francek
Early Islam- Desmond Stewart
Great Paintings from the Barnes Foundation- various authors/Philadelphia Museum of Art
Gods, Guardians and Lovers: Temple Sculptures from North India A.D. 700-1200- ed. V. Desai
The Golden Age of English Manuscript Painting 1200-1500- Marks and Morgan
Masterpieces of Illumination- Walther and Wolf

Obviously, I'm very ill. Seriously afflicted with Bibliophilia.:sick:

[mickitaz]

Books I have actually bought include "The Counte of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas, "Firestorm" by Rachel Caine, "Thin Air" by Rachel Caine.


I have also recently "inherited" a pile of books from a friend of mine who is an English Professor. Among those are The Oddessy and Collections of Robert Frost. There are many, many more. However, since the thread indicated only those that were "bought", I covered that in its entirety.

[Drkshadow03]

The Book of Psalms- Robert Alter tr.


What made you decide to buy a separate book of Psalms? How is it different than translations found within Bibles that made you want to buy it?

[Virgil]

Stopped at the bookstore at lunchtime to kill a half hour or so and wound up finding and buying The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch. It was highly recommended by Antiquarian, so yes Anti I bought it. ;) I wonder if we will have a German book to pick this year in the Book Club Forum. If we do I'll be nominating this one. :D Here's something on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Virgil.

[stlukesguild]

What made you decide to buy a separate book of Psalms? How is it different than translations found within Bibles that made you want to buy it?

The King James Bible is unquestionably the best English translation of the entire Bible. The entire work was translated into exquisite English prose... however, the Psalms, along with other portions of the Bible, were not written as prose, but as Hebrew poetry. The King James translation of the Psalms are quite effective as prose... but only in a few instances, such as the beloved 23rd Psalm ("The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...") does the translation verge upon the musicality of poetry. This was recognized almost immediately after the King James Bible was published. Any number of important British poets tried their hands at translating the Psalms into English poetry including Robert Burns, John Milton, Philip Sidney, Henry Howard of Surrey, Thomas Wyatt, Christopher Smart, Thomas Campion, George Herbert, Mary Sidney Herbert, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Vaughan, Thomas Carew, etc... These translations vary to a greater or lesser extent from each other and the KJV and they vary by degree of freedom in interpreting the Hebrew original. I have several translations of the Psalms including that of Philip Sidney and his sister, Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke née Mary Sidney, Christopher Smart's, and an anthology entitled A Poet's Book of Poetry, in which the editor selected from among the available translations what he felt was the best poetic translation of each individual work.

My most recent version, the Robert Alter translation, was selected because I was more than impressed with Alter's translations of the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses. Alter is a writer/scholar of Hebrew and Biblical Studies. In his translations of the first 5 books of the Old Testament, he sought to create a translation that captured the rhythm and structure of the Hebrew original, while adhering as closely to meaning or intentions of the original Hebrew. Alter speaks of his translations of the Psalms as being just one more possibility. He draws an allusion to the Jewish tradition of Midrash of Biblical commentary, noting that the Jewish reader in the synagogue sees and engages with the text in a manner quite different from the Christian tradition of the single "true" translation, be it the Latin Vulgate, the KJV, etc...The standard rabbinical Bible has a small central area of the biblical text in the original Hebrew. Flanking this are two different Aramaic translations, and commentaries by Abraham Ibn Ezra, among others. These engage in a sort of running debate or dialog. This, in a manner, is not unlike the dialog one experiences with various different translations of any central work of literature: Dante, Homer, Virgil... and this may be the best option after mastering the work in the original language.

There are certainly great differences between the various translations of the Psalms. If we take a single Psalm at random... here I'll use the famous 23rd... you can see the difference in interpretation:

King James-

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Sir Philip Sidney-

1. The lord the lord my shepheard is,
And so can never I
Tast misery.

2. He rests me in green pasture his.
By waters still and sweet 5
He guides my feet.

3. He me revives, leads me the way
Which righteousness doth take,
For his name’s sake.

4. Yea tho I should thro vallys stray 10
Of death’s dark shade I will
No whit feare ill.
For thou Deare lord Thou me besetst,
Thy rodd and Thy staffe be
To comfort me. 15

5. Before me Thou a table setst,
Ev’en when foe’s envious ey
Doth it espy.
With oyle Thou dost anoynt my head,
And so my cup dost fill 20
That it doth spill.

6. Thus thus shall all my days be fede,
This mercy is so sure
It shall endure,
And long yea long abide I shall, 25
There where the Lord of all
Doth hold his hall.

George Sandys, A Paraphrase Upon the Psalmes of David (1636)

The Lord my Shepheard. me his Sheep
Will from consuming Famine keep.
He fosters me in fragrant Meads,
By softly-sliding waters leads;
My Soule refresht with pleasant juice: 5
And lest they should his Name traduce,
Then when I wander in the Maze
Of tempting Sinne, informes my waies.
No terrour can my courage quaile
Though shaded in Deaths gloomy vale: 10
By thy Protection fortifi’d:
Thy Staffe my Stay, thy Rod my Guide.
My table thou hast furnished;
Powr’d pretious Odors on my head:
My Mazer flowes with pleasant Wine, 15
While all my Foes with Envie pine.
Thy Mercy and Beneficence
Shall ever joine in my Defence;
Who in thy House will sacrifice,
Till aged Time close up mine eyes. 20

Richard Crashaw, Steps to the Temple (1646) (A very free translation)

