Last Book You Bought and Why

I just ordered a few books on amazon the first being Felix Krull, Confidence Man: The Early Years by Thomas Mann because my uncle, who actually did his thesis on Thomas Mann, recommended it and since I already like Thomas Mann, it was an easy choice.

The second is House of Babel by P. C. Jersild because a Swedish friend of mine said he was an amazing author. I added several of his books to my wishlist and the choice of this as the first one was completely random.

The third is Petersburg by Andrei Bely which amazon recommended because I liked The Master and Margarita, We and Envy.

And the fourth, Darkness at Noon: A Novel by Arthur Koestler, was another recommendation by amazon because I liked Monumental Propaganda and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

I'm also seriously considering ordering some José Saramago. I saw a discussion about him on here that piqued my curiosity so I googled him and he looks quite fascinating! I added about 4 of his books to my wishlist but I think I'm going to Barnes and Noble this afternoon and see if they have anything there and if not, I will place an order tonight.

The last book I bought (not the last one I read) was 'The broken mirror' by Agatha Christie (maybe that's not exactly the title of the book, because the one I bought was translated into Spanish, so I'm not sure what's the original name). Why? Because it was on sale and because my mom likes Agatha's work, and so I finally bought it. I thought it was going to be a bad one, but it surprised me though. I would recommend it :)

1. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) - Robert Louis Stevenson
2. The Woman in Black - Susan Hill
3. My Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier
4. Bagdad, City of Peace - Taha Al Rawi (in Arabic)
5. First Love - Ivan Turgenev
6. The Turn of the Screw -Henry James
7. Six Short Stories (Junior Series) - Thomas Hardy, Anthony Trollope, Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Dickens, H. G. Wells, Oscar Wilde
8. (An Arabic book with an Arabic title for an Arabian writer lol)
9. How to Read a Film: The Art, Technology, Language, History and Theory of Film and Media - James Monaco


Why?
Well.. That`s the reason why I wait for the annual book exhibition! I walk around and pick books..

As for book number 9, I am the representative and responsible student for my class in college. I have to always check around for useful book for our major, and How to Read a Film was a good one. I then got it > classmates and teachers agreed on it and got it too.

The last book I bought was a hardcover edition of 28 Science Fiction Stories of H.G. Wells. I bought it for one dollar at a yard sale.
Why? Because I like Wells, and--are you kidding?--one dollar for a hardbound edition--I snapped that sucker up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stanislaw

hmmm...it would be three...for some reason I tend to buy books in threes...not sure why?, but what the heck!

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Yes, that goes for me as well. Neither I'm not sure why, but anyways I bought:
-The Complete Poems of John Keats
-The Complete Poems of W.B. Yeats
-The New Routledge Dutch Dictionary

Because I am a great fan of poetry and thus decided to start collecting poetry from English authors and I want to learn Dutch...

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

Mircea Eliade, what a wonderful old friend.

I last bought "The Immense Journey" by Loren Eiseley

It is a gift to my nephew. This is a beautiful book that
I love to give to anyone that I think might appreciate it.
The science is a little outdated (remarkably only a little)
but it is, to me, a masterpiece, a small treasure.

I forgot, I bought a copy of The Texas Cherokees on a discount rack.
I already own one but I could not pass up the bargain.

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino. It came highly recommended and so far it has been excellent.

I guess the last book I bought was a dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory for next semester. It's proven rather useful.

Sayings of the Buddha and Other Masters. No need to say why.

East of Eden. An impulse buy I don't think I'll ever regret.

Two books, actually.

Three Novels by Samuel Beckett because I've always wanted to read one of Beckett's novels and figured three would be thrice the fun. Also, it was about sixteen dollars, and I figure that's pretty good for three twentieth-century novels.

Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey because after reading On the Road, and thinking about the Beat Generation and counterculture a bit, I remembered the fun I had reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and wanted to read something else by Kesey.

