Terminalcoffee discussion
Books / Writing
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Your last bookstore splurge
I go to the second hand bookshop in the library every Saturday and blow a bunch of money on a bunch of books. Yesterday, I got:
Texas
Blind Man's Bluff
His Bright Light
The Summons
I'll Make You A Deal You Can't Resist
Monster
Sleepers
Rainbow Mars
Chicken Soup for the Brides' Soul
The Oxford Book of Essays
Kane and Abel
Vital Signs
Count Down
Cliffnotes to Jane Eyre
Spook
Prey
Timeline
Knick Knack Paddy Whack
Dilbert Future
Darwin Awards 3 and 4
Uncle John Plunges Into The Universe
Texas
Blind Man's Bluff
His Bright Light
The Summons
I'll Make You A Deal You Can't Resist
Monster
Sleepers
Rainbow Mars
Chicken Soup for the Brides' Soul
The Oxford Book of Essays
Kane and Abel
Vital Signs
Count Down
Cliffnotes to Jane Eyre
Spook
Prey
Timeline
Knick Knack Paddy Whack
Dilbert Future
Darwin Awards 3 and 4
Uncle John Plunges Into The Universe
So far Esme takes the prize. Barb, please let me know what you think of Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie when you're done. I recently finished reading it.
I went to Half-Price Books today and got:Gandhi's Truth, by Erik Erikson
The Dogma of Christ by Erich Fromm
The Renaissance by Walter Pater
Le Rouge et le Noir by Stendhal (I've got it in English but I like to practice my French when I can find books)
The Bad Seed by William March (the very same edition I got from the Scholastic Book Club in 8th grade and it's in almost new condition - I'm thrilled!)
The Anchor Anthology of Short Fiction of the Seventeenth Century Ed. by Charles Mish,
The Sacred and the Profane by Mircea Eliade
and Invisible, by Paul Auster.
I will not have these read by next week.
I've been cleaning out the closing Borders...more Bukowski, Burroughs, a weird-looking Leonard Cohen, and a couple better copies of books I already had, e.g. Winesburg, Ohio.
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the SeaThe Scapegoat
Flood
Pavilion of Women
True Grit
and some Junie B. Jones books for the tyke.
Rebecca wrote: "A "weird-looking" Leonard Cohen?"this one, Rebecca...
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10...
Looks good! I've never read any of his books.
Esme wrote: "I go to the second hand bookshop in the library every Saturday and blow a bunch of money on a bunch of books. i>I love those Uncle John Books. And if you haven't read Jane Eyre, you're in for a treat. Don't settle for the Cliffs Notes.
Barb wrote: "RandomAnthony wrote: "Rebecca wrote: "A "weird-looking" Leonard Cohen?"this one, Rebecca...
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10..."
I definitely have something to check out!
It's good. Trippy and weird and ..."
Just now...bunch of PG Wodehouse and some stuff for my cousin.
All the rest of the Pern books, which I regret now as I won't read that last three. They're the same damn story as what was already told in Dragonsblood. I'm so over the Pern rehashing of the same story! Plus, Todd vs. Anne...I feel the difference and I'm not so much into it anymore.
I read the Pern books that were out when I was in college and that was about enough to last a lifetime. Yes, I'm really off series books because of that lazy "job security" thing.
Todd < Anne He needs to get his own SF world to play with, instead of rehashing Pern over and over.
I didn't know he was writing until just the other day, I came across one.
He co-wrote Dragon's Kin, and it was okay. Had it been longer I may have not been so kind. But, he's just not his mom.
You're right Jacks, he needs to get his own world (life).
You're right Jacks, he needs to get his own world (life).
I was SO GOOD this weekend. I went to the Smith College Alumni Book Sale, which is a giant armory full of books. I have traditionally left with a crate, but this time I only bought one little paperback Kit Reed story collection. The woman at the checkout said "ONE??? Nobody buys one!"
My last bookstore splurge was a $70 Border's gift card for my dad on his 70th birthday.
Okay, if we're talking out last book purchase, rather than excessive book purchase, then while at a random stop at the Goodwill with Jenn the other day, because she wanted to look for a tie rack (she uses them for her earrings), I bought Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and Reading Lolita in Tehran.
I read the first two, Barb...loved Cannery Row and liked Stardust a lot.
Barb wrote: "Just ordered online:Cannery Row, Stardust and Hawksley Burns for Isadora."
Did you get the illustrated Stardust or the smaller paperback version? The illustrated one makes it feel more like an old-fashioned fairy tale, which I really liked.
I splurged yesterday. My beloved Daedalus outlet is closing. The original one in Columbia is sticking around, but the one below my gym is going away. 30% off their already ridiculously low prices.I got a Jeanette Winterson novel, an Alice Munro collection, Jonathan Lethem's short story collection, How to Pick a Peach, The Complete Badger: Volume 1, and two CDs for $30.
Bad Sarah. Sad Sarah.
We went to Powell's in Chicago and I found The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders, which is one of the three books on my "library doesn't have it" list! Then my father gave me The Demolished Man and a book of Cynthia Ozick short stories. So I came back with three more books than I left with. Oh wait. He also gave me To Reign in Hell. My shelf runneth over.
My latest purchase = the two Murakami books I mentioned in the "Your next read" thread.
Mod
My latest splurge: The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White MotherWomen of the Silk
Girl in Hyacinth Blue
Jane Austen's Guide to Dating
An Italian Affair
The Color of Water is a great book.
I just read A Game of Thrones Barb - let me know how you like it.