Happy me! o happy sheepe!
Whom my God vouchsafes to keepe
Even my God, even he it is,
That points me to these wayes of blisse;
On whose pastures cheerefull spring, 5
All the yeare doth sit and sing,
And rejoycing smiles to see
Their greene backs were his liverie:
Pleasure sings my soule to rest,
Plenty weares me at her brest, 10
Whose sweet temper teaches me
Nor wanton, nor in want to be.
At my feet the blubb’ring Mountaine
Weeping, melts into a Fountaine,
Whose soft silver-sweating streames 15
Make high Noone forget his beames:
When my waiward breath is flying,
Hee calls home my soule from dying,
Strokes and tames my rabid Griefe,
And does woe me into life: 20
When my simple weaknesse strayes,
(Tangled in forbidden wayes)
Hee (my Shepheard) is my Guide,
Hee’s before me, on my side,
And behind me, he beguiles 25
Craft in all her knotty wiles:
Hee expounds the giddy wonder
Of my weary steps, and under
Spreads a Path cleare as the Day,
Where no churlish rub saies nay 30
To my joy-conducted Feet,
Whil’st they Gladly goe to meet
Grace and peace, to meet new laies
Tun’d to my great Shepherds praise.
Come now all yee terrors, sally 35
Muster forth into the valley,
Where triumphant darknesse hovers
With a sable wing, that covers
Brooding Horror. Come thou Death,
Let the damps of thy dull Breath 40
Overshadow even the shade,
And make darknesse selfe afraid;
There my feet, even there shall find
Way for a resolved mind.
Still my Shepheard, still my God 45
Thou art with me, Still thy rod,
And thy staffe, whose influence
Gives direction, gives defence.
At the whisper of thy Word
Crown’d abundance spreads my Bord: 50
While I feast, my foes doe feed
Their rank malice not their need,
So that with the self-same bread
They are starv’d, and I am fed.
How my head in ointment swims! 55
How my cup orelooks her Brims!
So, even so still may I move
By the Line of thy deare Love;
Still may thy sweet mercy spread
A shady Arme above my head, 60
About my Paths, so shall I find
The faire Center of my mind
Thy Temple, and those lovely walls
Bright ever with a beame that falls
Fresh from the pure glance of thine eye, 65
Lighting to Eternity.
There I’le dwell for ever, there
Will I find a purer aire
To feed my Life with, there I’le sup
Balme and Nectar in my Cup, 70
And thence my ripe soule will I breath
Warme into the Armes of Death.

Christopher Smart-

The shepherd Christ from heav'n arriv'd,
My flesh and spirit feeds;
I shall not therefore be depriv'd
Of all my nature needs.

As slop'd against the glist'ning beam
The velvet verdure swells,
He keeps, and leads me by the stream
Where consolation dwells.

My soul He shall from sin restore,
And her free pow'rs awake,
In paths of heav'nly truth to soar,
For love and mercy's sake.

Yea, tho' I walk death's gloomy vale,
The dread I shall disdain;
For Thou art with me, lest I fail,
To check me and sustain.

Thou shalt my plenteous board appoint
Before the braving foe;
Thine oil and wine my head anoint,
And make my goblet flow.

But great still Thy love and grace
Shall all my life attend;
And in Thine hallow'd dwelling place
My knees shall ever bend.

from Robert Alter's translation-

The Lord is my shepherd
I shall not want.
In grass meadows He makes me lie down,
by quiet waters guides me.
My life He brings back.
He leads me on pathways of justice.
for his name's sake.
Though I walk in the vale of death's shadow,
I fear no harm,
for You are with me...

In this case the KJV almost has the advantage... in that the 23rd is certainly one of the most poetic translations of the entire King James Psalms. It also has the advantage of almost certain familiarity to anyone in the English-speaking world. The examples show how various poets attempted to infuse the musicality of poetry into their own translations and I certainly find these other interpretations a necessity along with the KJV prose versions.

Beyond the Psalms there are some brilliant translations of various other Biblical books. Stephen Mitchell offers an interesting interpretation of the Book of Job with more stress upon the poetic fury of the work... and his commentary comparing the work with Kafka is quite intriguing. Ariel and Chana Bloch also offer a lovely translation of the Song of Solomon.

[JBI]

All those translations are an improvement on the original. King David, or whoever wrote the Psalms wasn't the best poet. Seriously, the language isn't that poetic in the Hebrew original, and it gains, rather than loses, in translation.

[aeroport]

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories - H.P. Lovecraft
I lent out my old Lovecraft book and never saw it again, so I was driven to this.

[papillon123]

My recent purchases included
The Peppered Moth - Margaret Drabble
Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
How I love library book sales and thrift shops!

[coolestnerdever]

I went to the book store about a week ago and picked up

Great Expectations- Charles Dickens
Anna Karenina- Leo Tolstoy
The Scarlet Letter- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen

I went a little trigger happy, haha.

[kasie]

Last "book"? Lately I've been adding to my library so fast that I can't begin to keep up. Most recently I've added:

Blake: A Biography- Peter Ackroyd
J.M.W. Turner- Peter Ackroyd
The Book of Psalms- Robert Alter tr.

Obviously, I'm very ill. Seriously afflicted with Bibliophilia.:sick:

How do you get on with Peter Ackroyd, STL? I can't take to him, myself. Heard him speak a few years ago, mostly about what was then his latest book, the one about London - the audience was made up mostly of historians or, like me, people who were interested in history but not academically versed in the subject. Ackroyd picked up on the general disapproval very quickly, raced through his talk and beat a hasty retreat before anyone could ask questions.

Thank you so much, btw, for those different versions of Psalm 23 - I enjoyed reading them and feel inspired to seek some more 'translations'.

[Argus]

Putas Asesinas by Roberto Bolaño

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

I read a quote attributed to Bolaño, "If you want to understand an author, translate him." I translated three of the stories in Putas Asesinas and I now understand that he is hard to translate.

Gilead is a delight.

[Loike]

I finished my A-level exams last Thursday, so on Friday I went to Waterstone's and bought a copy of The Magus by John Fowles in celebration. And I also bought Charlotte Bronte's The Professor. Now when I pick them up I feel happy. Haha. :D.

[wessexgirl]

[QUOTE=Kafka's Crow;582588]Arthur Ransome's Old Peter's Russian Tales. Time to re-live my childhood!

Kafka and Kasie, if you're interested in Ransome, have you read Blood Red, Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick? I've got it at the moment from my Library, (but haven't started it yet). Sedgwick usually writes for Young Adults, so I think a lot of people missed this one, but it got good reviews, and the YA books I have read by him are very good. BRSW is a kind of biography/fairytale about Ransome's time in Russia at the time of the revolution, when he fell in love with Lenin's secretary, (I think it was his secretary). Anyway, he left his family behind and went there and got involved in spying etc. I really must read it so that I can take it back to school. :blush:

[kasie]

Wessexgirl: Thanks for that recommendation - I don't think I have come across it though I did know Ransome had lived in Russia at an 'interesting' time. I shall look out for it.

[Argus]

I loved By Night in Chile by Bolano.

I have only recently become aware of Bolaño. I will put By Night in Chile on my list. Thank you for the tip.

[NickAdams]

Young Torless by Robert Musil
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
JR by Williams Gaddis
The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot.
The Works of James Joyce (Chamber Music, Pomes Penyeach and Ecce Puer)

[antonia1990]

"Doctor Jivago" by Boris Pasternak, though I haven't started reading ityet, as I am reading something else.

