I weakened and, when a £3 copy of the Tadeusz Rozewicz volume in the Penguin Modern European Poets series came up on eBay, I bought it. Normally it's more like £30. Now I have collected the full run of that series, and completion feels more melancholy than it feels exciting. Should've known.
The poetry good though.
― Tim, Thursday, 27 April 2023 10:31 (one year ago) link
$2 each from a school sale. I was thrilled to find these.
John Dewey - Art as ExperienceT. J. Clark - The Painting of Modern Life
― jmm, Friday, 28 April 2023 19:02 (one year ago) link
Tadeus Borowski This Way For tHe Gas, Ladies and GentlemenPolish Auschwitz survivor's set of short stories about life in teh prison camp. Every time i go and look in charity shops I find something I really want to read. JUst wish I could find a way of creating a new timestream or means of osmosing books since real time doesn't suffice.Have heard this is extremely haunting and not easy reading.
James Burke Circles The writer and presenter of Connecctions connected book which is a lot of short pieces on inventions.
The Phenomenon of Religion Moojan MomenSummary and comparison of core tenets of mainstyream religions. THis looked like a book I'd wanted to read for years and now I wonder hwo soon I will get to it.
Alan Weisman The World Without us speculative work on what the planet would do in our absence should a sudden calamity remove teh prevalent destructive species.I've now listened to a few podcasts tied in with this and really want to get into it.
Adam Higginbotham Midnight In ChernobylOral history of the Chernobyl disaster
Orlando Patterson Slavery and Social Deathsurvey of all historical instances of survey in society. GOing back thousands of years and loking at what it meant at theh time.
which are only a handful of a larger pile amassed recently. I want to read them all immediately as well as a stack of things from the library. & all the books I bought over the last couple of years
― Stevo, Wednesday, 24 May 2023 18:16 (one year ago) link
School book fairs always turn up some gems. I found a first edition hardcover of Cavell's The World Viewed for $3, as well as William Gass's On Being Blue.
― jmm, Sunday, 4 June 2023 14:35 (eleven months ago) link
Found a copy of Arlie Russell Hochschild's The Managed Heart by chance on Friday. Like it was what I was specifically looking for for the last few weeks but after being told that it doesn't turn up in charity shops i heard it calling to me in a 2nd hand place.Or close to. Went to the section and it was there, though nopt in the cover I would have liked.BUt have been meaning to read it for years. May have read it soon after hearing about it in the early 00ies but if so I think I read it really fast and that was 20 years plus ago. So very glad that it turned up . & it was cheap. I had nearly ordered it on ebay.
― Stevo, Sunday, 4 June 2023 15:12 (eleven months ago) link
Gifts from people (birthday etc.):
Charles Rosen - The Frontier of Meaning: Three Informal Lectures on MusicGeza Csath - Opium and Other StoriesSergio Pitol - Mephisto's Waltz (Selected Short Stories)Miguel de Palol - Garden of Seven TwilightsYu Miri - The End of August
Otherwise I have bought v little over the last six months.
Honore de Balzac - The Quest of the AbsoluteWilliam Shakespeare - MacbethMircea Cartarescu - Solenoid
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 16 August 2023 10:43 (nine months ago) link
What did you think of Solenoid?
― dow, Thursday, 17 August 2023 02:51 (nine months ago) link
The past few purchases have all been book club readings
Clarke, Piranesi
Enger, So Brave, Young and Handsome
Grann, The Wager
Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 17 August 2023 02:54 (nine months ago) link
that csath collections is... interesting? also at times somewhat gruesome
think the only book i've purchased at all recently is the updated edition of the electric muse by lang, dallas, denselow & shelton
― no lime tangier, Thursday, 17 August 2023 08:05 (nine months ago) link
Just reading the Csath now. It's an amazing book.
― dow, Thursday, 17 August 2023 bookmarkflaglink
Looking to crack it open in the next month.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 17 August 2023 09:39 (nine months ago) link
I found two more books on the cheap, ofc.
Thomas Bernhard - GargoylesMarguerite Duras - L'Amour
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 17 August 2023 21:07 (nine months ago) link
Sold a bunch at Skoob for:
Gottfried Benn - Primal VisionSamuel Beckett - Three NovellasLouis Ferdinand-Celine - Fable for Another TimeEuclides da Cunha - BacklandsHans Magnus Enzenberger - Mausoleum
Also:
William Shakespeare - Romeo and JulietHenry Green - Caught
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 19 September 2023 09:06 (eight months ago) link
Look Homeward Angel Thomas Wolfeautobiographical novel by a writer I was turned onto as an influence on Jack Kerouac about 40 years ago. I may have read this back then. BUt found it for a euro yesterday so Thought I'd take the plunge.
