Book Hauls!

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Fried Egg

I've only read three or four of his novels. But "Book of Dave" was the weakest out of those in my opinion. "Great Apes" was very good but the favourite thing of his I have read was the novella "Scale". Still haven't tracked down "Grey Areas" yet though.

Grey Areas is worth a visit. Never heard of the novella Scales, so I'll keep an eye out for it now.

Today....

Junky - William S. Burroughs *From this most enigmatic and influential of writers perhaps best known for The Naked Lunch, this novel is seen by some as Burroughs' greatest work. It complements the rather comprehensive Burroughs reader I have; Word Virus. Blurb: Burrough's cult classic is a raw, semi-autobiographical account of drug addiction, which outraged America and influenced generations of writers to come. He relates with unflinching realism the highs and lows of dependency: euphoria, hallucinations, ghostly nocturnal wanderings and strange sexual encounters. Junky is a dark, powerful and mesmerizing account of one man's challenge to turn self-destruction into art.

[Daisy-Boo]

Originally Posted by biodroid

Was this the Exclusive Books summer sale? I have never really seen any good books, and if there are then they are always book 3 or 4 in a series

Yes it was Exclusive Books. At the beginning of Feb I went to EB at The Waterfront and they had a very good selection. I found about six books I really wanted. This past Saturday I went to EB at Cavendish Square and the selection was not as good, though I still found a few good books.

Also, Wordsworth Books also had a sale on at the beginning of Feb and I think it's still running. It's worth checking out.

[nomadman]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Junky - William S. Burroughs *From this most enigmatic and influential of writers perhaps best known for The Naked Lunch, this novel is seen by some as Burroughs' greatest work. It complements the rather comprehensive Burroughs reader I have; Word Virus. Blurb: Burrough's cult classic is a raw, semi-autobiographical account of drug addiction, which outraged America and influenced generations of writers to come. He relates with unflinching realism the highs and lows of dependency: euphoria, hallucinations, ghostly nocturnal wanderings and strange sexual encounters. Junky is a dark, powerful and mesmerizing account of one man's challenge to turn self-destruction into art.

Nice. This is Burroughs at his most accessible, a brutally honest account of junk addiction told in a clarity and sharpness of voice that I wish he'd used more often. Very funny in parts, too.

[nomadman]

Found a bargain the other day. Feesters in the Lake by Bob Leman* going for only seventy quid! Decided to splash out on it, since it's unlikely to get significantly any cheaper.

*Leman, for those who don't know, was one of the unsung masters of the modern horror tale. Despite writing only fifteen short tales in his lifetime (all collected in the book above), his reputation among those familiar with his work, is extremely high. Check out my thread here for a more detailed breakdown of his work.

[Fried Egg]

Originally Posted by nomadman

Found a bargain the other day. Feesters in the Lake by Bob Leman* going for only seventy quid! Decided to splash out on it, since it's unlikely to get significantly any cheaper.

*Leman, for those who don't know, was one of the unsung masters of the modern horror tale. Despite writing only fifteen short tales in his lifetime (all collected in the book above), his reputation among those familiar with his work, is extremely high. Check out my thread here for a more detailed breakdown of his work.

£70? That's well above my price range...Here's hoping for a reprint.

[biodroid]

Originally Posted by Daisy-Boo

Yes it was Exclusive Books. At the beginning of Feb I went to EB at The Waterfront and they had a very good selection. I found about six books I really wanted. This past Saturday I went to EB at Cavendish Square and the selection was not as good, though I still found a few good books.

Also, Wordsworth Books also had a sale on at the beginning of Feb and I think it's still running. It's worth checking out.

Thanks Daisy-Boo, I don't know if there is a Wordsworth Book store in JHB though, when I visited the V&A I also went into that store and it was a welcome relief from Exclusive Books. You should check out Estoril Books if they are in CT. They normally have a bigger selection of fantasy and SF, probably double the size and way more variety at the same prices as EB.

[Fried Egg]

Picked up these three from the new Penguin Mini Modern Classics range:

"In the Penal Colony" by Franz Kafka
"Terra Incognita" by Vladimir Nabokov
"The Machine Stops" bt E.M. Forster

In addition "The Changling Sea" by Patricia Mckillip arrived today too.

[fjeronimo]

Received a few interesting ones recently:

Terra! by Stefano Benni
Think like a dinosaur by James Patrick Kelly
Le bar sous la mer (the bar under the sea) by Stefano Benni
The human mind by Robert Winston
Ravage by René Barjavel
Life ascending by Nick Lane
Memoires de porc-épic (Memoirs of a Porcupine) by Alain Mabanckou

[Grimward]

My daughter's high school is having a used book sale. Adding to the SFF library while supporting the school; what's not to like?

Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
Gibbon's Decline and Fall by Sheri S. Tepper
Treason by Orson Scott Card (Apparently a modified version of the original A Planet Called Treason)
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Am looking forward to the return to Tepper, as it's been many years since I last read one of her offerings (After Long Silence). Card is recommended to me by several, so we shall see....and at $1 US per book, why not?

[GOLLUM]

Today...