[stlukesguild]

How do you get on with Peter Ackroyd, STL? I can't take to him, myself. Heard him speak a few years ago, mostly about what was then his latest book, the one about London - the audience was made up mostly of historians or, like me, people who were interested in history but not academically versed in the subject.

I looked at some critiques of his biographies and found they largely echo my own experience. Ackroyd doesn't offer anything new, incredibly insightful, or groundbreaking, but he does offer a solid introduction to his topics that are presented in a well-written narrative manner. I've read his books on Chaucer and J.M.W. Turner, and such was my feeling. If I wanted to get a truly in-depth biography or an analysis that offers a unique perspective, I'd surely need to look elsewhere. On the other hand... if I just want the general facts presented in a manner that is certainly more interesting than what an encyclopedia or more academic writing would offer, he is right on the mark. Of course... I must admit to having read several of Ackroyd's novels which I enjoyed, so I may be more ready to appreciate his non-fiction manner.

[wessexgirl]

I've just bought quite a lot of Ackroyd's works both for the Library and myself, as I had read some of his fiction, and thought his biographies were supposed to be very good. His Shakespeare and Dickens works were very highly regarded, and I have the latter on my TBR pile at the moment, as I love Dickens, and thought he was the acclaimed expert on him. I've bought Hawksmoor and his biogs. on Chaucer, Turner, Blake and Shakespeare, along with some history books on Rome, Greece and the Ancient World for the Library.

I want to read Hawksmoor so much, as I've read so much about it, but I don't want to be disappointed. I read his Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem, (I think it was called that) a long time ago and really liked it, but I couldn't get into The Lambs of London. I will try again I think, as sometimes it's not the book, but ourselves, and I freely admit I have had a rough few years, where I couldn't concentrate on reading.

[Nossa]

Les Miserables (Volume Two) by Victor Hugo

[Trystan]

The last book I bought was T.S. Eliot 'selected poems'. I bought Hemingway's 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' a few days ago and I love it so far.

[aeroport]

House of Wits: An Intimate Portrait of the James Family: Paul Fischer
Basic Writings of Nietzsche: translated by Walter Kauffman

[amalia1985]

Cathedral Of The Sea by Ildefonso Falcones

[black butterffl]

Les Miserables (Volume Two) by Victor Hugo

oh my god it's a really good book, and hes famous because of it :P

anyway the last book that i bought was "JANE EYRE" for charlotte bronte

[Nostalgie]

Last book bought:

Ancient Religions by Sarah Iles Johnston.

Not really a novel but I'm doing an anthropological study on ancient religions so it'll help.

Last novel bought:
Tale of Two Cities.

[Idril]

I just got back from Minneapolis and while I was there, I picked up a few books,

Devil's Midnight by Yuri Kapralov
The Patrician by John Galsworthy
Faust by Ivan Turgenev
Crabwalk by Gunter Grass
and The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy

[Kafka's Crow]

I like Idril's list above and would love to read all of his(?) books! Postman delivered a nice hard-bound copy of Jules Supervielle: Selected Writings today. Thanks Pecksie for this recommendation. Amazon took six weeks to deliver this out of print and rare volume but it was worth it in the end!

[NickAdams]

Last book bought:

Ancient Religions by Sarah Iles Johnston.

Not really a novel but I'm doing an anthropological study on ancient religions so it'll help.


I'm doing a personal study of the same, so I would be interested in your thoughts on the book.

[Kafka's Crow]

My lovely and reliable post lady just delivered Vladimir Nabokov's Lectures on Russian Literature. Thanks Inderjit Sanghe for your recommendation.

[Pecksie]

I bought the long-coveted Amos Oz memoir "A Tale of Love and Darkness" for USD 0.5 on Amazon!!! And, after I had raided the clearance sale at a local bookstore, I made a friend go back and get me Margaret Drabble's "Jerusalem the Golden" and John Galsworthy's "The Man of Property".

[Pecksie]

What is his writing like? I've been toying with reading some of his work for a while but for some reason never do. Would you reccommend him?

I'm not a big fan of García Márquez. He's vastly overhyped, in my opinion (there are threads on this issue). If you want to read good Latin American authors, I'd recommend Mario Vargas Llosa (Peruvian), José Donoso (Chilean), Jorge L. Borges and Julio Cortázar (Argentines), and Juan C. Onetti and Horacio Quiroga (Uruguayan).

That's my best Latin American list!!! :p

[Madame la Fere]

The book: Instant Word Power by Norman Lewis

The reason: I would like to be a writer, and since my vocabulary skills leave much to be desired, I thought that I might try to improve them.

[Scheherazade]

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n30/n153782.jpg


A gift for a little book worm who has just had an operation.

[Proust71]

My recent literary adventure is The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and the Charterhouse of Parma, which both add to my French literature reading list for the summer.
The reason for selecting these books was due to Borders having a sale. Notre-Dame was only two dollars in the Borders Classics format. Haha.

[LadyWentworth]

Always Magic In the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era - Ken Emerson
King Cohn: The Life and Times of Hollywood Mogul Harry Cohn - Bob Thomas
Not In Kansas Anymore: A Curious Tale of How Magic is Transforming America - Christine Wicker
A Great and Godly Adventure: The Pilgrims and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving - Godfrey Hodgson
700 Sundays - Billy Crystal

Books that total up to about $113.00, and I only paid $1.00 each for them. 4 out of the 5 are Hardcover, too. So $5.00 for all of these. Not bad, huh? :) You gotta love the Dollar Store! :thumbs_up :p

[EricP]

I picked up Vladimir Nabokov's "Ada" today at a used book shop.

[Nossa]

Gate of the Sun by Lebanese writer Elias Khoury (an Arabic Edition)

[TurquoiseSunset]

Actually I bought three - I can never control myself :)

The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follet
Mort - Terry Pratchett
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne

I recently compiled a 'Top' list using all the Top 100 lists and similar must read lists that I could find on the Internet in one sitting. I did it mainly out of interest and to find new titles to add to my wishlists. Ironically I went to the bookstore and bought 2 books that featured on said bookstore's 101 Books to Read Before You Die list (although looking at the list it seems like more of a I've-just-read-this-book-and-loved-it list)...and therefore they are not books people would consider classics or "books to read before you die". The third book's author (Verne) didn't even feature on any of the lists :)

[thelastmelon]

The last book I bought was Gunnar by the Swedish poet/author Bob Hansson. I'd only read some of his poetry before, and it's quite original, and when I saw this novel in the store I just couldn't keep my eyes from it. I just had to buy it.

