Last Book You Bought and Why

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Giorgio Bassani)
Wittgenstein's Nephew (Thomas Bernhard)
Drop City (T. C. Boyle)
A Home at the End of the World (Michael Cunningham)
The Radiant Way (Margaret Drabble)
Justine (Lawrence Durrell)
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Milan Kundera)
Christ Stopped at Eboli (Carlo Levi)
A Heart So White (Javier Marias)
Pereira Declares (Antonio Tabucchi)
The Master (Colm Toibin)
Tono-Bungay (H. G. Wells)
Kipps (H. G. Wells)



____________________
Currently reading: Farewell, My Lovely (Raymond Chandler)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bouquin

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Giorgio Bassani)
Wittgenstein's Nephew (Thomas Bernhard)
Drop City (T. C. Boyle)
A Home at the End of the World (Michael Cunningham)
The Radiant Way (Margaret Drabble)
Justine (Lawrence Durrell)
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Milan Kundera)
Christ Stopped at Eboli (Carlo Levi)
A Heart So White (Javier Marias)
Pereira Declares (Antonio Tabucchi)
The Master (Colm Toibin)
Tono-Bungay (H. G. Wells)
Kipps (H. G. Wells)


____________________
Currently reading: Farewell, My Lovely (Raymond Chandler)

---

I read Christ stopped at Eboli but it was so long ago that I don't recall what it was about although I think it's about poverty in Southern Italy. Justine or any of the Alexandria Quartet are worth reading and both Kipps and Tono Bungay offer an amusing insight into life in Edwardian England.

Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, the Penguin version. I'm trying to read all of Dostoevsky's major works. Not sure if I'm getting the best possible translations though -- any advice?

A 1962 Penguin edition of Ulysses.

Because it smelled divine.

Dracula and Anna Karenina, I was at the airport and couldn't make up my mind so I bought both.

Huckleberry Finn - Because it's good.

Call Me Waiter by Joseph Torra, in order to send a copy to my uncle because I thought he would enjoy it.

I bought a volume of Charles Peguy's poetry because the guy who referenced him (thereby introducing me to him) said, "one cannot help but be moved by the gentleness of his soul". After a Wikipedia reading, it was confirmed! And I'm currently awaiting the book. Which was scheduled to be delivered Monday...

I bought David Albahari's Leeches because it was pretty cheap on amazon and looked like something I could potentially enjoy.

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco because I saw and it was cheap and I wanted to buy a book.

The Pigeon (Patrick Süskind)
Gabriel's Gift (Hanif Kureishi)
You Are Not a Stranger Here (Adam Haslett)




____________________
Currently reading: Lullaby (Chuck Palahniuk)

I love to read fiction. Mysteries and science fiction are my favorite (for the hardcore out there, I know this isn't considered literature!). I’m currently reading Black Ops, a Presidential novel, and I have to say, it might be difficult to read if you aren’t interested in this sort of stuff. It has a lot of government terms and it can get confusing.

I just bought three books in Italian while on vacation. I intend to read these with a dictionary close-by because I would like to improve my Italian. It is currently a bit shabby but I want to improve. The books I bought are Divina Commedia by Dante, Il Nome Della Rosa by Umberto Eco and Decameron by Boccaccio. They will present a challenge but I'm up for it.

Quote:

---

I just bought three books in Italian while on vacation. I intend to read these with a dictionary close-by because I would like to improve my Italian. It is currently a bit shabby but I want to improve. The books I bought are Divina Commedia by Dante, Il Nome Della Rosa by Umberto Eco and Decameron by Boccaccio. They will present a challenge but I'm up for it.

---

I love Umberto Eco, but I have only been able to read his work in translation so far. When I have mastered Italian I intend to revisit his works in the original.

Two volumes of Fernando Pessoa's detective stories. Started reading one of them... I generally like Pessoa, have read most of the Book of Disquiet, but he had his own failings (as a writer too), so i am not advancing in his work with great enthousiasm.

I shall be taking a class in Popular Fiction this semester - and so I just ordered some of the literature for that class, some are books I've read before, and some will be new reads to me. I bought:

I, Robot - Isaac Asimov
A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle
Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales - Stephen King
Ödets hav - Elisabet Nemert
The Murders in the Rue Morgue - Edgar Allan Poe

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I downloaded it for free on my e-reader. I have not read him yet, and as I have just started, I am very encouraged by how good the beginning is.

Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake. It sounds intriguing. I'm also going to buy on Kindle an Alan Massie who does a detective fiction set in Vichy France.

Dostoyevsky is the kind of writer where for the first hundred pages or so you'll be a little bored and on the verge of putting the book down, then something will be said or happen that will make everything come together. The character will come to life and everything that happened up to that point which you previously didn't understand will become profound and you will bother all your friends with your observations. I dig some of Tolstoy's work more. The last book I bought was the U.S.A three volume set by John Dos Passo's. I bought the book because Bukowski speaks highly of Dos and Bukowski's recommendations have never failed me.

I just bought a copy of Casanova's Voyages and Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse. I just started in Woolf's one, so far it seems a very good deal. :)

Bought The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall because it sounded reminiscent of House of Leaves and Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy because I loved The Road.

The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)
Le Désert des Tartares (Dino Buzzati)




_______________
Currently reading: Franny and Zooey (J. D. Salinger)

The Gospel According To Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago.

written of favorably by Harold Bloom in his book Genius.

BIOCHIPS - William Gibson. Cost me 1 Euro on a Flea-Market. Why I bought it ?
I really don't know. Read it years ago, so maybe nostalgia.

The Presidents Club by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy

Best American Short Stories 2004 (Lorrie Moore as Selector) excellent annual book - really the best of each year.

Book sale at the American Library in Paris -
Like Water for Chocolate (Laura Esquivel)
The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien)
The Book of Illusions (Paul Auster)
Amsterdam (Ian McEwan)
Atonement (Ian McEwan)
Smilla et L'Amour de la Neige (Peter Hoeg)




_______________
Currently reading: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

La Princesse de Cleves.

Someone gave me a gift certificate to a bookstore, and I heard it about in reference to Sarkozy and was curious.

i bought a glossary of literary terms by Abrams
because i needed some information also i have to read this book for my major.

I recently bought 19 novels for school. It would be a long list if I wrote them all down but I am gonna read them all in the next three months.

The wine of Solitude by Irene Nemirovsky

In the Sea there are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda

last book i bought was elements of style by strunk & white.
i got it b/c my writing is not very articulated. plus i am in an ap english class. so might as well sharpen my writing skills. my teacher recommended it to me.

15/09/2012

Libra (Don DeLillo)
Regeneration (Pat Barker)
Cider with Rosie (Laurie Lee)
Billy Liar (Keith Waterhouse)
Le Voyageur Enchanté (Nikolaï Leskov)




_______________
Currently reading: Cry, the Beloved Country (Alan Paton)

"Thomas Müntzer" by Gerhard Wehr. I bought it because I am interested in the german Peasant-War of the 16th Century.

21/09/2012

Life is a Caravanserai (Emine Sevgi Ozdamar)
La Promesse de l'Aube (Romain Gary)
Exercices de Style (Raymond Queneau)
Home (Toni Morrison)




__________________
Currently reading: Selected Stories (Nadine Gordimer)

W ou Le Souvenir de l'Enfance (Georges Perec)
Sons and Lovers (D. H. Lawrence)
The Last September (Elizabeth Bowen)
Burger's Daughter (Nadine Gordimer)
Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons)
A Kestrel for a Knave (Barry Hines)
Cancer Ward (Alexander Solzhenitsyn)
The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger) - to reread; lent my first copy to somebody and it has never come back.




____________________
Currently reading: THE TRUSTING AND THE MAIMED and other Irish stories (James Plunkett)

'God's Grammar'. Never heard of it before, bought it just because of the title. Wasn't bad.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bouquin

Sons and Lovers (D. H. Lawrence)
Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons)

---

I will re-read Sons and Lovers in December and I have always wanted to read Cold Comfort Farm. If you let me know when you decide to read it, I might tag along.

Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim. Had already heard about the book, but nothing more than that. When reading the book flap in the store, I simply decided to buy it. Seems an interesting story, I certainly appreciated Heart of Darkness, so why not this one

alThe Prize - Daniel Yergin

Because I couldn't find a copy at any of my local libraries.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Scheherazade

I will re-read Sons and Lovers in December and I have always wanted to read Cold Comfort Farm. If you let me know when you decide to read it, I might tag along.

---

I 'll keep you posted.




____________________
Currently reading: Mercier et Camier (Samuel Beckett)