Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion
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Archived Chit Chat & All That
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What Book(s) have you just Bought, Ordered or Taken Delivery Of?
two more of my "Bargain Five" arrived:Norton Critical Edition of Beowulf: A Verse Translation
so I will have plenty of extra reading to do as well!
and a 1969 edition of The King of Elfland's Daughter
with striking cover artwork typical of the time!
Darren wrote: "two more of my "Bargain Five" arrived:Norton Critical Edition of Beowulf: A Verse Translation
so I will have plenty of extra reading to do as well!
and a 1969 edition of [book:The K..."
I'm glad some more of your deliveries arrived! I really enjoyed the Heaney translation of Beowulf, which was a nice surprise as I didn't think I'd like the story. Probably put off by the Ray Winstone film! I hope you like it :)
yeah the Beowulf story itself only looks to run to about 100 pages so was tempted to just read it straight away :oO but going to wait (booooo!)meanwhile... 4th of 5 has arrived...
a lovely cover, and surprisingly good condition edition of Cora Sandel's Alberta and Jacob
Went to the library today on my day off to borrow books fulfill some GR challenges.
by Kate Carlisle;
by Kate Chopin (1851-1904);
by Elmer Kelton (1926-2009); and
by Edith Wharton (1862-1937).Jim
I just received
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and some Agatha Christie's, but am still waiting for
Agnes Grey to arrive.
aaand 5th of famous five arrivedbest (bargain) til last
Marghanita Laski's The Victorian Chaise Longue
was expecting the most common paperback edition, but received the 1984 hardback which usually goes for far more than I paid :op
and which didn't have a Goodreads listing until I got the Librarians on the case!
I moved about a year ago and just today went to get a library card at the library I pass at least twice per day. Picked up Fahrenheit 451 and Never Let Me Go.
Well its my birthday today and i got a nice haul yay... but no cake... boooo! 
You know why the cake is a lie today, because of climate change thats why. For the first time in history we have a storm warning in Ireland which has shut everything down.
This is Ireland we do not have hurricanes!!!! Stupid human race. Anyway so i've put on my grumpy face, Cthulhu profile pic.
But my book haul should soon cheer me up :D , i got:
'everyone's an aliebn when ur a aliebn too' by Johnny Sun which apparently isn't on goodreads and looks like a weird kids book but the blurbs on the back don't seem very kiddy so no idea what thats about.
Ready Player One
by Ernest ClineA Legacy of Spies
by John LeCarre. Someone doesn't know me, i've never read LeCarre in my life, although he is on my to-do list. I liked the Night-Manager miniseries but thats about it.Will Save the Galaxy for Food
by Yahtzee Croshaw and The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer
by Sydney Padua.Edit: Oh i was wrong that book is on goodreads Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too: A Book
.
Wreade1872 wrote: "Well its my birthday today and i got a nice haul yay... but no cake... boooo! You know why the cake is a lie today, because of climate change thats why. For the first time in history we have a s..."
Happy birthday! I hope you don't get battered by the storm. I'm on the South East coast of England and it's set to be over 20 degrees again today. Mini heat wave for us!
Enjoy your book haul :)
lethe wrote: "Happy birthday, Renee!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 ..."
"The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins is a great read ! According to literary specialists, it was the first ever detective novel. Forerunner to Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie and company. First detective novel or not - it's a great mystery, kept me glued to my seat until the very end. Moreover, I love the Victorians and the whole period. Neither is the novel devoid of comic relief, (look for the character of Miss Clack). So, definitely a winner as far as I'm concerned.
Wreade1872 wrote: "Well its my birthday today and i got a nice haul yay... but no cake... boooo! You know why the cake is a lie today, because of climate change thats why. For the first time in history we have a s..."
Happy Birthday! And you have every right to stare back at the "stupid human race" with your Cthulhu profile pic! I look forward to hearing if you like LeCarre. (I read one and loved it, even though totally not my genre.)
Mod
I've not quite taken delivery yet, but For Whom the Bell Tolls has just arrived at my library in preparation for next month's group read. I'm quite looking forward to this one.
I love Hemingway, if it's even half as good as the movie, it'll be a real treat.
Oh I hadn't even thought about a movie version! I'll have to take a look if I like the book, which I hope to, as I'm a big Hemingway fan. Thanks for mentioning it.
Sabrina wrote: ""The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins is a great read ! According to literary specialists, it was the first ever detective novel. Forerunner to Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie and company. First detective novel or not - it's a great mystery, kept me glued to my seat until the very end...."Looking forward to reading it! :)
I just received from thriftbooks.com this gem of a book
.