[Alexei]

I've bought a few books recently:
"Hygiène de l’assassin" by Amélie Nothomb
That's the first Nothomb's book I've bought, but I have serious expactations. I've seen some good reviews on it and I hope I'll like it.
"Ask the Dust" by John Fante
It was recommended to me by a friend. I wasn't so sure if I am going to like it, but I decided to give it a try it was worth it definitely. I've finished reading it yesterday, just the day after I've bought it :lol:
"Foam of the Daze" by Boris Vian
It was an easy choice - to get the last copy on the shelf of the book by one of my favorite authors, especially after it supposed that the edition to be depleted.
"Tke Brooklyn Follies" by Paul Auster
"Timbuktu" by Paul Auster
"Moon Palace" by Paul Auster
"The Book of Illusions" by Paul Auster
What could I say? Paul Auster is definitely on of my favourite authors.
"Dreams of My Russian Summers" by Andreï Makine
This one caught my interest in the shelf with newly published books, so I decided to try something new ;)

[drexy]

I ended up buying quite a couple books yesterday.
Two new books
Bram Stoker - Dracula
Stephen King - The Dark Tower vol 2 (The dawning of the three)

and a couple of 2nd books at a bookmarket.
Bernard Shaw - Play's Pleasant
Mark Twain - The Prince and the Pauper
Ernest Hemingway - A farewell to arms
The Short stories of H.G. Wells

[Jlee28]

I got two books printed in Barcelona in 1861 and like 1910 respectively, while I was in Barcelona a couple of weeks ago. Very exciting...

But as far as ones I'm planning to read...I got The Catcher in the Rye, The Martian Chronicles, Candide, and (on a different note) Guns Germs and Steel recently. I've read the first three and have yet to pick up the fourth because I got out a few C.S. Lewis books from the library...

[chasestalling]

I picked up Vladimir Nabokov's "Ada" today at a used book shop.

And...

[Dark Muse]

The Decameron ~ Giovanni Boccaccio
The Last September ~ Elizabeth Bowen
Life Before Man ~ Margaret Atwood
Lady Oracle ~ Margaret Atwood
All the Kings Men ~ Robert Penn Warren
Stories Selected from the Unexepcted

[Loike]

Don Quixote by Cervantes, because it was only fifty pence and I couldn't possibly not buy it at that price. I'm a bit scared of starting it, though. Could anyone who has read it here tell me what they thought of it? :) .

xx

[TurquoiseSunset]

Hi Loike!

I started it a while back (and was scared of it at first as well), but couldn't finish it because I took to long with it and it had to go back to the library.

I suppose it all depends on the translator - I read the Edith Grossman translation and it was really good, so I decided to buy it (next payday :)). But the story is really easy to get into and very readable - I was pleasantly surprised... So don't let the size of the book or its age put you off! It's nothing to be scared of :)

[Sloan]

I got all of these books from the thrift store.

Saffron Skies by Lesley Lokko
Legion by William Peter Blatty
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Omen by David Seltzer
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

Why? Because I love reading, that's why!

[Erichtho]

The last book I bought was Homeros' Ilias.


The Fountain Overflows - Rebecca West
- because I need to read more female authors

You choose your books due to the author's gender? :confused:

[Pecksie]

Don Quixote by Cervantes, because it was only fifty pence and I couldn't possibly not buy it at that price. I'm a bit scared of starting it, though. Could anyone who has read it here tell me what they thought of it? :) .

xx

I read it in Spanish, but then I suppose you must have bought a good translation. It's wonderful, and still very funny after four hundred years... but you must have a little context, because Cervantes intended to satirize the "errant knight" stories in fashion at that time, and that's what Don Quixote is... a magnificent parody.

[El Viejo]

...was "Armageddon in Retrospect."

Because I like Vonnegut and wanted to see something I hadn't seen before.


I borrow far more often than I buy, and the last book I borrowed was "Caesar: The Life Story of a Panda-Leopard.

Because my favorite cartoonist mentioned Patrick O'Brian in an e-mail and I had never read any of his work. I chose this particular one because it was published when he was fifteen and I thought it might inspire me to actually write something.

[Tersely]

My last shopping spree resulted in:

The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Greer
White Fang by Jack London
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

Edit: No reason why, just one of those pick what looks interesting.

[vheissu]

I forked out 10 squid(!!) for The Count of Monte Cristo last night at the airport, while waiting for my plane to actually arrive before it could depart again!

Was a crazy moment which will probably not be repeated soon....

[Loike]

Thank you Pecksie and TurquoiseSunset for your replies about Don Quixote. I'm now reading The Portrait of a Lady because I've heard so many good and often very enthusiastic comments about James that I thought reading him might be a good plan. But after I've finished it, I shall definitely read Don Quixote, because from what you said it seems rather exciting. :D.

xx

[johann cruyff]

Today I bought Sophie's World and Ulysses. I have my own copy of Ulysses for the first time.

[quasimodo1]

Wistawa Szymborska, Poems, New and Collected.....Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties, translated by John J. L. Mood.....The Book of Images, Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Edward Snow.....Rilke's Book of Hours, Love poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.....{reason for buying them, tremendous admiration and appreciation of both poets}

[dramasnot6]

The Portrait of a Lady- Henry James
The Brothers Karamazov-Fyodor Dostoevsky

[Nossa]

The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux (an English version)

[djy78usa]

I just bought Unruly Americans and the Origins of The Constitution byWoody Holton and A People's History of the Supreme Court byPeter Irons. I picked both up because I'm planning on going to law school (mainly focusing on U.S. constitutional law) once I finish my Bacherlor's.

[Nossa]

I just had a little trip to the book market and bought:

The Government Inspector - Nikolai Gogol
Ibsen: Four Major Plays
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
Men Without Woman - Ernest Hemingway
Selected Essays - D.H. Lawrence
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell
Bend Sinister - Vladimir Nabokov
Middlemarch - George Eliot
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama and the Essay - Robert DiYanni
:D

[amalia1985]

1) Crusade by Robyn Young

2) The Interpretation Of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld

[sprinks]

I went to the city a short while back, to go book shopping :D. Ended up with some art books, and a few random novels. Mostly $2 used books from the library.

[thelastmelon]

My boyfriend and I just ordered two books each. He got Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson, as well as The Difference Engine by William Gibson. And I got PS, I Love You by Cecilia Ahern, and also Enduring Love by Ian McEwan. I chose my books because I've heard a lot of things about Ahern, both good and not so good comments, and I want to get an opinion on the book myself. And as to McEwan, I just finished Atonement, which I loved, and now I want to keep on reading his books, to see how I like them.