I bought Nelson Mandela's 'A Long Walk To Freedom'. I've been wanting to read it for quite a while now, so I'm really excited about it!

bought a few at a used book store the other day

Sun Also Rises by Hemingway - I didn't like the parts of this in high school English class, but in the years since, I have some to like other books by Hemingway, so I figured I'd give this one a full read

Letters from Earth by Twain - all the current editions of this are greatly edited and incomplete - so when I saw an old, full version in the used book store, I got my second copy, in case I ever want to lend it out or give it to a friend

In Dubious Battle by Steinbeck - and old hardcover. An old hardcover by Steinbeck for cheap - I'm there dude

Big Sur - Jack Kerouac
Essays - Michel de Montaigne - I was however disappointed to realise after i bought it that it was only a selection, and not the whole thing :(
Inferno - Dante - I wanted to get the whole divine comedy but alas was thwarted by a poor stock manager.

Three books, actually :D

Catch-22 because it was recommended highly by a friend for many months now so I finally gave in.

For Whom the Bell Tolls since I've always wanted to read it and now I'm studying the Spanish Civil War I decided it's the perfect timing.

Ulysses because I've never read it and finally found it in stock!! :D

The last books I bought were all second-hand:

The Complete Works of William Wordsworth
(I already have it, but it's called a beloved author!)
A book of poems by Emily Dickinson
A college textbook about 19th century literature
And a book about books called "Much Loved Books" which gives a brief overview of some authors including Thoreau, Wordsworth, Lamb, Whittier, etc.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, because my old copy had fallen apart finely. I love paperbacks, but they really only last so long.

Last weekend I went on a bit of a shopping spree buying second hand books. I managed to get very lucky with my findings:

Profiles in Courage - John F. Kennedy
Because I thought it might be a little interesting to read something from one of my former presidents. Somehow I usually sway towards reading English Lit, Russian, etc...but any American literature or authors or such I've always avoided. Thought it might be a time to start and a good choice to do so as well.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
Why it sounded so familiar to me I do not know. So that's the reason I bought it. Later found out from my dad it's supposed to be very good!

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See
It's been on my list for awhile. And I like Chinese culture, and thought it'd be a nice modern read. Anyone else read it??

The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Because I love his works and have some sort of fetish for collecting them. Thought it was crazy cool I found it second hand!

The Good Soldier - Ford Maddox Ford
Because I saw the LitNet conversation here, and it's been on my list for ages.

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
I happened to see the movie Love in the Time of Cholera, and I couldn't stand it. So it prevented me from having a huge desire to read the book. So I bought this one in hopes of reading it and loving Marquez.

Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis
I've loved everything I've ever read of his. Another surprise find secondhand.

Bel Canto - Ann Patchett (sp?)
For some reason I picked this up and thought it was Suite Francaise, a book on my list. But alas, it wasn't the one I was thinking of but it was in fact also on my to be read list. Haha.

I bought a few books, all by Herman Melville, because I greatly enjoyed Moby-Dick last year and I wanted to read some of his earlier work, just out of curiosity. They are:

Mardi, and a Voyage Thither Vol. I and II.
Redburn: His First Voyage
White Jacket

"A Man Asleep" by Georges Perec.
I was at one of those would-be radicalchic pubs that have bookshelves in them and sell small-time-publishers-only. Noticed this rare edition of a lesser known novel by an author whom I adore, payed it together with the drinks.

Part two of Doris Lessing's autobiography and A Proper Marriage. I now have all five books in the Children of Violence series, plus her complete autobiography. Plan to take these, along with other books, on my 2 month summer holiday. Reading for pure pleasure, something I don't get much chance to do during the year. :)

Bombs Away - Steinbeck

I happened across it in the Las Vegas airport, on my way home from seeing my boyfriend at Nellis... and needed something to read on the 5.5 hour flight back home.

It wasn't what I was expecting.

Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson. I liked everything I've read from him so far. It was between that and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. I didn't think I could handle those 70's politics right now. So I hope Hell's Angels will be a fun read.

On Saturday I bought both Don Quixote and Montaigne's Complete Works. I bought Quixote because it is regularly cited as one of the best novels of all time and the Essays because of recommendations on this forum.

I bought The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Why? Because I could, and I wanted to.

