Book Hauls!

[Radix]

More H.P. Lovecraft for me-

The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (Penguin Books)
The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions (Del Ray)


& my wife brought home from the used book store (these look brandy new)

The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death (Del Ray) &
The Transition of H.P. Lovecraft: The Road to Madness (Del Ray)

Some overlap with the Penguin editions in the last two, but also some new stuff~

[Connavar]

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

I dont need a new book but i need that book for lit class.

[GOLLUM]

Some lovely books courtesy of the Cat Lady...

The Palace Of Illusions - Ghitra Banerjee Divakaruni Blurb: A re-imagining of the world-famous Indian epic, the Mahabharata--told from the point of view of the wife of an amazing woman. Relevant to today's war-torn world, The Palace of Illusions takes us back to a time that is half history, half myth, and wholly magical. Narrated by Panchaali, the wife of the legendary Pandavas brothers in the Mahabharat, the novel gives us a new interpretation of this ancient tale. The novel traces the princess Panchaali's life, beginning with her birth in fire and following her spirited balancing act as a woman with five husbands who have been cheated out of their father's kingdom. Panchaali is swept into their quest to reclaim their birthright, remaining at their side through years of exile and a terrible civil war involving all the important kings of India. Meanwhile, we never lose sight of her strategic duels with her mother-in-law, her complicated friendship with the enigmatic Krishna, or her secret attraction to the mysterious man who is her husbands' most dangerous enemy. Panchaali is a fiery female redefining for us a world of warriors, gods, and the ever-manipulating hands of fate.

An Elegy For Easterly - Petina Gappah Blurb: In era when a never-ending newsfeed lets crucial events slip into oblivion, Petina Gappah’s stories are particularly important. With great insight, humor, and energy, she brings us a world that, despite its differences at first glance, is not unlike our own: its people’s hopes and fears are our hopes and fears, their laughter and tears ours, too. Gappah is a powerful new writer worth celebrating.

The Diving Pool - Yoko Ogawa Blurb: From Akutagawa Award-winning author Yoko Ogawa comes a haunting trio of novellas about love, fertility, obsession, and how even the most innocent gestures may contain a hairline crack of cruel intent.A lonely teenage girl falls in love with her foster brother as she watches him leap from a high diving board into a pool--a peculiar infatuation that sends unexpected ripples through her life.A young woman records the daily moods of her pregnant sister in a diary, taking meticulous note of a pregnancy that may or may not be a hallucination--but whose hallucination is it, hers or her sister's?A woman nostalgically visits her old college dormitory on the outskirts of Tokyo, a boarding house run by a mysterious triple amputee with one leg.Hauntingly spare, beautiful, and twisted, The Diving Pool is a disquieting and at times darkly humorous collection of novellas about normal people who suddenly discover their own dark possibilities.

The Ice Dragon - George RR Martin Blurb:The ice dragon was a creature of legend and fear, for no man had ever tamed one. When it flew overhead, it left in its wake desolate cold and frozen land. But Adara was not afraid. For Adara was a winter child, born during the worst freeze that anyone, even the Old Ones, could remember. Adara could not remember the first time she had seen the ice dragon. It seemed that it had always been in her life, glimpsed from afar as she played in the frigid snow long after the other children had fled the cold. In her fourth year she touched it, and in her fifth year she rode upon its broad, chilled back for the first time. Then, in her seventh year, on a calm summer day, fiery dragons from the North swooped down upon the peaceful farm that was Adara's home. And only a winter child--and the ice dragon who loved her--could save her world from utter destruction.

[Perpetual Man]

Not really a haul as such, more a pair, but got hold of my copy of The Crippled God, and part of my slow ongoing quest to get the Recluce series in hard back managed to find a copy of the third book, The Magic Engineer in superb condition for only £5, so really happy about that.

[Fried Egg]

I've got to stop myself buying books!!!!

More second hand books:

"The Jagged Orbit" by John Brunner
"She" by H Rider Haggard
"Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days" by Alastair Reynolds
"The Seeds of Time" by John Wyndham
"The Kraken Awakes" by John Wyndham

[Tansy]

Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rothfuss

[GOLLUM]

Yeh, saw the the Rothfuss book in the shops today but I'll hold off for a while I think.

Meanwhile I got....