[Nossa]

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan.
I wanted to buy this book (and On Chesil Beach too), after reading Atonement, hopefully you'll share your opinion about the book :D

[JoanS]

thus spoke zarathustra.. why did i buy it? cos i was dying. I spent my last money. thougt iam starving now, i feel like a superman

curtain


I went to the city a short while back, to go book shopping :D. Ended up with some art books, and a few random novels. Mostly $2 used books from the library.



and you entered to the Black books where a drunk irish wanted to kill you
for having obliged him to sell something...

[Niamh]

I bought Lady Susan, The Watons and Sandition by Jane Austen. Why? because i saw it in Newcastle airport, and havent seen it over here.

[Nightshade]

I bought Lady Susan, The Watons and Sandition by Jane Austen. Why? because i saw it in Newcastle airport, and havent seen it over here.

I really enjoy lady susan Niamh, though she wrote it when she was 17 and it actually shows.

[Niamh]

good. I'll let you know what i thought when i read it. :)

[Dark Muse]

When I was on vaccation I went into this little used book store and picked up The Manticore becasue it was the last book I needed for the Deptford Trilogy

[aBIGsheep]

Flight by Alexander Alexie

This is my novel. I can't tell you of a book that I love more. If you ever read this book (its really quick, like 2 hours) I'd love you forever.

http://www.amazon.com/Flight-Novel-Sherman-Alexie/dp/0802170374/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216790444&sr=8-1

[EricP]

I just ordered "Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard" by Richard Brody after reading a glowing review in today's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/books/23basi.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[wizrd]

The Godfather by Mario Puzo, just today.
why? i dunno, why not? i wouldve read it some time or the other.

[lolie]

The favorite from Yasushi INOUE

Story of the tragical love between the chinese Emperor Siuan-Tsong and his favorite in the 8th century...
Chose this book because relates a love story which is as famous in China as the occidental "Tristan and Yseult".
Historical book written like a romance with a sensitive way of describing the human mind...the search of innerself, the desire of conquest, the meaning of "identity"...

[Bakiryu]

Hands Off (a very cute manga)

Why? Because I loved that book, however I lent my previous copy to a friend and she stole it!


And another art book, I can't resist them.

[jgweed]

Having a few hours to kill at a local shopping center, I purchased Russell's The Problems of Philosophy since it was short. simply written and could be finished whilst waiting.

[Big Al]

A few days ago I purchased "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexander Dumas because I understand that it is perhaps the finest revenge story in all of literature.

[Nossa]

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.

[Dark Muse]

I am reading that right now, and getting close to finnishing it

[johann cruyff]

Le Spleen de Paris by Baudelaire.

[Nossa]

I am reading that right now, and getting close to finnishing it

I was told that it's a great book. Would you be kind enough to share your opintion DM :D?

[Dark Muse]

I would agree. I am really enjoying it. It is very interesting.

[AdoreroDio]

I bought The Red Tree because a picture from it was used in the picture poetry contest thread and when I looked it up it looked very interesting. So I bought that.

My boyfriend just arrived home from Spain and brought with him a book for me- so I didn't buy it but he did, anyways it is The Complete Guide to Narnia by Collin Doriez, in Spanish. It's really great. I'm going to buy thhe english version just for comparison, especially since I can only understand about half of the book.

[vheissu]

I went to one of the big bookstores in Athens....Big mistake: I must have spent about 2 hours in there without realising it...and came out with only one book (I'm good at restraining myself :p ).

Anyway, found Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse five for only 5 euros!! Shocking!! Unfortunately that seemed to be the only bargain of the day...

[Lioness_Heart]

Last week I accidentaly bought 5 books... I bought 2 at first because they were on offer: both Persuasion AND Mansfield Park for £3 seemed too good to miss.

And then I went into Waterstones 3-for-2 offer, intending to get a birthday present for a friend, picked one for her out of the 3-for-2 so HAD to get 2 more... then chose another book for her and kept the three myself :blush:
They are Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier, The Conjorors Bird by... someone... and A Hat full of Sky by Terry Pratchet. I have to stop spending so much on books!!!

[JoanS]

Le Spleen de Paris by Baudelaire.

which means? i think badelaire wrote totally two spleens included in the fleurs du mal.. but is possible iam wrong...

[amalia1985]

A Laodicean by Thomas Hardy.

[Victoria2133]

Light in August by William Faulkner - my second copy. I'm writing my thesis on it this fall, so I needed a clean copy.

[Idril]

Mr. Scarborough's Family by Anthony Trollope
Too Far Afield by Gunter Grass
Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman
Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee

[kasie]

[QUOTE=Lioness_Heart;601532]Last week I accidentaly bought 5 books... /QUOTE]

You are a gal after my own heart, LH! I thought I was the only one who 'accidentally' bought books - they just sort of leap off the shelf at you, don't they?

There is no proper bookshop in the nearest town to me, so when I get near a bookshop I tend to behave in an unrestrained fashion. Was in Oxford last week and asked my sister-in-law to keep me out of bookshops but the bus stopped right outside Waterstones.... and the return bus picked up outside Borders.....so one or two volumes went home with me....If on a Winter's Night by Italo Calvino because I've seen it mentioned on the Forum several times, Chronicler of the Winds by Henning Mankell because I'm off to S Africa soon and I like Mankell's books, My name is Red by Orhan Pamuk because I'm in the middle of Snow and I want to read more Pamuk, Binu and the Great Wall of China by Su Tong because I was there last year and anything Chinese still grabs my attention, An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears because it's set in Oxford and I suspect I won't see it in my part of the world unless it becomes a Best Seller and/or a film/tv series and Touching Distance by Rebecca Abrams, an Oxford author (ditto last title). Then there were the odd detective stories, volume 2 or 3 of series, latest titles by previously enjoyed authors....Good job I was only there for a few days and we didn't get as far as Blackwell's.

Hope you enjoy The Conjuror's Bird btw - I found it a most entertaining read.

[Bijou]

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I thoroughly enjoyed the reading of his first novel The Kite Runner and it served as an inducement to purchase another novel written by him.

[Virgil]

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I thoroughly enjoyed the reading of his first novel The Kite Runner and it served as an inducement to purchase another novel written by him.

Nossa just mentioned that novel too. I forget which thread.

[EricP]

I picked up "Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts" (ed. by David Dunbar & Brad Reagan) today. I bought it because I've had several people recently mention that they believe the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were an "inside job" and I want to give them more detailed reasons for why I think they are delusional idiots.