Good evening!Went today to the first day of a four-day book sale at my local library and got nine books, a mixture of fiction and nonfiction, for $US11.00, at $2.00 per hardcover and $1.00 per paperback:
In a Sunburned Country (p) by Bill Bryson
Notes from a Small Island (p) by Bill Bryson
The Jersey Game: The History of Modern Baseball from Its Birth to the Big Leagues in the Garden State (h) by James Di Clerico
Middlesex (p) by Jeffrey Eugenides
Gone Girl (p) by Gillian Flynn
33 Men (h) by Jonathan Franklin
Istanbul: Memories and the City (p) by Orhan Pamuk
Ivanhoe (p) by Walter Scott
The Accidental Tourist (p) by Anne Tyler.
Jim
Looks like a great haul. I wish my local library had book sales!
Trust me, you won't want to put For whom the Bell Tolls down.
Jim wrote: "Good evening!Went today to the first day of a four-day book sale at my local library and got nine books, a mixture of fiction and nonfiction, for $US11.00, at $2.00 per hardcover and $1.00 per pa..."
excellent - - we have lots of thrift stores and book swapping places around where iive so I get books on the cheap (or free) also
My most recent acquisition was a used copy of George Orwell's Inside the Whale. I wanted to finish an essay on Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, which I had been able to read a portion of on line.
Our local library had their annual book sale this past weekend and on the last day, they were doing $5 for a bag of books. I went on the last day and came back with 2 big bags of books, many of them classic books (various editions) that are on my TBR. I won’t list out the books I bought, since there were way too many (it’s amazing the number of books that can be stuffed inside a paper bag, lol) but needless to say, I am very satisfied with the haul! :-)
having been very restrained and not bought any books for a whole month :oOI finally cracked recently and bought up 3 of the books I have slated for 2018
A.E. Van Vogt's Slan
Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King
and a lovely first edition hardback of John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany
Good evening!Let me preface this by saying that I am a bit of a Luddite. Though I have two Amazon Kindles, I prefer holding and reading physical books.
My wife and I were out eating and shopping yesterday. While looking for a parking spot near a store in which she was to pick up two pairs of pants (trousers) that she had on hold, she spotted a store called Bookyard, which is one of those "pop-up" stores that are open for a couple of months and then shut down forever, and she encouraged me to go in while she went into the other store.
The store had a sign saying "90% off" and another sign stating "25% off a purchase of $25" (USD). All the books were $3-5 each; and while over 50% were children's and young adult books, there were plenty of books for adult readers. If my wife hadn't already gotten two pairs of shoes and two pairs of trousers, she would've probably bought every cookbook this store had.
I bought seven books: five paperback and two hardcover; six nonfiction and one fiction. Because the total sale was $27 USD, I got the discount and paid a total of $21.64 including sales tax for all of them.
The Brontës by Juliet Barker. 2010 Abacus Books, London, UK; 1,158 pages. This is a revision of the 1994 biography of the Bronte family.
Tarzan of the Apes & Other Tales by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). 2012 Gollancz Books, London, UK; 966 pages. This is a "Centenary Edition" omnibus of the six Tarzan books originally published from 1912 to 1917.
The Biblical World: An Illustrated Atlas by Jean-Pierre Isbouts. 2007 National Geographic Society, Washington DC, USA; 367 pages.
Paradoxology: Why Christianity Was Never Meant to Be Simple by Krish Kandiah. 2015 Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd., London, UK; 308 pages.
Ultimate Book of Sports: The Essential Collection of Rules, Stats, and Trivia for Over 250 Sports by Scott McNeely. 2012 Chronicle Books, San Francisco, CA, USA; 375 pages.
Dead Gods: The 27 Club by Chris Salewicz. 2015 QuercusPublishing. Ltd., London, UK; 467 pages.
Ideas: A History by Peter Watson. 2006 Phoenix Books, Ltd., London, UK; 1,118 pages.
I hope I haven't bored you with the publishing information.
Jim
Jim wrote: "The store had a sign saying "90% off" and another sign stating "25% off a purchase of $25" (USD). All the books were $3-5 each; and while..."Well who can resist a sale :) . I just bought Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues
as it was half price and i did intend to get it eventually anyway.I also took note of a couple of possible x-mas presents for someone while i was there
and
.
I fell prey to the Christmas display at the bookstore today and ended up picking up A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote, an anthology of classic Christmas stories, and a leather bound copy of A Christmas Carol.
Jim wrote: "Good evening!Let me preface this by saying that I am a bit of a Luddite. Though I have two Amazon Kindles, I prefer holding and reading physical books.
Jim, I too am an unashamed Luddite. I love an actual printed book. And what self respecting bibliophile wouldn't stop when seeing "90% off" books?!?! Only about 3 years ago did I acquire a Kindle only bcuz my husband bought me one as a gift while giving me reasons why it's practical to own one. The last 6 books I've purchased were print not ebooks. I bought them to complete a series which I own. Congrats on yr 7 books.
My most recent purchases were at a library sale. I bought Ulysses and 100 Years of Solitude. They set me back 2 bucks, which is kind of a lot since I have checked out 70 books from the library this year (for a total of ZERO dollars).
