Nu-ILB: What books have you purchased lately?

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
The Book Of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

(20% off at Waterstones, so I splurged)

got orhan pamuk's "snow" at a hospital book fair for $1

Schlump, yes, those Roth ones are the same Library of America series. I wouldn't be at all sure about them for novels, but for poetry and other things they're incredible: there just aren't any collections of eg Pound, Bishop, Stevens, Ashbery that can compete. Also the easiest way to get hold of a lot of shorter works by big prose writers, as in the Twain set.
Nice, durable editions: paper's thin, and they can be a bit cramped compared to individual volumes, but not enough to be a serious issue for me. I think I'd rather read a paperback of a novel though.
The Ashbery Collected Poems -1987 is my latest purchase. Have also shaken the publishing tree for a copy of 2666 by Bolano.

"Slow Learner", Thomas Pynchon. Had to stop myself getting Vol 2 of "Man Without Qualities" and "The Third Policeman" (better books I know but I've nearly finished G Rainbow and don't want to, kinda)

Today's purchases:

The March of Folly, Barbara Tuchman, used hardcover, no dust jacket, $1.50. I am not in the mood for unreliable narrators.

A Blistered Kind of Love, Angela Ballard and Duffy Ballard, used paperback, Mountaineers Books Press, $2.50. This book probably is not literature in any sense I would recognize. It has to do with my much-loved hobby - long-distance trekking in the mountains of the western USA. In this case, it describes a thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail - approx 2,650 miles in about 6 months. I need this kind of book to read during the winter doldrums, when the trails I love are buried under snow.

Donald Barthelme 40 Stories, Gilbert Hernandez Human Diastrophism, Frank Moorhouse Loose Living, Michael Moorcock Behold the Man

The Barthelme is great. The Moorcock is clever, mildly pulpy fun. I've yet to really enjoy a Frank Moorhouse: I can see what he's trying to do, it just doesn't really grab me admittedly the books of his I've read were VERY 70s-ish in their concerns and politics, and had not aged terribly well).

Yeah he's a v 60s/70s political/boho sort of guy, it doesn't really bother me (or I don't really notice) when it comes out in the books... have you read Forty-Seventeen?

I haven't, but just Googled it and it looks really interesting, actually.

Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson
Brief Encounters with Che Guevara - Ben Fountain
The Man who made Vermeers - Jonathon Lopez

I've had so much good (lucky) charity shop shopping lately that I've been spending too much on books even though I haven't paid over £2 for one. And my single lonely bookcase is both full and under the strain of precarious towers of books stacked on top of it. I think my choicest finds have been 1970s Picador editions of Richard Brautigan's 'Sombrero Fallout' and 'The Abortion' for 50p each, hidden away in a discount tub with tattered self-help guides, romance novels and maps. Maybe my first ever find that would be considered a good one by anyone but myself!

My most recent shop got me 'The Name of the Rose', 'London Fields' (on a six-month old recommendation), and 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius' (on a six-year old recommendation. I'm a bad friend) for £1.50 each, I'm happy with that, at least until I read them and hate them.

Mishima - Thirst for Love
Alexander Trocchi - Young Adam
Djuna Barnes - Nightwood
Olaf Stapleton - Sirius
K.W. Jeter - Dr.Adder
G. Cabrera Infante - Three Trapped Tigers
Boris Vian - I Spit on Your Graves

State By State - A Panoramic Portrait of America (Weiland and Wilsey, eds.)

The Snow Tourist (C. English)

The Informers (Vasquez, translated by Anne McLean

)

Hey, I've just been reading Barthelme's Forty Stories lately, too! Picked it up last month cuz my girlfriend still has my copy of Sixty Stories* and I eventually realized that Barthelme is the kind of writer who I love to have lying around so that I can read one or two stories when I've got nothing better to do. Great stuff, of course.