[Nossa]

Finally bought my own copy of Cormac McCarthy's The Road :D
About Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, you can find my review here:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36316
:D

[sharpie]

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez

bought it in london impulsively because my friend was rushing me to leave the bookstore to catch a movie, so i ran through the fiction section and grabbed anything that looked interesting. I had been meaning to buy marquez because it's supposedly a classic. It's quite good.

[MorpheusSandman]

The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton

-Because I've been interested in poetry for a while and one has to start somewhere.

[Dark Muse]

Tales for the Midnight Hour ~ J.B. Stamper
Merlin ~ Stephen R. Lawhead
Exiles: The Ruins of Ambrai ~ Merlanie Rawn
The House of the Seven Gables ~ Nathanial Hawthorne
The Return of the Native ~ Thomas Hardy

[Dark Muse]

The Day of the Locust ~ Nathanael West
The Portrait of A Lady ~ Henry James
Fathers and Sons ~ Tugenev
Howards End ~ E.M. Forster
The Music of the Spheres ~ Elizabeth Redfen
The Naked Empire ~ Terry Goodkind
Aztec Autumn ~ Gary Jennings

[CathyEarnshaw]

Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin. I bought this partly because I wanted to get more into literature of the world, since I have mostly read British and some American. Also was interested in a novel in verse.

[Equality72521]

Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer. I had to finish the crappy series.

[lyni]

The Poisoned Crown by Amanda Hemingway - to finish the trilogy.
The Singing by Alison Croggon - to finish the ..... quadruple? is that what a series of four is called?

[Janine]

The House of the Seven Gables ~ Nathanial Hawthorne
The Return of the Native ~ Thomas Hardy
Fathers and Sons ~ Tugenev
Howards End ~ E.M. Forster

DM, I read all 4 of these; let me know how you like them, when you finish them. In my opinion, they are all excellent. I recently bought Hawthorne's ~ "The Mable Fawn"; and I have read most of Hardy and Forster's work. They are two of my favorite authors.

[Dark Muse]

Hehe, I will be sure to let you know once I have read them

[Janine]

Hehe, I will be sure to let you know once I have read them

Ok, good. Have fun reading them!:)

[LadyWentworth]

Civil War Poetry: An Anthology
Narrative of My Escape from Slavery - Moses Roper

[Kafka's Crow]

Art Now- Vol 2 by Uta Grosenick (2008 edition):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Now-25th-Anniversary-Special/dp/3836503247/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219330906&sr=8-3

Why I bought it? Well, my short review should appear on Amazon page very shortly. I bought a copy for an artist friend a couple of months ago for £25. I liked the book but couldn't afford another copy for me but this new and updated edition costs only £5.99! An excellent book for the price of a Macdonald's meal and a beer!

[Poetess]

Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Gracia Marquez
I liked the title and the cover. I liked the story itself, so I got it a gift to someone since I only give books or copybooks as gifts (I lack other tastes). Awhile later, I got another one for myself.



Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, a special version for high-school students and college juniors.

I liked to see how it was abridged, and I was confused if I had the original story at home or not. So both ways, decided on reading it.

[Idril]

I just did some shopping on amazon. I had such a back log of books on my 'to read' pile so I haven't done any book shopping for a couple months and man, it felt good. :D Here's a list of what I got:

Moscow-2042 by Vladimir Voinovich...because I love him
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine...because it looked interesting and I'm trying get over my aversion to French lit.
The Sibyl by Par Lagerkvist...because I'm trying out a new Scandinavian author
Another Life and The House on the Embankment by Yuri Trifonov...because...I'm not sure but I would imagine it looked interesting. :p
The Galosh by Mikhail Zoshchenko...because Vladimir Voinovich recommended him. I couldn't find the book he specifically recommended but I'll at least be able to check out the author.
Viriconium by John Harrison...because Riesa told me too. :D
and finally,
The Trial by Franz Kafka...because I haven't read anything by him and it seemed like it was time.

[Idril]

I have an addendum, after getting some wonderful recommendations from a real Viking :D, I bought a few more books,

One of Life's Slaves and The Visionary by Jonas Lie and By The Open Sea by August Strindberg. I'm very excited!

[bazarov]

Lord of the Rings, whole serial; hard cover, brand new. Why? It was only 6$!?!? :D

[JBI]

Yikes - here comes half the list, the other half next week. School just started, and this is just from my literature classes:

Stephen Adams, Poetic Designs (Broadview Press); The Norton Anthology of Poetry (5th ed. abridged); Shakespeare, Sonnets (Signet); New Life in Dark Seas: Brick Books 25 (Brick Books), Eliot, T.S., Four Quartets.
That for the course, "Reading Poetry". A rather slim list in comparison with the rest;

Donna Bennett, Russell Brown: A new Anthology of Canadian Literature in English
Thomas King: Green Grass, Running Water
Sinclair Ross: As for Me and My House
Hugh MacLennan: Barometer Rising
Margret Laurence: The Diviners
Alice Munro: Who Do You Think You Are
Robert Kroetsch: The Studhorse Man
Michael Ondaatje: In the Skin of a Lion
Thomson Highway: Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing
Joy Kogawa: Obasan
Margret Atwood: Alias Grace
Douglas Glover: Elle

That's from Canadian Literature; I still haven't picked up the 12 or so books for my last class, which will bankrupt me utterly.

[johann cruyff]

Yesterday I found a great little antique book shop(I just recently moved to a different city),bought a collection of Chekhov's short stories.

[Idril]

Lord of the Rings, whole serial; hard cover, brand new. Why? It was only 6$!?!? :D

For some reason, I was under the impression that you were less than impressed by Tolkien and Lord of the Rings...why is that?! :p:lol:

All the books I ordered have started coming in. I'm only missing 2 right now and then I had coffee with my sister at Barnes and Noble the other day and picked up yet another book, Death In Venice and seven other stories by Thomas Mann. :D

[Janine]

I just send away for a book: D.H.Lawrence ~ Film Adaptations of his Novels/Stories; I have about 6 films, but did not know there were more. It will be a great addition to my DHL collection and interesting to read.

I also bought two books at the 5 Below Zero store - one on King Arthur and one on Fantasy - both are picture/text type books and should give me a break from difficult reading. I read another from the same store on the Holy Grail and loved it. These new ones look interesting as well.

