Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion
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What Book(s) have you just Bought, Ordered or Taken Delivery Of?

I love my mom."
😊

I just ordered a couple of books, one being a July choice for the Guardian 1000 Group, namely Javier Marias' A Heart So White, and also couldn't resist a bargain copy of a book I've been after for a while, namely Dino Buzatti's The Tartar Steppe






Both are sweet and the second one is absolutely inspiring - it's a book about unusual drawing techniques, with examples, helpful hints, and verses on the subject of each drawing. The techniques include making prints of absolutely anything, from leaves covered with paint to old children's boots ditto =) and drawing with absolutely anything, such as old toothbrushes, bits of string, and soap bubbles. My kid is only old enough for the simpler ideas, but I'll sure have some fun with this.

Love and Freindship [sic] and Other Youthful Writings by Jane Austen (purchased at the Jane Austen Centre in Bath)
Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature by Linda Lear (purchased at Hilltop Farm)
At a little bookshop near Kew Gardens I bought:
Mrs. Dalloway
A Room With A View
Howards End
Pamela (in 2 volumes) by Samuel Richardson
Barchester Towers
Our Mutual Friend
Love is Blue: A Wartime Diary by Joan Wyndham
The Oxford Book of English Verse



Love and Freindship [sic] and Other Youthful Writings by Jane Austen (pur..."
I love this, Pamela. Each time you pick one of them up, you'll remember your trip!

Unfortunately, I photographed the books, but could not figure out how to get them to transfer.

Also, I have had my eye on one of her short story collections, but unfortunately, it is out of print, and I am living in a country where Amazon does not ship. However, a family member has ordered said book and is sending it to me. It is called 'Sounds and Furies: Seven Faces of Darkness.' Along with this book, I am being sent my own copy of 'The Satanic Verses' by Salmon Rushdie, which I had left in the States and not been able to read yet.
I'm pretty excited for both books.

And there is a used book sale at the library this weekend, so I might have to be bad again and buy more books. :)

been after a copy of Elsa Morante's Arturo's Island
copies in English are rare/expensive
spotted a copy going for an absolute bargain on Amazon Marketplace
assumed it must be an Italian/French/Spanish copy (which are all a lot cheaper) which had been listed against an English edition by mistake, but took a chance and bought it
and er... it is indeed the 1991 Picador Classics ENGLISH edition!
not only that, but it's got a lovely cover:


My Antonia by Willa Cather
Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion
Broken April by Ismail Kadare
Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and
A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor
I am delighted.

Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy
Close Range by Annie Proulx
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Cavedweller by Dorothy Allison

Sarah wrote: "Yesterday the Half Price Books near me was having a clearance sale (everything $2 or less). I managed to restrain myself and only buy 20 books. :)..."
LOL
Sounds like my kind of restraint.
LOL
Sounds like my kind of restraint.





The Journal of Madame Giovanni: A Novel

and The Devil In Love

Both of these and their translations are out of copyright but that still didn't make them easy to find.
And when i did get them they were both pdf files which my old e-reader hates.
When you run a pdf on my reader each page takes up the entire screen and you can't zoom in, meaning the writing is really small.
So with 'Devil in Love' i got some free OCR software and was able to convert it to a text file and then into an epub format.
The text in 'Madame Giovanni' unfortunately was too old and foggy for OCR so i'm stuck with the pdf version BUT the pages have an awful lot of border.
Remove the border and text would obviously be relatively bigger. So i used a free online tool to extract everypage as an image file then used a batch image editor to crop all of the excess border, and then used windows print function to put all the files back in a new pdf..... phew!
So i now should have readable versions of both books.
I should probably just buy a new ereader :P .


walking through seaside town on way down to beach, daughter went into clothes shop...
while waiting had "quick look" in charity shop across road...
Like New copy of Nick Hornby's About a Boy for 50p!


Zorba the Greek by [author:Nikos Kaz..."
Oh how I miss having a Half Price Books!! Great batch.


Well, to be honest, it was the only one I could find in print, but I'll keep a sharp lookout for more.
As for this edition, there's a special reason to love it. The illustrations were made by an artist who works in one of the Russian decorative craft traditions, and you can actually see how mixing two absolutely unrelated cultures enhances the impression from both.
(I was so glad that they didn't go instead for some "imitation Japanese", so popular these days. That would have belittled both the Japanese and the Russians.)


and, yeah, when I was in college, carrying around a 3000+ page book when I could just pull it up on my tablet or have a little paperback? I would have gone for options 2 and 3 all day long, until I had to write my papers and cite stuff.

