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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.