[bouquin]

Cannery Row (John Steinbeck)
Cup of Gold (John Steinbeck)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Muriel Spark)
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Thornton Wilder)
An Obedient Father (Akhil Sharma)
Green Hills of Africa (Ernest Hemingway)
The Short Stories (Ernest Hemingway)
Falconer (John Cheever)

[Nossa]

No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. I've wanted to buy it for sometimes now, and while I was looking for another book today I found it, right there on the shelf :D It was the last copy, so I just had to take it :D

[Kafka's Crow]

Moorish Architecture in Andalusia by Marianne Barrucand and Achim Bednorz. Beautiful book published by Taschen, the German publishing house that always bring out beautiful books. It is a large-sized hardbound book and at £5.99 it must be one of the best bargains out there. I love the history of Moorish Spain and after the Reconsquita zealots and inquisitors like Ximenes de Cisneros burned every single book written in Arabic (only three manuscripts of cultural importance survived that carnage out of the two million books that brought Renaissance to Europe. Further 300 books of medicine and science were 'pardoned' because Christians testified to their greatness). Architecture is the only surviving art form that speaks for the cultural greatness of that era and its achievements:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Moorish-Architecture-Taschen-25th-Anniversary/dp/3822831034/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223233541&sr=8-1

Amazing buildings, amazing cities and absolutely beautiful paintings and calligraphy.

[Domer121]

The Complete Jane Austen~Jane Austen:)
Does it need a reason??
I was reading pride and prejudice for the second time for class, and i realized how much I wanted to read all of Austens other works... I was lucky enough to nab it at a Half Price Books. 10 bucks for ALL 6!! :)

[JBI]

How's the quality of the book? good paper, any intro notes? I'm wondering, because it would need to be a big book.

[stlukesguild]

Kafka'sCrow... sounds like a marvelous book. I'll need to look into it. I have been exploring non-Western art to a great extent for the last year... especially that of the Islamic cultures (particularly the Persians), India, and Japan. It is quite sickening to read of de Cisneros auto de fe of books. Unfortunately, such actions are in no way unique... nor even reserved for the ancient past when one considers Nazi Germany, Maoist China, and even the destruction in the Bosnian conflict.

Three fabulous books I have been leafing through a great deal are Traces of the brush:The Art of Japanese Calligraphy, Impressions of Ukiyo-e, and Utamaro. The first of these focuses on the elegant examples of Japanese calligraphy... especially from the "classical" Heian era. The latter two books focus upon works of the Japanese woodblock artists, the last book being a monograph of the late 18th/early 19th century woodblock master, Kitagawa Utamaro. All of the books are sumptuously illustrated and I am gleefully taking my fill... absorbing all that I can, while simply blown away by the originality and the marvelous sensitivity and sense of design of these works of art.

[bazarov]

Tolstoy - Resurrection
Why? Because I don't have it!

[Nossa]

The Complete Jane Austen~Jane Austen:)
Does it need a reason??
I was reading pride and prejudice for the second time for class, and i realized how much I wanted to read all of Austens other works... I was lucky enough to nab it at a Half Price Books. 10 bucks for ALL 6!! :)

They were all in one volume? Or each novel in a separate book?
I have all her six novels myself, they're def. worth the money spent on them :D

[Lioness_Heart]

With my birthday book tokens (yay!!!) I've bought Ariel, the restored edition (by Sylvia Plath). I got it because I keep trying to get more into poetry, and have found her poems relatively accessible in the past.

[Kafka's Crow]

Kafka'sCrow... sounds like a marvelous book. I'll need to look into it. I have been exploring non-Western art to a great extent for the last year... especially that of the Islamic cultures (particularly the Persians), India, and Japan. It is quite sickening to read of de Cisneros auto de fe of books. Unfortunately, such actions are in no way unique... nor even reserved for the ancient past when one considers Nazi Germany, Maoist China, and even the destruction in the Bosnian conflict.

Three fabulous books I have been leafing through a great deal are Traces of the brush:The Art of Japanese Calligraphy, Impressions of Ukiyo-e, and Utamaro. The first of these focuses on the elegant examples of Japanese calligraphy... especially from the "classical" Heian era. The latter two books focus upon works of the Japanese woodblock artists, the last book being a monograph of the late 18th/early 19th century woodblock master, Kitagawa Utamaro. All of the books are sumptuously illustrated and I am gleefully taking my fill... absorbing all that I can, while simply blown away by the originality and the marvelous sensitivity and sense of design of these works of art.

Here is the link to Amazon (US) for Moorish Architecture in Andalusia. For $10.19, it is cheap, very very cheap!

http://www.amazon.com/Moorish-Architecture-Andalusia-Taschen-Anniversary/dp/3822831034/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223318157&sr=8-1

This book should also be of interest to you:

http://www.amazon.com/Theft-History-Jack-Goody/dp/0521691052/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223318285&sr=8-1

[Niamh]

Brisinger. Why? because i read the other two books and i want to know what happens. :D

[ntropyincarnate]

The Silmarillion. For my friend's b-day.

[Bitterfly]

The nice old man and the pretty girl, and other stories, by Italo Svevo, because I liked The Confessions of Zeno and Senilita, and had never ever heard of this one.

[Tersely]

My last one was A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. Why? It was only a penny+shipping on amazon and I'm about 3 years late knowing what the big fuss was about.

[Nico87]

Gogol - The Collected Stories
Pushkin - The Collected Stories
Dante - The Divine Comedy
Lermontov - A Hero of Our Time

All from Everyman's Library and I bought them for pretty obvious reasons. :)

[Scheherazade]

All from Everyman's Library and I bought them for pretty obvious reasons. :)To put them on top of each other to climb and reach higher shelves in the kitchen?

:p

[Nightshade]

Collins English Dictionary ( from Oxfam) because I unpacked all my books when I got to my new house and discovered that I do not own a dictionary, the ones that had been living on my shelves were my mums.
:rolleyes:

[Nossa]

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee. It was on sale :p

[Niamh]

Death of a Naturalist-Seamus Heaney
Why? because it contains most of my favourite Heaney poems.

[bazarov]

LOTR, whole serial, for only 4€!!!! New, hard cover! I couldn't believe it!

[Nico87]

To put them on top of each other to climb and reach higher shelves in the kitchen?

:p

Haha, I use my old schoolbooks for that :D


LOTR, whole serial, for only 4€!!!! New, hard cover! I couldn't believe it!

That is cheap. I spent like 100 euro on this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lord-Rings-50th-Anniversary-Deluxe/dp/0007182368/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223497222&sr=1-7 - some years ago.