and, yeah, when I was in college, carrying around a 3000+ page book when I could just pull it up on my tablet or have a little paperbac..."
The general introduction is great. Quite a lengthy overview of England in Shakespeare's day such as the distribution of wealth, the status of women, the monarchy, etc. Then each play has a 6-8 page introduction. I took a peek at the one for Romeo and Juliet, and it seemed too advanced for most high school students but decent for college students.
The footnotes are disappointing. They are very brief and mostly explain the meaning of words or phrases. I used the Riverside Shakespeare in college and it's footnotes had a lot of historical information that was extremely helpful. This looks less helpful with some of the humorous references, but I know that I will benefit from the notes that are there.
I agree that I wouldn't carry this to class, but I would read it at home. I'm not so sure its been read at all. What a different world the college students today have from my experience since they can read a digital version or listen to audio. I had to lug a gigantic hardback to class.

and cos the eBay seller was offering buy-1-get-1-half-price I also picked a book that I have penciled in for 2018: Everything Is Illuminated





And my long read is another by Michael Moorcock who i'm already reading (i think this is the first time i've ever read books by the same author at the same time :) ), and that is King of the City

No idea what that ones about.
Waiting and watching tracking for my newest WPA State Guide - Minnesota. It will be the 8th in my collection. I try to get the 1st editions, but settle for 2nd or 3rd. 43 more to go!

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. Vintage Books, a division of Random House. Regularly $15.00; sale, after 20% off promo, 20% coupon and 10% member discount $8.64.
Barnes and Noble Classics
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910). Sale $5.00; after 20% coupon and 10% member discount, I paid $3.60.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (1818-48). I think I have another edition of this book hiding in a box.
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (1802-70).
Paradise Lost by John Milton (1608-74).
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (1815-82).
These last five classics were $4.50 each after my 10% member discount, and the total bill with 7% New Jersey sales tax was $37.12. I asked the lady at the customer service desk if they had John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men in a Barnes and Noble Classics edition, and she said they do not because the book is still in copyright.
I've read neither Milton nor Trollope. Any thoughts?
Jim

and, yeah, when I was in college, carrying around a 3000+ page book when I could just pull it up on my tablet or have a..."
I have been trying to find a Riverside in a condition and price I am willing to pay. Someday I will just have breakdown and one. My Bevington is okay, but not like Riverside. I have tried paperback Norton. I believe I had the Romances for awhile. I just love the tome that Riverside is with all its scholarship.

and, yeah, when I was in college, carrying around a 3000+ page book when I could just pull it up on my t..."
I used a Riverside edition in my college Shakespeare class and it was wonderful. Enormous but the notes were so informative and helpful. Unfortunately it belonged to my sister and she wanted it back when the semester was over. I'm willing to bet she still has it and has never read any of it again.

You make me want to run over to B&N tomorrow and look for some $5 classics. I would like a paper copy of War and Peace and $5 is a real bargain for such a tome. I enjoyed it enough that I would like to read it again someday.
I haven't read Trollope either, but Paradise Lost is great. And The Curious Incident of the Dog is very good too.


the GoodReads entry has the cover looking like this:

however, that has obviously just been copied from the Amazon website, where if you do the "Look Inside" the cover looks subtly different (and nicer imo), as per that for the Kindle version:

and this is indeed the cover I received - hoorah!

the GoodReads entry has the cover looking like this:

however, that has obviously just bee..."
And the cover is just the beginning. :-) I love this book--hope you do too.

I'm from Jersey, I'm in Jersey right now, it's kinda shameful that I've only just picked this up. I am really looking forward to it though ^_^

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I lucked out and found a copy at the used book store a couple of months ago for fairly cheap. Since everyone always compliments the notes, I figured it was worth the shot.
So now I have a First Folio reprint, the Riverside, and have about 75% of the individual Folger Library editions. I'm spoiled for choices.

I'm from Jersey, I'm in Jersey right now, it's kinda shameful that I've only just picked..."
I read it a few years ago and still remember it as being really good (& funny). How realistic it may or not be is another matter - different perspectives on something/someplace you know well can be quite bizarre sometimes! It's like when there's a film adaptation of a favourite book...

the GoodReads entry has the cover looking like this:

however, that has obv..."
I think you'll like it. I thought it was pretty funny in parts.









Thought of getting this one as a present to myself :)


Yesterday, I plucked The Moonstone from the bargains shelf in my favourite bookshop. It is in that same pretty Oxford World's Classics edition as your Alexandre Dumas :)

Blue Room, The Simenon, Georges - £1.99
Blood Meridian McCarthy, Cormac - £1.19
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell Clarke, Susanna - £1.99




Yesterday, I plucked The Moonstone from the bargains shelf in my favourite bookshop. It is in that same pretty Oxford World's Classics edition as your Alexandre ..."
Thank you!
Nice! I read The Moonstone last year and loved it. I hope you enjoy it too!
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I love my mom.