I love library sales. Great choices! You can flip the Ulysses tomorrow for $10 easy. What edition, of the U. did you get? - )
I will attempt to see if I can pull the cover. It is just a vintage international pressing from 1990. I just read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in preparation for undertaking Ulysses next year. I need to read The Odyssey, too.
I also picked up Catch-22 for a buck.
Very cool! Tammy. - )What a wonderful library to be releasing so many good books. Catch-22 is a really fun read! Reading the Odyssey is not a necessary prerequisite for understanding and enjoying Ulysses. If you haven't tried Joyce's Dubliners you might find it useful too. A 1990 Vintage is a facsimile of the 1961 Random House, which is still, imho, the best text to read. - )
We stopped at a used book store on Thursday and I bought two boxes of books! My haul included: The Way of all Flesh by Samuel Butler; Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad; Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Other Writings About New York by Stephen Crane; The Old Curiosity Shop and Little Dorrit; Absalom, Absalom and As I Lay Dying; Tom Jones by Fielding; Zorba the Greek; The Grapes of Wrath; Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence; Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, plus quite a few SciFi books and a few romances.
Wow ! Talk about a haul ! You lucky duck. :)
Pamela wrote: "We stopped at a used book store on Thursday and I bought two boxes of books! My haul included: The Way of all Flesh by Samuel Butler; Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad; Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Ot..."
I highly recommend Little Dorrit. I just finished it about a month ago and its one of my favorite Dickens works.
I highly recommend Little Dorrit. I just finished it about a month ago and its one of my favorite Dickens works.
"My Summer in the Sierras" (with photographs)by John Muir; "The Trial" by Kafka; "Shakespeare and the Invention of the Human" by Harold Bloom
I had a half day at work today, so I swung by Half Price Books this afternoon and grabbed 13 books for under $30.Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien
Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and the Stories by Nella Larsen
The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Gotta love the clearance rack!
What a great haul, Sarah! I wish we had a Half-Priced Books where I am. All we have is B&N and they rarely have clearance racks with anything I am interested in.
Laurie wrote: "What a great haul, Sarah! I wish we had a Half-Priced Books where I am. All we have is B&N and they rarely have clearance racks with anything I am interested in."I love their their clearance deals...I think at least half of the books I own have come from their sales. :)
Amazon being overtaken for bargains by eBay, where a lot of sellers give an extra discount if you buy 2 or more at same time, so...I bought two!
one slated for next year: Jim Thompson's The Grifters (one of my fave movies)
and a luvverly condition first edition hardback for Scott Bradfield's The History Of Luminous Motion
Good evening!I got the following books today at B&N using my $25 gift card that my brother-in-law gave me for my birthday in August; my 10% off membership; two 25% off coupons and an in-store promotion for $US10.82 cash:
by Jane Austen (1775-1817). Sense and Sensibility; Mansfield Park; Pride and Prejudice; Emma; Northanger Abbey; Persuasion; and Lady Susan. I think that's all of them.
by Scott Butler.
by Agatha Christie (1890-1976), Includes Murder on the Orient Express; The Murder of Roger Ackroyd; and Curtain: Poirot's Last Case.
by John Steinbeck (1902-68).Jim
I got The Painted Veil, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories at Audible’s latest sale.
I stopped by Half Price Books after work and got another haul...Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story by Oliver La Farge
The Reivers by William Faulkner
The Way West by A.B. Guthrie Jr.
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Black Boy by Richard Wright
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
The Signet Classic Book of Mark Twain's Short Stories by Mark Twain
Only two that are on any of my 2018 challenge plans, but that is okay...I’ll get to them...eventually. :)
In the last month I've ordered received and read many books on Amazon they include:The Revengers' Comedies: A Play
A Rose for Emily and Other Stories
A Christmas Carol
A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories
Buried Child
Lost Boy: A Novella
Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
Howl and Other Poems
Birdsong: Fifty-Three Short Poems
The Professor's House
All of these were short in length, but I really enjoyed everyone of them. So I was able to push my books read list over 100 for the year. And I just received a classic non-fiction in the mail and I hope to read it by the end of the year. Free to Choose: A Personal Statement is a book that goes along with a few Greatest Courses classes I have finished this year and it is a study of Economics. I still have The Wealth of Nations on my TBR list and I'm only waiting for the right copy to fall in to my hands. Happy Reading and have a better day today then you had all year. It starts with a pledge to read the things that interest me most.
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Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)
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I have a list of several titles where it's tricky to find inexpensive copies, but I regularly scour eBay/Amazon "just in case"
and recently found 5 such books in short succession! :oD
I won't say what all 5 are, cos sometimes such books mysteriously don't turn up or the transaction gets cancelled
but the first of them arrived yesterday
Blaise Cendrars' Moravagine
this was billed as "Acceptable" condition (which is why, I assumed, it was cheap) but apart from a small crease on the cover, it's basically in Good to Very Good condition :oD
this will be going straight into my 2018 Personal Challenge (just need to decide which poor, unfortunate, previously short-listed title is going to get the boot!)