Did we get any books for Christmas?

[Pierre Menard]

So, did anyone get any books for Christmas? If so which ones?

I was delighted with my haul this year:

- The Divine Comedy by Dante in the Ciardi trans.
- A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe. Selected Poems - Fernando Pessoa
- Mandarins - Ryonuske Akutagawa
- The Ogre - Michel Tournier
- The Anatomy of Melancholy - Robert Burton (could bludgeon a man to death with this delightfully heavy book)
- Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot
- Lost in the Funhouse - John Barth


Now I just have to find some space on my bookshelf.

[ChicagoReader]

I'm also very happy with my new stock!
The Yellow Birds - Kevin Powers
Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men - DFW
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell (Had already read most of it but had to return it to the library before I could finish)
Jesus' Son - Denis Johnson
Glass Bead Game - Hermann Hesse
Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Murakami
Striking Thoughts - Bruce Lee

I found it interesting that most are fairly recent novels, wasn't intentional, just happened to be the books I most desired--looking forward to The Yellow Birds first-- and Merry Christmas! and happy holidays!

[WritingWrongs]

Science of Logic by Hegel -- the new 2010 translation. Love it!
Seminar VII by Jacques Lacan
Negative Dialectics by Theodor Adorno
Dialectic of Enlightenmentt by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno

I also spent a little money on myself at Barnes and Noble:

Adorno's Negative Dialectic by Brian O'Connor
The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler

I'm also thinking about getting Hegel: Three Studies by Adorno, Subjects of Desire by Butler, and either Lacan's Seminar XX: Encore or Bruce Fink's Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique: A Lacanian Approach for Practitioners. I'm leaning towards the latter.

I know, very dense material, but that's what I'm interested in reading. I'd say I've gotten some great picks!

[Anton Hermes]

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men - DFW

Love that one. I always recommend it to people who want to get into Wallace's fiction.

In my Festivus haul, I got Geoffrey Hill's Selected Poems and The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

[Clovis]

I got myself A Small Death in Lisbon by Robert Wilson for 1 dollar, I'm cheap.

[Volya]

I got a collection of 8 or so books by Dickens - should keep me occupied for a while :)
I also got a set of English short stories, no idea what any of them are about, but it should be interesting.

[qimissung]

I got "The Arabian Nights, Tales of a Thousand and One Nights," all three volumes of the Lyons translation (thanks FifthElement!), and a Nook from my son. My first purchase for it is "The Black Box by Michael Connelly. Not great literature, but it should be fun. I'm so excited about both gifts! :banana:

[stlukesguild]

I just get Barnes & Noble gift cards. I have a hard time finding books that I want and don't have. My friends and relatives know better than to even try.

[islandclimber]

Of Human Bondage ~ Somerset Maugham
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman ~ Angela Carter
AnimalInside ~ Laszlo Krasznahorkai
Lookout Cartridge ~ Joseph McElroy
Night Work ~ Thomas Glavinic
Grass for my Pillow ~ Saiichi Maruya

Plus quite a large gift card to a rather fantastic used bookstore I frequent.

[VerdantFields]

Wonderful Christmas gifts here. I'm excited about spending the next few months with some of these.

Victor Hugo - Les Miserables
George Orwell - 1984
Faulkner - As I lay Dying
Maya Angelou - Gather Together in my Name
Markus Zusak - The Book Thief
Ron Powers - Mark Twain: A Life
Philip McFarland - Mark Twain and the Colonel
Dante - The Divine Comedy
Tolstoy - Anna Karanina
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray

Well, needless to say, I'm going to be occupied for awhile, weaving these books in between two American Literature classes and a literary criticism class. :)
Excited!

[kev67]

The only book I received was Stalin Ate My Homework, the memoirs of British comedian of sorts, Alexei Sayle. I was not too happy to receive it as my backlog of books waiting to be read is already massive, but it is quite funny, and almost ideal bedtime or coffee shop reading because the chapters are short.

[Dark Muse]

The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice
Cogan's Trade (Killing them Softly) by George V. Higgins
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz

And a couple I sort of ordered as a gift to myself

My Uncle Napoleon: A Novel by Iraj Pezeshkzad
Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières

[ChicagoReader]

Love that one. I always recommend it to people who want to get into Wallace's fiction.

How did you approach it? I just started and I'm not sure if it should be read in order or if I can bounce around a bit, what do you recommend?