Vertigo - W.G. Sebald *Sebald was one of the greats of German literature prior to his untimely death. Blurb: Part fiction, part travelogue, the narrator of this compelling masterpiece pursues his solitary, eccentric course from England to Italy and beyond, succumbing to the vertiginous unreliability of memory itself. What could possibly connect Stendhal's unrequited love, the artistry of Pisanello, a series of murders by a clandestine organisation, a missing passport, Casanova, the suicide of a dinner companion, stale apple cake, the Great Fire of London, a story by Kafka about a doomed huntsman and a closed-down pizzeria in Verona?

Such Is Life - Joseph Furphy *Annotated version of this Australian classic at a very low price. Blurb: Joseph Furphy - or Tom Collins, to use his pseudonym - was the bullock driver who wrote Such is Life in the 1890s. As a novel of the bush and the outback it is a tour de force of originality and genius. Its characters are unforgettable, but as a work of philosophy is just as interesting. Furphy is among the wittiest and most learned writers in the English language. While Such is Life is one of the great treasures of Australian literature, to enjoy it fully requires a wealth of knowledge. With the annotations in this edition, anyone can delight in the many treats it has to offer.

Light Years - James Salter *Regarded by many as one of the great novels of American literature, I was happy to come across this copy today. Blurb: This exquisite, resonant novel is a brilliant portrait of marriage by a contemporary American master. Even as he lingers over the lustrous surface of Viri and Nedra's marriage, James Salter makes us see the cracks that are spreading through it, flaws that will in time mar it beyond repair. "An unexpectedly moving ode to beautiful lives frayed by time".

[Tansy]

I pre-ordered online, was quite cheap

[GOLLUM]

Yep, about 50 -60 books that remain on my target list can only be sourced online, so I'll be doing that over the course of this year.

Today.....

Jakob Von Gunten - Robert Walser *NYRB edn. From the Swiss genius comes his finest novel, an astonishing feat of minimalist writing that is universally hailed as one of the greatest and most unique works in literature; Walser also acting as a major influence on many writers including Kafka, W.G. Sebald and Herman Hesse being equally at home in shorter fiction as he was with novels. Blurb: The Swiss writer Robert Walser is one of the quiet geniuses of twentieth-century literature. Largely self-taught and altogether indifferent to worldly success, Walser wrote a range of short stories, essays, and four novels, of which Jakob von Gunten is widely recognized as the finest. It tells the story of a seventeen-year-old runaway from an old family who enrolls in a school for servants. The Institute, run by the domineering Herr Benjamenta and his beautiful but ailing sister, is a deeply mysterious place: the faculty lies asleep in a single room; the students, though subject to fierce discipline, come and go at will. Jakob, an irrepressibly subversive presence, keeps a journal in which he records his quirky impressions of the school, as well as his own quickly changing enthusiasms and uncertainties, deliberations and dreams. And in the end, as the Institute itself dissolves around him like a dream, he steps out boldly to explore still-unimagined worlds.

[nomadman]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Yep, about 50 -60 books that remain on my target list can only be sourced online, so I'll be doing that over the course of this year.

Today.....

Jakob Von Gunten - Robert Walser *NYRB edn. From the Swiss genius comes his finest novel, an astonishing feat of minimalist writing that is universally hailed as one of the greatest and most unique works in literature; Walser also acting as a major influence on many writers including Kafka, W.G. Sebald and Herman Hesse being equally at home in shorter fiction as he was with novels. Blurb: The Swiss writer Robert Walser is one of the quiet geniuses of twentieth-century literature. Largely self-taught and altogether indifferent to worldly success, Walser wrote a range of short stories, essays, and four novels, of which Jakob von Gunten is widely recognized as the finest. It tells the story of a seventeen-year-old runaway from an old family who enrolls in a school for servants. The Institute, run by the domineering Herr Benjamenta and his beautiful but ailing sister, is a deeply mysterious place: the faculty lies asleep in a single room; the students, though subject to fierce discipline, come and go at will. Jakob, an irrepressibly subversive presence, keeps a journal in which he records his quirky impressions of the school, as well as his own quickly changing enthusiasms and uncertainties, deliberations and dreams. And in the end, as the Institute itself dissolves around him like a dream, he steps out boldly to explore still-unimagined worlds.

That looks extremely interesting. Might pick that one up.

