What Book(s) have you just Bought, Ordered or Taken Delivery Of? Showing 1,001-1,050 of 2,344

[Lynn, New School Classics]

Aprilleigh wrote: "Thanks to a sale at the library book sale (yes, I meant to say it that way), I just picked up 19 titles by a new favorite mystery writer (Patricia Cornwell), plus the first two tit..."


Oh no! So many books that it broke the table is real dedication!!!

[Aprilleigh]

Helen wrote: "Oh no! So many books that it broke the table is real dedication!!!"

That doesn't even take into account the overflowing shelves in my library or upstairs in the bonus room (also our classroom and my craft room, so most of the craft-related or school-related books are up there), or the dozen or so boxes of books on the floor from my dad that I haven't had the time to go through yet. I'm sure I've got some duplicates, but those I'll donate to the library for the next book sale.

[Jim]

Yesterday I went to Barnes and Noble and picked up four books that I'd had on hold since August 21, 2018:

The Art of War by Sun Tzu (544-496 BC)
The Constitution and Other Documents of the Founding Fathers edited by Andrew S. Trees
Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau (1817-62)
Leaves of Grass: First and "Death-Bed" Editions by Walt Whitman (1819-92)

Jim

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name]

I'm trying a new author (to me)
Mark Helprin

[Terris]

Which book?

[Susan]

I came home from work today to find a box smiling up at me. Inside the box was poetry. (Don't you just love boxes like that?) I'm almost halfway through Nine Horses . It's so good. I've never read Billy Collins before, but I think I will be going back for more.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name]

Terris wrote: "Which book?"

I just finished In Sunlight and in Shadow
I also have Freddy and Fredericka
A Soldier of the Great War
And
Winter's Tale

Love his gift of description and use of emotion in his characters without going overboard. Strong plot lines
The denouement bumped up my star rating

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name]

Just ordered Chess Story
Because I thought I bought it last month and wanted to use it for my Z author on my challenge
But I don’t have it yet.
Also downloaded some free classic children’s reads that I grew having never read and now I feel deprived.

[Pillsonista]

BAM wrote: "Just ordered Chess Story
Because I thought I bought it last month and wanted to use it for my Z author on my challenge"

That's a great choice.

Anything he's ever written is a great choice, but he was a master of the novella. I love that one, and Journey into the Past as well as well.

[Pillsonista]

Did pretty well yesterday:




The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, ed. by J.D. McClatchy
Marie Ponsot's Collected Poems 👍
W.S. Merwin's translation of Dante's Purgatorio
Lear: The Great Image of Authority by Harold Bloom
American Audacity: In Defense of Literary Daring by William Giraldi

[Wreade1872]

Got a few childrens books in from the library, Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis ,
A Voyage to the Island of the Articoles by Andre Maurois and by the same author Mape . I think the version i got might be an original 1926 edition! I can't believe they let me borrow it. I havn't heard of any reprints but only checkout date is 1950, so either way its really old :) .

[Laurie]

Wreade1872 wrote: "Mape . I think the version i got might be an original 1926 edition! I can't believe they let me borrow it. I havn't heard of any reprints but only checkout date is 1950, so either way its really old :) ."

I can't believe your library still has this since no one ever checks it out. Most libraries cull books that sit on the shelves to make room for new books. Nice luck for you though.

[Aprilleigh]

I've never heard of a library keeping a book that hasn't been checked out in that long unless it was a special collection item, in which case it would be for in-library use only.

[Wreade1872]

Aprilleigh wrote: "I've never heard of a library keeping a book that hasn't been checked out in that long unless it was a special collection item, in which case it would be for in-library use only."

The computer systems here are relatively new, i imagine the more we rely on them the more efficient things will get :lol . Yeah just the two check out dates on the book may 1950 and nov 1950 :) .

[Dave]

Jude the Obscure and Wuthering Heights

[Pillsonista]

Another one I've been waiting years to get my hands on...