I also bought To the Lighthouse on a whim a few weeks ago, because it was rainy and it seemed like the right thing to read. Slow going so far, but I think I'm enjoying it? Probably still prefer Mrs. Dalloway, tho.

(*: she bought me some awesome books for my birthday, including the beautiful Everyman's Library edition of Tristram Shandy and the extremely funny and previously unknown-to-me Moscow to the End of the Line, so I don't mind too much)

Poems & Other Writings, by Henry W. Longfellow, used in excellent condition, in the Library of America hard cover edition for $9.95. This is a beautifully printed and designed book that makes it much easier to read L's poetry, which is a needlessly difficult chore in cheap editions.

i don't have the money to buy books lately : /

"Forty-Seventeen" is vv awesome, as I remember, read it about 12 years ago tho and don't remember too clearly. If a forty- and a seventeen-year old getting it on's going to bug you don't bother, perhaps. Got Moorhouse's "Dark Palace" today cos I LOVED "Grand Days" (this is the sequel, more League of Nations historical stuff I guess, yay!) but I doubt I'll get round to reading it any time at all soon.

I apparently only feel like posting here when I get something with a particularly dreadful cover.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c133/OysteinietsyO/Shallowgrave.jpg

(Except I see now that I apparently posted that dreadful Tolstoy cover in some other thread)

there are lots of bad purdy covers! he's cursed, apparently. my trade paperback copy of narrow rooms is a photo of a gay porn muscleman cowboy lying in a pile of hay or something. i tried to get a friend of mine to read it and he refused based on the cover. and he's gay!

i do like this old paperback copy of malcom though.i have another old paperback of malcom with another great cover too:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2182/2093996638_9400914ec9.jpg?v=0

but this is just bonkers! ?????????????????

http://media.perseusdistribution.com/covers/high/9781852423681.jpg

even the most recent reissues suck:

http://www.wright.edu/~martin.kich/PurdySoc/covers/eustace.jpg

I've never even heard of this Purdy fellow! The Dorothy Parker blurb has me interested, though. Is 'Malcolm' a good place to start?

yeah, Malcom is a good place to start. Or one of his short story collections. If you want full speed ahead dementia then read narrow rooms. if you like one, you are probably gonna want to read more. that's what happened to me anyway. he's an amazing stylist and he's just, um, kinda bonkers! but bonkers in a very unique way. The Nephew is a good starting place too. i dunno. dive in!

from his wiki page, here is a short list of some of his fans over the years(!!!!):

"His work has been translated into more than 30 languages. It has been praised by writers as diverse as Dame Edith Sitwell (an important early advocate), Dorothy Parker, Edward Albee, James M. Cain, Terry Southern, Lillian Hellman, A.N. Wilson, Francis King and Marianne Moore. From the start, his work has often been at the edge of what was printable: Gollancz could not bring himself to print the word motherfucker in the 1957 UK edition of 63: Dream Palace; decades later, the German government tried to ban Narrow Rooms, but a court threw the case out. Although many readers were scandalized, a solid cadre of distinguished critics and scholars embraced his work from the start, including John Cowper Powys and Susan Sontag, who warmly defended him against prurient critics."

oh, and i started reading his stuff after i read an interview where john waters said he was his favorite writer. i figured that was good enough for me.

i can't help but picture john cowper powys and susan sontag hanging out together when i read that last wiki sentence.

(hangs head in shame)

This past weekend I spent about $350 on new backpacking equipment. I may not have spent that much on books this entire year. I suppose this speaks volumes on my warped sense of priorities. However, if the books I bought cost from $100 to $150 a pop, they would add up much faster.

i just dropped $320 on two books for my boyfriend's birthday!

Do you have a twin sister?

And what were the books?

the lettered/slipcased edition of the black sparrow press bibliography (he's a collector of BSP stuff, particularly bukowski, john yau and paul bowles).

the numbered (1/150) and signed edition, in a beautiful clamshell box, of alex gross' art book, including a 7-colour silkscreened print.

i should mention that he bought me a $650 book very recently (limited edition ray caesar art book, in a clamshell box, linen covered, signed and numbered).

i just gave them to him tonight - he's very happy!