The Day Of The Locust Nathaniel WestBook about turn of theh 40s Hollywood that I've meant to read for an age. I saw the 1974 film of it a couple of weeks back then found this in teh charity shop I got the above from. May have a copy in a different imprint floating around somewhere.Also reminds me that I need to read the City of Nets about the same era Hollywood. have had taht sitting around for a while.
Al Capone's Beer Wars John F Binderhistory of prohibition era gangsters in Chicago. Looked good anyway.
― Stevo, Tuesday, 19 September 2023 11:06 (eight months ago) link
& I just bought a copy of C. Willett Cunnington's A handbook of English Costume in teh 19th century hoping that it is at least presentable cos it is listed as Poor but the better quality versions are upwards of £50 a copy.Hoping that an ex library version dating back to 1966 with some writing inside is going to be rated as this if not in absolutely pristine condition . Well will see. It is up on archive.org but I do want a physical copy.writer's name sounds like a particularly middle class sexual euphemism or something.
― Stevo, Tuesday, 19 September 2023 11:12 (eight months ago) link
went slightly book mad and ended up with close to a year's worth of reading:
kafka - stories 1904-1924grossmith & grossmith - diary of a nobodysomerville & ross - the irish rmanthony trollope - the pallisersivy compton-burnett - parents & childrenivy compton-burnett - a father & his fatesylvia townsend warner - mr fortune's maggotelizabeth bowen - the last septembercapel boake - painted claydali - hidden facesjohn berger - gstig dagerman - games of nightthomas tryon - the othersimenon - maigret sets a traphenry james - english hoursdickens - selected journalism 1850-1870stevenson - dr jekyll & mr hyde/weir of hermistonhorace walpole - castle of otranto/hieroglyphic talesthe common muse: popular british ballad poetryroland barthes - selected writingscervantes - don quixoterabelais - gargantua & pantagruelbalzac - cousin ponsgautier - mademoiselle de maupinflaubert - madame bovarypushkin - eugene oneginbulgakov - the white guardthomas hardy - wessex talesthomas love peacock - novels ofcs lewis - that hideous strengthmichael moorcock - an alien heatmichael moorcock - the hollow landsroger zelazny - isle of the deadjulian symons - bloody murdergraham greene - a gun for salerobertson davies - the deptford trilogyrussell hoban - riddley walkerthomas pynchon - crying of lot 49italo calvino - our ancestorselias canetti - auto da fewilla muir - imagined selvesgeorge painter - marcel proustgerard manley hopkins - poems and prosejoyce cary - the horse's mouthralph ellison - invisible manjoseph heller - closing timedeighton - billion dollar braindeighton - game, set, match trilogy
also a number of pulp/crime/ghost/horror anthologies. now to try and find shelf space for them all.
― no lime tangier, Monday, 25 March 2024 19:41 (two months ago) link
I have come to accept that I do not have meaningful amounts of shelf space left, nor do I have wall space to put shelves against, and I'm just a person who is going to have piles
― G. D’Arcy Cheesewright (silby), Monday, 25 March 2024 21:46 (two months ago) link
Carrying all those books will do that to you.
― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Wednesday, 27 March 2024 12:37 (one month ago) link
Just logging my last buys and stuff I got from Xmas gifts now:
S. Yizhar - PreliminnariesMiguel Asturias - Mr. PresidentAlejo Carpenter - Explosion in the CathedralShakespeare - Julius CeasarLucio Cardoso - Chronicle of the Murdered HouseAndrei Platonov - ChevengurStanislaw Witkiewicz - InsatiablityWittold Gombrowicz - FerdeydukeYasunari Kawabata - The Old CapitalYasunari Kawabata - The RainbowV. S. Prtchett - A Cab at the DoorHenry Green - ConcludingJohn Donne - SermonsJeremy Taylor - Four SermonsOsvaldo Lamborghini - Two StoriesHoracio Quiroga - Beyond
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 7 April 2024 15:03 (one month ago) link
if you have piles you could take a book suppositoryor not as the case may be.
― Stevo, Sunday, 7 April 2024 15:12 (one month ago) link
Mix of buys and 2nd hand exchange. Year properly beginning in May
Ferit Edgu - The Wounded Age and Eastern TalesJen Craig - WallErnesto Sabato - On Heroes and TombsMontaigne - Essays (tr. John Florio) (the NYRB edition which is called "Shakespeare's Montaigne")Ngugi - Devil on the CrossGerard de Nerval - Journey to the OrientSindbad and Other Stories from the Arabian Nights (tr. Husain Haddawy)
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 30 April 2024 14:17 (three weeks ago) link