High Fidelity - Nick Hornby *Blurb: Nick Hornby's High Fidelity is the brilliant story of one man's journey of self-discovery. When Rob - a thirty-five-year old record shop owner and music obsessive - is dumped by Laura he indulges in some casual sex, a little light stalking and some extreme soul-searching in the form of contacting every ex-girlfriend who ever broke his heart. An instant classic, High Fidelity is a hilarious exploration of love, life, music and the modern male.

A Book of Mediterranean Food - Elizabeth David *Been looking for this original classic of food writing by the legendary Elizabeth David for quite some time now. Blurb: Mediterranean Food, Elizabeth David's first book, is based on a collection of recipes she made when she lived in France, Italy, the Greek Islands and Egypt. Here are the satisfying pasta and polenta dishes of Italy, the aromatic and tangy salads of Turkey and Greece and the delicate seafood and saffron dishes of Spain. From the simplicity of taramásalata and hummus to delicious plates of ratatouille or paella, all the tastes of the sunny south lie within these enticing pages.

Irretrievable - Theodor Fontane *NYRB edn. Fontane is regarded, certainly amongst German literate, as one of those cornerstone authors of German literature alongside the likes of Goethe and certainly the likes of Thomas Mann appears to have had the highest regard for this man. Predominantly focuses on psychological novels about human relationships. So...I thought I would find out for myself. Blurb:Opposites attract, and Helmut Holk and Christine Arne, the appealing married couple at the center of this engrossing book by one of Germany’s greatest novelists, could not be less alike. Christine is a serious soul from a devout background. She is brooding and beautiful and devoted to her husband and their two children. Helmut is lighthearted and pleasure-loving and largely content to defer to his wife’s deeper feelings and better wisdom. They live in a beautiful large house overlooking the sea, which they built themselves, and have been happily married for twenty-three years—only of late a certain tension has crept into their dealings with each other. Little jokes, casual endearments, long-meditated plans: they all hit a raw nerve.How a couple can slowly drift apart, until one day they find themselves in a situation which is nothing they ever wished for but from which they cannot go back, is at the heart of this timeless story of everyday life. Theodor Fontane’s great gift is to tell the story effectively in his characters’ own words, listening to how they talk and fail to talk to each other, watching them turn away from their own true feelings as much as from each other. Irretrievable is a nuanced, affectionate, enormously sophisticated, and profoundly humane reckoning with the blindness of love

[dask]

Made a Value Village stop today:

Paperbacks (.99 each)
DESOLATION ROAD by Ian McDonald
ONE STEP FROM EARTH by Harry Harrison (collection)
BATTLE STATION by Ben Bova (collection)

Hardback ($2.99)
MASTERPIECES OF MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE compiled by Martin H. Greenberg (no dust jacket)

Got my money's worth.

[GOLLUM]

Today....

The Aerodrome - Rex Warner. Courtesy of the excellent new (and affordable) releases by Vintage, another classic Dystopian novel greatly admired by JG Ballard and with elements of Saki, Charles Williams, Kafka and HG Wells and an introduction by Michael Moorcock. Warner is regarded by many as the 'forgotten' author of the Auden/Day Lewis literary circle of 1920s Oxford. Blurb: A model of efficiency and order, the aerodrome stands on the hill looking down on the village below. Roy, coming of age in the messy, violent, and adulterous world of the villagers, is simultaneously attracted and repelled by this strange place and by the powerful figure of the Air Vice-Marshal. Soon he is led to leave his family, his friends and his love in order to join the aerodrome and confront the secrets of this mysterious and sinister place. Michael Moorcock, author of the Elric novels, contributes an introduction....'a horrified and darkly comic response to totalitarianism, a mixture of Orwellian satire, rural sentimentality and Kafkaesque nightmare'.

The Lord Chandos Letter and other writings - Hugo Von Hofmannsthal. *Another NYRB classic collection by the Viennese wunderkind of his day who was also Strauss' librettist for over 20 years inlcuding all of the major operas e.g. Rosen Kavalier and seen to have a profound similarity to Rilke. Blurb: Hugo von Hoffmannsthal made his mark as a poet, as a playwright, and as the librettist for Richard Strauss’s greatest operas, but he was no less accomplished as a writer of short, strangely evocative prose works. The atmospheric stories and sketches collected here—fin-de-siècle fairy tales from the Vienna of Klimt and Freud, a number of them never before translated into English—propel the reader into a shadowy world of uncanny fates and secret desires. An aristocrat from Paris in the plague years shares a single night of passion with an unknown woman; a cavalry sergeant meets his double on the battlefield; an orphaned man withdraws from the world with his four servants, each of whom has a mysterious power over his destiny. The most influential of all of Hofmannsthal’s writings is the title story, a fictional letter to the English philosopher Francis Bacon in which Lord Chandos explains why he is no longer able to write. The “Letter” not only symbolized Hofmannsthal’s own turn away from poetry, it captured the psychological crisis of faith and language which was to define the twentieth century.

[Mouse]

Just got The Death Collector by Justin Richards. And acquired (from my brother) Mort, Reaper Man and Soul Music by Terry Pratchett.

[sloweye]

Originally Posted by Mouse

... And acquired (from my brother) Mort, Reaper Man and Soul Music by Terry Pratchett.

The DEATH books are my faves.

[Mouse]

I've never actually read them! I've only read The Amazing Maurice. This is a big hardback omnibus book, the 'Death Trilogy.'