I just picked up a selection of poems by Hafez and a hardback edition copy of Dante's Paradiso translated by the Hollanders. I've been slowly building my library of Arabic and Persian poetry and this translation seems to have avoided the typical "new age" crap that so many translations of Hafez and Rumi are subjected to. As for Dante... well the Comedia, in my opinion, is the single greatest literary work ever written... at least in the West... and I have several translations already but have wanted the Hollander version as well and I could not refuse at the price I found it.

I have read The Way of All Flesh several years ago and have been curious about his anagram title. I found a beautiful copy published by The Limited Editions Club in the 1930s. Introduction by Aldous Huxley and illustrated by Rockwell Kent. I love to find older books published in the great age of book illustration, design, and printing.

"The World for a Shilling: How the Great Exhibition shaped a Nation" by Michael Leapman. Just bought this but haven't started reading as yet. I adore fiction (particularly Fin-de-siecle) but I occasionally like to back it up with some social and historical contextualisation.

I was reading Efraim Karsh's Islamic Imperialism: A History and one of the essays waet my appetite for a little British history. I had seen a 7th edt set of hard backed books of Winston Churchill's A History of the English Speaking Peoples, so I bought them; but I have not yet started in on them.

Another shopping spree on second hand books. And I know I'm forgetting to mention one...but for the life of me I cannot remember which I am forgetting:

Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
Because people on litnet keep mentioning Atwood. And the synopsis sounded interesting.

Fathers and Sons - Turgenev
I've read it before and loved it. Saw it last time I was there and didn't pick it up. So I regretted it all week, and luckily it was still there!

The Bookseller of Kabul -
Biography from the Middle East. Took a history class of the Middle East and this book sounded interesting.

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Every time I go to the bookstore I see it. Read the synopsis and discovered it dealt with racism from both perspectives and I took a racism course that I thought might add to making this a good read.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Joyce
When I was much younger I tried reading it and didn't get through it. It was miserable. So, seeing as I have a few more years on me, and that it was fifty cents...it's definitely worth another try.

Cliff's Notes Paradise Lost
Every year or so I read some sort of commentary for Paradise Lost in conjunction with the work itself. There's just so much to it to understand and enjoy.

And there's another nameless book...and it still hasn't come to me. When I see it at home I'll put it down here.

I traded some books at a used bookstore and got the Penguin Classics edition of The Odyssey and The Iliad with the credit I received. I had read the Odyssey years ago and already had a beat up copy of it but I like the Penguin Classic books. I've never read the Iliad but plan on reading it soon.

I also picked up a copy of The Dead Zone by Stephen King. I'd like to build up a small collection of his books. So far I only own two or three, but I've read a few of his books. He's a good writer and I enjoy his stuff when I want to read something just for fun.

I still have a few dollars worth of credit. I love used bookstores!

Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I had read the Mayor of Casterbridge and wanted something else by Thomas Hardy. Plus, I wanted to read more from the top 100 list.

I have both, beautifully illustrated with woodcuts. My favorite Hardy theou is Far from the Madding Crowd. Although I did like Return of the Native.

I have both, beautifully illustrated with woodcuts. My favorite Hardy though is Far from the Madding Crowd. Although I did like Return of the Native.

I bought the Epic of Gilgamesh because it is the first book in the Western Canon, into which I intend to plunge and wade through for the rest of my life. I could use some coffee.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by grace86

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Joyce
When I was much younger I tried reading it and didn't get through it. It was miserable. So, seeing as I have a few more years on me, and that it was fifty cents...it's definitely worth another try.

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I read it recently, having a version with a *lot* of notes *really* helped - so if you get stuck try "Wordsworth classics" version - only £1.99 new (about $3?)

Last two books:

(1) Ulysses (Wordsworth Classics)

No Notes! :(

(2) Ulysses (Oxford Classics)

Notes! :)

Hope they are sufficient :?

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand - I was talking to my dad the other day, and this play somehow came up, and I remember that dad was so surprised and maybe even a little offended that his son wasn't familiar with it. Naturally I humoured him.

Ulysses by James Joyce - Do I even need to say why?

Fantastic Tales edited by Italo Calvino - It had quite a number of lesser works by authors I am interested in.

Waverly-Sir Walter Scott
Nicolas Nickolby-Dickens