Picked up a few SF books over the last week. James Tiptree's Her Smoke Rose Up Forever and Up the Walls of the World. Have never read this author before, and to be honest wasn't even aware of her stirling reputation within the SF community until recently. Looks very promising, somewhat Cordwainer Smithy in scope and imaginative verve (though Tiptree was very much her own voice I believe). Also picked up Clifford D Simak's Time is the Simplest Thing, Fritz Leiber's The Worlds of Fritz Leiber, Hellstrom's Hive by Frank Herbert and Night Visions, a collection of stories by Campbell, Barker and Lisa Tuttle which includes Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart, the origin of the first Hellraiser movie. Topped that off with Robert Silverberg's Science Fiction 101 (formerly Worlds of Wonder) an anthology of SF tales specially selected to give an amateur SF writer a grounding in the basics of good short story telling. Each tale is analyzed by Silverberg afterward.

Finally picked up Elak of Atlantis by Henry Kuttner, a collection of early S&S tales written in the wake of Robert E Howard's death.

[Connavar]

Mini Modern Classics was sold get 3 pay for 2 deal since it was the yearly swedish book sale this last week. I choosed these 6 books to take advantage of the deal.

Through the Wall - Ludmilla Petrushevskay
The Queen's Necklace - Italo Calvino
The Machine Stops - E. M. Forster
The Strange Crime of John Boulnois - G. K. Chesterton
Hell Screen - Ryunosuke Akutagawa
The Delicate Prey - Paul Bowles

Also
Money Shot (Hard Case Crime, #40) - Christa Faust

[Diggler]

I've been forced into a situation where I'm not allowed to go willy nilly with my spending spree's. instead I'm only buying a small group every now and then.

War Surf by M.M. Buckner
The Ticket That Exploded by William S. Burroughs
The Place of Dead Roads by William S. Burroughs
Now and Forever by Ray bradbury

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by nomadman

That looks extremely interesting. Might pick that one up.

Picked up a few SF books over the last week. James Tiptree's Her Smoke Rose Up Forever and Up the Walls of the World. Have never read this author before, and to be honest wasn't even aware of her stirling reputation within the SF community until recently. Looks very promising, somewhat Cordwainer Smithy in scope and imaginative verve (though Tiptree was very much her own voice I believe). Also picked up Clifford D Simak's Time is the Simplest Thing, Fritz Leiber's The Worlds of Fritz Leiber, Hellstrom's Hive by Frank Herbert and Night Visions, a collection of stories by Campbell, Barker and Lisa Tuttle which includes Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart, the origin of the first Hellraiser movie. Topped that off with Robert Silverberg's Science Fiction 101 (formerly Worlds of Wonder) an anthology of SF tales specially selected to give an amateur SF writer a grounding in the basics of good short story telling. Each tale is analyzed by Silverberg afterward.

Finally picked up Elak of Atlantis by Henry Kuttner, a collection of early S&S tales written in the wake of Robert E Howard's death.

Well by all accounts that novel is astonishing to say the least. I also have, courtesy of NYRB again, a collection of Walser's short fiction. I'm just starting on that now as we speak and can already see why Walser was so admired by the likes of kafka, hesse and sebald. Excellent so far. His short fiction is famous also for his so-called microscripts, which in keeping with his minimalist views, brilliantly written in quite literally the smallest but neatest and without pause or mistake minature-sized handwriting you're likely to encounter. In fact, you may want to try his short fiction first....

Funnily enough I have a copy of Kuttner's Elak of Atlantis courtesy of Planet stories. I've not read it yet. It is part of my S&S collection.

Tiptree I was aware of by reputation and have read a little of her short fiction. Very good but I can't speak for her entire ouevre. She sadly appears to have committed double suicide with her husband in the late '80s.

I have fiction by all of those remaining authors but only some of the specific stories listed. The Silverberg sounds interesting.

Cheers.

[Menion]

Just placed an order on Amazon

Joe Abercrombie - Before they are hanged.
" - Last argument of Kings.
Peter V. Brett - Brayan's Gold.
Oliver Bowden - Brotherhood
" - Renaissance
Andy Remic - Kell's Legend.

[murphy]

Arriving at my house some time this week will be:

The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch (sequel to Rivers of London/Midnight Riot)
River Marked by Patricia Briggs.