[Ghuyuran]

1. Ireland - Frank Delaney
2. Outlander - Gil Adamson
3. Norse Mythology: A Guide to Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs - John Lindow
4. Othello, Signet Classics Edition
5. Midsummer Nights Dream, Signet Classics Edition
6. Myths and Legends of Japan - F. Hadland Davis
7. Bulfinch's Greek and Roman Mythology: The Age of Fable - Thomas Bulfinch

I bought them all at the same time. I have this rising interest in folklore, hence the books on mythology. I saw Ireland and I was impressed with the summary on the backcover.;) As for Shakespeare, I'm going to go see Othello on stage very soon and so I intend to read it before then. I'm sure a lot of people here have read The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman. It explains the interest in MND. :thumbs_up

[Nossa]

The Hours by Michael Cunningham. I liked the movie and decided to give the actual book a try.

[stlukesguild]

I just got a marvelous coffee-table scaled book published by Könemann on Florence. The work is hundreds of pages of gorgeous, glossy photographs of the painting, sculpture, and architecture of Florence. I purchased the book because it is easily worth $75... but I got it for less than $15 as part of a teacher's discount promotion. I already have similar books on Rome, the Romanesque, the Gothic, and the Italian Renaissance. I still want to get the volume of Venice... and Islamic Art and Architecture. I also got another book on William Blake... because the 14 I already have just weren't enough.:lol:

[Serenity5815]

Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris, who is absolutely hilarious.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Anniversary Edition - J.K. Rowling. It's a really nice copy with a new cover, the actual book cover has stared, and it has a few extra illustrations. I'm going to keep it in good condition. Versus my old copy which I picked up once and the pages fell out of the spine. It's a bit worn.

[Virgil]

Cuttlefish Bones by Eugenio Montale. Why? Because we are reading it for the poetry bookclub. Come and join in: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=631258#post631258

[Josef K]

Mythology (http://www.amazon.com/Mythology-Timeless-Tales-Gods-Heroes/dp/0446607258/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224739552&sr=8-2) by Edith Hamilton

[Indicate]

E. M. Forster - Maurice
F. S. Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
D. H. Lawrence - Sons and Lovers

Cause it's a shame not owning them.

[Babyguile]

It was actually Germiane Greer's The Whole Women.

Heterosexual male feminism is not as rare as you may think.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Just bought Homer's Iliad translated by Richmond Lattimore (any good?) for 33p plus postage, really that is about equivalent to a Sunday newspaper.

[Bitterfly]

Umberto Eco, The mysterious flame of Queen Loana, because I love everything he writes.
Soljenitsyne, Our young (novellas), ditto.
Nerval, Pandora, because I'd never seen that one around and it was cheap!

[weltanschauung]

Umberto Eco, The mysterious flame of Queen Loana, because I love everything he writes.


how do you know about this writer?
hes a brazilian guy

[LadyWentworth]

E. M. Forster - Maurice

FANTASTIC NOVEL!!! One of my all-time favorites. I cannot praise it enough!

[Bitterfly]

how do you know about this writer?
hes a brazilian guy

Erm, no, he's Italian. :D
And famous, at least in my parts of the world.

[Epistemophile]

'Of Grammatology' by Derrida trans. by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak because it came in cheap and because it's worth keeping in the collection: even if i don't read it now at one go, i'll definitely go back to it innumerable times in the future.

[Emil Miller]

The Octopus by Frank Norris, because I am interested in the influence of French naturalist literature on its American counterpart. I have recently finished McTeague by the same author ( fourth reading ) and it's my contention that anyone who claims to be fully up on American writing and hasn't read Norris, is deluding themselves.

[hoope]

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein.. i loved Lord of the Rings and i am a great fan of the Hobbits
i love Fiction , adventure books.. so i think readin it is wonderful...
am in the mid of the book & i can't stop readin it :-)

[librarius_qui]

Ensaios radioativos, by Marcio-Andre.

He was a colleague, at school (university). We became friends. I like him, as a ... business man (him).

The book looks like interesting, by the way. I intend to read it on my hollidays, next month. I myself wrote some essays, some time ago, enough to compose two books, and sent to him, so as to know what he thought about, and until now he wishes to publish me, but neither he nor I have the money. He has enough "courage" to sell his own stuff. I don't intend to live of this.

I liked to buy his last two books, this one, and another one, intitled Intradoxos.

"Ensaios radioativos" mean "Radioactive essays". I might translate it into English, if he agreed ... I'll talk about it with him.


So ...


librarius
:crash:

[Niamh]

"Ma i'm gettin meself a new mammy" by Martha Long.
I bought it for my mam because she loved her first book, "Ma, he sold me for a few cigerettes". I mean to read them too.

[blazeofglory]

'Of Grammatology' by Derrida trans. by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak because it came in cheap and because it's worth keeping in the collection: even if i don't read it now at one go, i'll definitely go back to it innumerable times in the future.

I have gone through Derrida several times and I could not comprehend the book for it is pretty hard to understand. Derrida is too hard like James Joyce. Most of us keep collections of such books but we hardly read and even if we read we can not complete.

We know they are great books and such books are recommended in our texts in colleges but we can not find them appealing except for the fact that we do read since we have so many referrals for reading such classics.

In my college I read Shakespeare and Milton, and of course some passages were interesting but some are very tough for me, and I read just for the sake of reading not for enjoyments.

So most classics fail as sources of enjoyments and there are a few books that can entertain and enlighten us.

I have been reading the Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid by a great Management Guru. This book is wonderful and writes about reaching out to the poor and encourage entrepreneurs, regulators and non government organizations to reach out to the poor and take the poor as not burdens but potential consumers and at the same time the book encourages to involve the poor in entrepreneurial skills and they can turn out to be capable individuals adding value the way capitalists do.

This is really a must-read book by C.K. Prahalad.

[TheFifthElement]

Revenge of the Lawn
In Watermelon Sugar
Abortion: A Love Story
Trout Fishing in America

All by Richard Brautigan (gone a bit mad!)

[Mark F.]

Revenge of the Lawn and Trout Fishing in America are great.

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, cause I saw the John Huston film starring Albert Finney and felt like reading the novel.

South of No North by Bukowski, I need my monthly dose.

[Nossa]

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. I didn't really buy it, it was a gift from my cousin :D I'm currently reading it, and I love it!

[Saladin]

Last two books i bought:

Faust - Goethe
The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe

[Kloster]

Milan Kundera's Laughable Loves. Been looking for it for a long time, 'til today I found this pocket-book edition and well, I just took the chance.