Osip Mandelstam's Journey to Armenia and in a rare foray into science fiction, I also ordered Moderan by David R. Bunch.

[Wreade1872]

I delivered onto myself a copy of The City of Dreadful Night printed as a booklet, here if you want to try a copy. I did it up in Libreoffice so hard to say how the formatting will go if opened in something else.

Anyway i added a couple of illustrations, changed the quotes at the start to engish versions and made sure each poem started on a separate page.
Then of course assuming your printer can print booklets properly (my first attempt was a complete fail) you also have to figure out how to staple it and you'll also find the because of the fold, the inner pages stick out more than the outside ones.

Nevertheless i'm very pleased with my copy :D .

The illustrations i added are the drawing of the city from League of Extraordinary gentlemen and Melencolia I by Dürer, which is the subject of one of the poems.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name]

I’m so impressed with everyone! So many of you read such difficult or high-end tomes and I’m over here reading the continuing story of the Artful Dodger with vampires lol

[ALLEN]

But no one says you can't have fun!

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name]

ALLEN wrote: "But no one says you can't have fun!"

Yes ALLEN I know how to have fun! Which is really the important thing isn’t it?

[Dave]

Can You Forgive Her - Trollope, Vanity Fair, The Pickwick Papers
Things They Carried - O'Brien

[ALLEN]

I got a bunch of classics or semi-classics from the UK on Saturday, including THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, THE BELL JAR, HELEN KELLER - THE STORY OF MY LIFE, AND 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD.

[Dave]

84 Charing Cross Road is wonderful.

[Terris]

ALLEN wrote: "I got a bunch of classics or semi-classics from the UK on Saturday, including THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, THE BELL JAR, HELEN KELLER - THE STORY OF MY LIFE, AND 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD."

Frederick Douglass is on my immediate list! And I've read the others. You got some good ones! :)

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name]

Just curious: why did you get those from the UK?

[ALLEN]

BAM wrote: "Just curious: why did you get those from the UK?"

Cheaper. And free shipping. This will be the third time I'll have read THE BELL JAR, which despite Plath's tragic life and the inclusion of insanity in the story line, I do find "fun" -- lots of Fifties satire. Not to say it isn't very moving, of course. I remember when her work was 'rediscovered' around 1970, and it caused quite a stir.

Still working on the Anglophilia, B?

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name]

Yes. I love this castle book, Allen! It’s marvelous!

[ALLEN]

Good! It has always been popular with students.

[Darren]

snapped up an amazingly inexpensive copy of Joyce Cary's To Be a Pilgrim off Amazon
turns out to be a lovely condition, ex-library hardback 1972 reprint of the 1951 Carfax edition! :oO
which is not even listed on Goodreads, so here is a photo:

[Rosemarie]

That is lovely. I have a beat up paperback copy.

[Lois]

I just started, "Cannery Row," by John Steinbeck.

[Darren]

Rosemarie wrote: "That is lovely. I have a beat up paperback copy."

I loved The Horse's Mouth so much that I had to buy up the other two of the triptych!

[ALLEN]

Joyce Cary's name and writings are new to me, but then I'm an American.

What should I know about Joyce Cary?

[Dave]

Vanity Fair, The Pickwick Papers and Can You Forgive Her (Trollope)

[ALLEN]

Eh?

[Dave]

Was that Eh? for me Allen?

[ALLEN]

Did you mean to imply a connection between Trollope (whom I have read) and Joyce Cary?

[Dave]

No no, I was just listing books I bought. To the best of my knowledge I have never read Joyce Carey.

[Dave]

Which I can't even spell correctly.

[ALLEN]

Joyce Carey the actress??

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name]

Do any of you belong to the New York Review Classics book club? I joined this year and would like opinions on the books,

[Pillsonista]

BAM wrote: "Do any of you belong to the New York Review Classics book club? I joined this year and would like opinions on the books,"

I'm not a member of the book club, but I own literally every single book they have published under their NYRB Classics imprint.

