Book Hauls!

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Tobias Wolff's stories are very good indeed. Slices of life in form, they have a healthy mix of poignance and irony and cover quite a range of moods and settings.

[j. d. worthington]

Finally came across an affordable copy of Nostalgia of the Unknown: The Complete Prose Poems of Clark Ashton Smith, and picked it up.....

[murphy]

Arrived in the mail recently:

The God Engines by John Scalzi
Mister Slaughter by Robert McCammon

[Diggler]

Originally Posted by AE35Unit

Who?? I've heard of Henry S.F Cooper (the original story of Apollo 11 fame) but not his brother Edmund

Unluckily Cooper is actually like that. I don't think any of his novels have been published since the early 80's.

[Quokka]

The Complete Roderick - John Sladek (SF Masterworks)
A Voyage to Arcturus - David Lindsay (Fantasy Masterworks)

Not much of a haul but it's so hard to find anything in the Masterworks collections second hand that it was nice to come out with something.

[GOLLUM]

You did well all the same Quokka.

I haven't read my copy of Sladek yet...makes mental note to promote in ever growing TBR pile.

[GOLLUM]

Today with my VIP vouchers I got....

The Rider On The White Horse (and other stories) - Theodor Storm NYRB Classic *Major influence of and seminal precursor to Thomas Mann (heavily referenced in Mann's famous Essays of Three Decades).
My Fantoms (story collection) - Theophile Gautier NYRB Classic *Classic French poet and writer, admired by Lovecraft.
Our Story Begins - Tobias Wolff.

[CyBeR]

I was browsing a local book shop in search of something for my mother (which I had zero luck finding). I gave up on the search after a while and got two books, one for myself and the other for my girlfriend.

For her I got "Mary Poppins" by P.L. Travers. I'll be borrowing the book off her in a few months to read it as well. I remember enjoying one of the entries in the series years ago and really would like to read this as well.

And you must all know that you people are to blame for my second purchase. I got "Time out of joint" by Philip K. Dick, a purchase made solely from reasoning that I've seen quite a few fans of his works here and I decided to give it a second chance. My previous read from him was "Ubik" and I can't say it really impressed me at the time. We'll see how this fares.

[j. d. worthington]

Just received a copy of Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales, by Michael Shea (edited by S. T. Joshi). I've heard very good things about this one, and certainly Shea can be quite impressive; and STJ is more than a little picky about "Lovecraftian" fiction, so I'm rather looking forward to this little number....

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Today with my VIP vouchers I got....

The Rider On The White Horse (and other stories) - Theodor Storm NYRB Classic *Major influence of and seminal precursor to Thomas Mann (heavily referenced in Mann's famous Essays of Three Decades).
.

Storm is a significant figure in German literature; he perfected the art of the novella as a self-contained, vivid character sturdy - a format that became far more important in Germany than it ever has in the Anglosphere. The stories in this book can seem fairly obvious and minor, being tales of lost love or simply vignettes of the passing of time and generations but they are filled with a meticulous sense of place and character that is quite wonderful. The last two stories, including the title tale, use structural elements that put me in mind of antiquarian ghost stories by M.R. James, but the stories hinge on human nature rather than the supernatural. I really liked the later stories in the book, especially the epic title tale with its story of a man determined to follow a vision that is ahead of his times, against all odds, and the earlier stories are at the very least quaint survivals of a past era.

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

Just received a copy of Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales, by Michael Shea (edited by S. T. Joshi). I've heard very good things about this one, and certainly Shea can be quite impressive; and STJ is more than a little picky about "Lovecraftian" fiction, so I'm rather looking forward to this little number....

I enjoyed Shea's early novel, Nifft The Lean, but lost track of him thereafter. I've had this book on my radar for a while; I look forward to reading your impressions of it.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by knivesout

Storm is a significant figure in German literature; he perfected the art of the novella as a self-contained, vivid character sturdy - a format that became far more important in Germany than it ever has in the Anglosphere.

Yes I was aware of Storm's significance given my own background but your summary makes me want to promote this book in my TBR pile. It also confirms the importance for me of the NYRB serires and others like it, promoting as they do literature that would otherwise not gain a wider audience within predominantly English speaking countries.

I had a feeling you would have already read Storm given your keen interest in Thomas Mann. Have you read Mann's Essays of Three Decades yet? It's supposed to a quite excellent read, perhaps even a masterpiece and certainly a more than useful contribution to gaining a deeper understanding of World Literature esp. German.

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Today with my VIP vouchers I got....

My Fantoms (story collection) - Theophile Gautier NYRB Classic *Classic French poet and writer, admired by Lovecraft.

This is one I really want to read. I look forward to reading what you make of it. Sadly, the myopic booksellers here haven't caught on to what a draw the NYRB Classics are for a certain class of readers, and stock them only sporadically. I shall have to save up and order a bunch of them all at one go later this year.

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Have you read Mann's Essays of Three Decades yet? It's supposed to a quite excellent read, perhaps even a masterpiece and certainly a more than useful contribution to gaining a deeper understanding of World Literature esp. German.

No. I'd certainly like to - I find essays by writers about literature generally more illuminating than academic texts but I have not found a copy of this book yet. However, I am sure it will pop up sooner or later as Mann's books are never totally out of circulation either in new editions or via used bookstores.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by knivesout

This is one I really want to read. I look forward to reading what you make of it. Sadly, the myopic booksellers here haven't caught on to what a draw the NYRB Classics are for a certain class of readers, and stock them only sporadically. I shall have to save up and order a bunch of them all at one go later this year.

I'll definitely post once I've read it. Luckily a decent number (but certainly not all) of the NYRB range can be obtained on-shelf here. Hopefully that list I put up will attract other members to this series.

I'm almost certain J.D. has read extensively when it comes to Gautier, so I'm sure he'll be able to further expand upon the author and his major themes/styles.

If I like what I read in this collection, I'll be sourcing a local copy of his "infamous" novel Mademoiselle De Maupin.