I'm beside myself with excitement! I just went to lunch and noticed an independent bookstore in the strip mall I go to, to pick up lunch on my lunch hour. So I walked in to check it out and OMG! I could have spent the rest of the day there. The store specializes in science fiction and mystery, but has a small collection of other genres as well. Here's the cool thing, authors come in, TWO A WEEK!, to sign books and talk with fans. So they also have a huge selection of signed and signed first edition books. I bought a signed copy of The Neighbors Are Watching by Debra Ginsberg but wanted so many more. They had signed books by Julia Spencer-Fleming, Charlaine Harris, George R.R. Martin, Michael Koryta and those are just the ones I immediately recognized in the short time that I was there. Looks like they do a lot online as well, http://mystgalaxy.com/ if you're interested.I know where I'll be spending my lunch hours!
RandomAnthony wrote: "I've been cleaning out the closing Borders...more Bukowski, Burroughs, a weird-looking Leonard Cohen, and a couple better copies of books I already had, e.g. Winesburg, Ohio."RA, do you like Winesburg Ohio?
Several people on Goodreads love that book.
Lobstergirl wrote: "I'm trying not to buy any more books for a long, long time."I keep trying that. Then I just fail at it. Then I end up bringing a stack of books to our library's book sale to make room for the new ones. Crap.
Visited McKay's Used Books on my way home and I left with much less than usual. Actually, I found the two I was looking for and one lucky find I wasn't expecting.Searching for:
World Without End
Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science & Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe
Lucky find:
1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England Comprising All the Parts You Can Remember including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings & 2 Genuine Dates
Mod
Today I bought this:
A picture-heavy cookbook with 21 recipes for 21 different animals, ranging from frog to shark, kangaroo, crocodile and horse. I might actually make the duck recipe, but other than that I just bought it because I think it looks cool.
Cool cover, Janine!Horse?? Eek, don't let Sarah Pi hear talk of this.
Not exactly from a bookstore, this was a present from my parents.
Yes, those are dogs on my bed.
That is a gorgeous necklace, Janine. I love how old the book looks.
I picked up Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, The Calligrapher's Daughter, The Covenant and Cutting for Stone yesterday at Chapters.
Went to a huge library sale after work today.Here's a few I found...
And two HB's
I decided to trade in some of the crappy books taking up valuable bookshelf real estate today at the second-hand place over the road. I traded 2 boxsets of Kray Brothers biographies (don't ask) and a handful of books about such important girly things as handbags & shoes (given to me by well-meaning but irritating acquaintances).In return, I scored:
Shriek: An Afterword (Secondhand)
Cloud Atlas (New)
The Stand (New special edition, but creased cover)
I'm tossing up going back for
Possession
Nikole wrote: "A few weeks ago I went to a Borders close out sale and bought My Reading Life, Interpreter of Maladies, Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover if H..."</i>You don't adore Steinbeck? [book:The Grapes of Wrath is one of my all time best loved books. Must admit, I haven't read many other Steinbecks (just Of Mice & Men I think).
Chasing Windmills - Catherine Ryan HydeToys - James Patterson
Sister - Rosamund Lupton
The Love Killers - Jackie Collins
Glass Houses - Rachel Caine
The Dead Girls' Dance - Rachel Caine
Midnight Alley - Rachel Caine
Feast of Fools - Rachel Caine
Lord of Misrule - Rachel Caine
Carpe Corpus - Rachel Caine
Fade Out - Rachel Caine
Kiss of Death - Rachel Caine
Ghost Town - Rachel Caine
Bite Club - Rachel Caine
Cape Storm - Rachel Caine
Ill Wind - Rachel Caine
Heat Stroke - Rachel Caine
Chill Factor - Rachel Caine
Firestorm - Rachel Caine
The Redbreast: Harry Hole Series, Book 1 - Jo Nesbo
Drowned Wednesday - Garth Nix
Dark Matter - Michelle Paver
The Accused - Constance Briscoe
Classic Tales of Vampires and Shapeshifters - Compiled by Tig Thomas
Finding Harmony - Sally Hyder
50 Scary Fair Tales - Compiled by Vic Parker
Classic Ghost Stories
Amazon has delivered:
Windfall - Rachel Caine
Thin Air - Rachel Caine
Total Eclipse - Rachel Caine
Gale Force - Rachel Caine
Death Bringer - Derek Landy
The last Borders here closed yesterday. Paperbacks 50 cents each, hardbacks 1 dollar. I bought anything and everything that looked like it might be worth reading and spent $35. That's about average for me for a bookstore visit, except i usually don't buy 52 books...
Tom wrote: "The last Borders here closed yesterday. Paperbacks 50 cents each, hardbacks 1 dollar. I bought anything and everything that looked like it might be worth reading and spent $35. That's about aver..."I think there's still one hanging on in Fairfax, near my office. Sounds like I need to make one last trip.
I should have kept the reciept...."You saved $1148.52"
Tom wrote: "The last Borders here closed yesterday. Paperbacks 50 cents each, hardbacks 1 dollar. I bought anything and everything that looked like it might be worth reading and spent $35. That's about aver..."I have yet to understand that. Why did they go under?
I will take a wing at that. They always seemed to be behind the curve.My wife worked for them. When Amazon started I asked her about Border's website. She said that they were just using Amazon to sell their books. B&N had their website in operation.
Then they brought in a manager to restructure them. He decided to close the entire mall Walden Book chain (except those he couldn’t because of mall contracts) even though some of those were really profitable. He then retired.
Then they seemed to come late to the e-book game as well. All I ever hear about is the Nook and the Kindle.
Arminius pretty much summed it up. Plus, in the early days they focused on hiring staff and management that actually knew about books, but they later shifted to people who were only concerned with sales and expansion. They over-expanded during a time of high sales and then the bubble burst, kinda like silicon valley back in the day.
Tom did better than I did--I stopped at my local Border's on Saturday and got 8 books for $20.
Terminalcoffee
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