What would you like to know?

[ALLEN]

A friendly Mod at another Group views NYRB-published titles as a mark of distinction. Me, I'm not so sure. I would say their titles are all over the place: Euro classics, potentially overlooked modernism, Americana, and so on. To me that eclecticism is a good thing. I have read a few of them, and I know I bought George Simenon's noirish RED LIGHTS simply because it was a NYRB choice, and was glad I read it.

I've a feeling that, since GR is such a big huge discussion site, that you can probably find threads specifically devoted to NYRB titles if you poke around a bit.

And this is a tolerant bunch: no one will mind if you put aside a NYRB book club book and run away screaming, as long as you don't elevate the "screaming" into an art form. To my way it gets harder and harder these days to sign onto any poll or reading list and assume it is an absolute guarantee of literary quality or even literary likability.

*********

But really, I'm dying to know what Pillonista has to say.

[Pillsonista]

ALLEN wrote: "But really, I'm dying to know what Pillonista has to say."

Oh, Allen... how long do you have?

Anyway, my opinion is essentially in tandem with Jonathan Lethem's, who wrote an essay about the NYRB Classics publishing house and basically declared that it is the single greatest thing going in American publishing.

I cannot describe how crucial NYRB Classics have been to expanding my knowledge of literature exponentially. They are dedicated to publishing "best of everything," in both genre and literature. I mean, seriously serious classics, a number of which have been out of publication for decades.

[ALLEN]

Pillonista, I believe you implicitly, but your hyperlink to Jonathan Letham took me instead to the book SECRET MYSTERIES OF THE WORLD by Sylvia Brown.

Go ahead, if you've time -- expand.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name]

I see. Because I've not Heard of ANY of the books I've received
I wondered if I was receiving my money's worth. It'll be time to renew soon and was pondering whether to do so. So what I hear you saying is that this is a highly influential as well as important movement in publishing?

[ALLEN]

I'm looking forward to hearing from Pillonista, too, but I think part of the NYRB approach is to publish books that went quietly out of print without what the NYRB people feel was sufficient recognition, to re-publish them in the hopes they'll be read by a larger audience and achieve some recognition.

So, in a sense, we were supposed not to know about them.
The NYRB is not a "classics" or "warhorse" list by any means.

[Pillsonista]

BAM wrote: "I see. Because I've not Heard of ANY of the books I've received
I wondered if I was receiving my money's worth. It'll be time to renew soon and was pondering whether to do so. So what I hear you s..."

Honestly, I think it depends on what you think is value for your money. And at the risk of being accused of snobbery, it is a publishing house that heavily emphasizes Literature.

I'm not sure how influential they are as a publishing house, but I would agree that the work they do is tremendously important. This year alone they published new translations of Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Stories and Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz, two gems of 20th century literature, both notoriously underserved by their original translations. These are two undertakings you would usually expect from a publishing conglomerate like Penguin Random House (as it did with The Man Without Qualities), not a smaller independent press like the NYRB. But without them, these two new translations wouldn't exist. That's why I think they're so important.

For myself, this is like heaven, because literature is my obsession. But my idea of a beach read is the The Magic Mountain. I had the date of the publication of Berlin Alexanderplatz marked on my calendar months in advance.

So if you're looking for something a little less intense or demanding, then you might not want to bother renewing. You can always buy individual titles from a bookstore or order them from their website.

[ALLEN]

I read MAGIC MOUNTAIN in college, and then in German (DER ZAUBERBERG). I have both languages now and hope some day a buddy read can emerge.

Please keep me in mind if you are so moved, Pillsonista.

[Pillsonista]

ALLEN wrote: "I read MAGIC MOUNTAIN in college, and then in German (DER ZAUBERBERG). I have both languages now and hope some day a buddy read can emerge.

Please keep me in mind if you are so moved, Pillsonista."

Allen, the day you want to do a buddy read of The Magic Mountain (I'm only able to read it in translation), I am there. It is arguably my most favorite novel.