As who wouldn't be with such a thoughtful gift.

Wow!

Diarmaid MacCulloch - The Reformation: A History
Kathy Acker - Blood and Guts in High School (Plus Two)
Jacobus de Voragine - Legenda Aurea (selections in Norwegian translation)

The Colours of My Life - Malcolm Allison. Read before after borrowing it from a friend, but decided that it was definitely worth having a copy of my own.

Teehee, bought Twilight. But also Stendhal's Red 'n' Black book, No Country for Old Men, Gibson's latest Spook County (?), Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

I had a feeling I already bought it. Yep, Stendhal will be returned for another book. Roffle.

Just Christmas presents

For one brother - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - PKD, Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury, We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
For girlfriend - Rings of Saturn - WG Sebald (even though I have big problems with this book, I think she'll like it)
For mum's husband - the first three Flashman books and The Colours of My Life, because he's a Palace fan and because it's great (see above).
For other brother - hmmm, still not sure. Was thinking of Buchan's Hannay stuff, but I got that for my mum last year - maybe Sherlock Holmes, or maybe, yes, wait! Father Brown Stories. Hmmm. Lots of standing around in bookshops to do tomorrow.

not purchased by me, but purchased FOR me for my birthday:

'drop city' - signed first edition by t.c. boyle
'call if you need me' - raymond carver, first edition
'horsebucket' - carol es (1/50 edition, signed, manually typed text accompanying sketches)
'proofs' - james crombie (kickshaw press), entirely letterpressed/screenprinted in way cool slipcase covered in this bizarre 'pebble' paper
slipcased library of america editions of willa cather's work
'the upset' - collection/analysis of contemporary lowbrow fine art
'counterpoint' - robert and shana parkeharrison (photography book)

apparently these are the 'small' presents and the 'big' book present is coming in january - it's on order but not ready yet.

(also, this rubyredd, i've just got a new user name)

Purchased today at Half-Price w/glorious VISA gift card:

The Black Lizard Anthology of Crime Fiction
Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up -- Norman Fischer
Days of Obligation: Arguments with my Mexican Father -- Richard Rodriguez
Girl in Landscape -- J Lethem
Wall of the Sky, Wall of the Eye -- J Lethem

just bought "the man with the axe," which is a book about alfred jarry, illustrated by bill griffith. i was stoked to find it in hardcover, since i wasn't aware one ever existed.

got a bunch of books from fantagraphics too- most excited about jimbo in purgatory and jimbo's inferno by gary panter.

i have stopped buying books and started reading them, huzzah

i try to be ambidexterous that way.

I made my first bookstore run since mid-November. I bought:

Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin, used trade paperback in standard shape, at my favorite thrift shop for $3. The cashier informed me this book is very fashionable now, as it has been linked to the magical name of Obama. I expect good things from it.

The Prelude: Version of 1805, William Wordsworth, in an Oxford Standard Authors blue-cloth hardbound edition, reprint of 1949, with a dust cover (somewhat tatty), and some light pencil underlining for $10. I got this at Powell's Books, where browsing the shelves makes for as pleasant a way to spend an aimless winter's afternoon as I am ever likely to find.

A really nice, compact paperback edition of Don Quixote
Victor Serge - Birth of our Power
Yasunuro Kawabata - Beauty and Sadness

Solzhenitsyn's 'The Gulag Archipelago', complete set. Which I may eventually get around to reading!

Anne Applebaum's 'Gulag'.

Douglas Coupland, 'Generation X'.

Granta 103 - The Rise of the British Jihad.

a coworker just bought me the 20th anniversary, 1968, edition of 'other voices, other rooms' by truman capote, as an engagement present. pretty awesome gift, considering i've had my eye on it for awhile now.