Book Hauls!

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Extollager

This won't appeal to some of you folks, but here's what I did in picking up a bunch of those thick Conklin anthologies -- bought coverless old book club editions. They're generally in better condition than paperback editions and are complete, and could be had for just a few dollars. And for that you get enough stories to last a good long time! (I also bought cheapo copies of some of the other massive anthols, such as the Healy-McComas etc.)

Both book club and later reprint editions can often be found for very, very little, especially if you go online... sometimes for literally pennies. Oddly, I find that a lot of book club printings of things from the 50s to the 80s have actually held up better than their mass market counterparts....

And, as I've had a better chance to look at it, an update on that Lovecraft volume: It does not contain the C. M. Eddy revisions, due to legal complications... which is a pity, as I'd love to have Joshi's annotations for those, especially "Deaf, Dumb, and Blind"....

[antiloquax]

Been reading the "post-apocalypse" thread and got hold of:
"Who Needs Men?" by Edmund Cooper - I'm interested in female utopia, I've been listening to "Herland" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman as an audiobook. I also want to read Sturgeon's "Venus plus X" and LeGuin's "The Left Hand of Darkness".
Also got "Greybeard" (Aldiss)

a

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by antiloquax

I've been listening to "Herland" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman as an audiobook.

If you have not already read it please be sure to get a copy of 'Yellow Wallpaper', wonderful stuff.

Penguin Black Classics have published a nice edition of Gilman's work if you are interested in pursuing more of this author's ouevre.

[antiloquax]

@Gollum
I have read it, but it was years ago. May have to re-read it!

[antiloquax]

Made a few hauls after reading the thread on Fantasy Outside the genre:
The Island of the Day Before - Eco
Kokoro - Soseki
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - Murakami
t zero - Calvino
Past Master - Lafferty
Thunder on the Left - Morley

a

[antiloquax]

Forgot to mention a couple:
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (Murakami)
2666 (Bolano)
Blindness (Saramago)
Sanatorium under the sign of the hourglass (Schulz)

a

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by antiloquax

Forgot to mention a couple:
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (Murakami)
2666 (Bolano)
Blindness (Saramago)
Sanatorium under the sign of the hourglass (Schulz)

a

Very nice collection there antiloquax, I have everything published into English by Bolano, Saramgo, Eco, Murakami, Calvino & Schulz. You've picked Bolano's best work in 2666, the Murakami is good but his best would be Kafka on the Shore and Windup Bird Chronicles, Eco's Island Of The Day Before is based upon a very clever precept but I would probably have Name of The Rose and Foucault's Pendulum ahead of it, Natsume Soseki is a giant of Japanese literature as you no doubt already know and Kokoro a bone fide classic of World Literature (I also have I Am A Cat), Saramago I'm a big fan of and Blindness definitely his best known work, the Calvino is a short story collection, his best being his Cosmicomic stories and novels If On A Winter's Night a Traveller, The Baron In The Trees and of course Invisible Cities, Schulz...well anything by Schulz is first rate, Street Of Crocodiles is probably his finest single collection, the Lafferty is SF and not therefore my strongest suit albeit I've heard of it and lastly Morley of course was amazingly prolific but perhaps as surprising I don't think I have anything of his so your comments will be of particular interest to me here.

I feel as if you have a camera looking over my shoulder as I type this directly into my private library...

I hope you enjoy that lot....

Cheers.

[antiloquax]

Thanks Gollum. I've read "The Name of the Rose" but no other Eco. The only Murakami book I have read is "What I talk about when I talk about running" (nice tribute to Raymond Carver in that title!). I have "The Street of Crocodiles" in paperback, but haven't read it yet. I had not heard of Soseki - "I Am A Cat" sounds very interesting ...
Goodness knows when I will get round to reading these. My Kindle is groaning!

I really enjoyed looking through the thread on literary fiction with fantasy element / magic realism. I have read some of the works of the writers mentioned there before such as Paul Auster, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mikhail Bulgakov, Kafka, Borges. I really enjoy this type of book.

Speaking of private libraries - I am sure you would love "Auto Da Fe" as the main character is an obessive collector of books who goes insane. There's a wonderful telegram he sends to his brother in the book: "Am mad. Come at once." My wife and I often quote this to one another!
a

[thatollie]

Okay, so I couldn't resist hauling again.

Dreamsongs - George R.R. Martin
The Call of The Wild, White Fang and Other Stories - Jack London (Oxford World Classics edition)
In The Midst of Death - Lawrence Block
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (Penguin)
Soul Music - Terry Pratchett
Blaze - Stephen King
Asimov's Science Fiction November 1986

[j. d. worthington]

Had the unusual situation of a customer up at work give me a couple of books yesterday, both by Sax Rohmer:

Hangover House
Tales of Chinatown

Both are paperbacks from the 1950s (Graphic Books and Popular Library, respectively), both in remarkably good condition, and neither of which I have read....

[dask]

What I found at the half price book sale today. Each book cost fifty cents.

IF I WERE YOU by L. Ron Hubbard. Galaxy Press release from a few years back of a short novel originally appearing in the February 1940 issue of FIVE NOVELS MONTHLY. Also contains the fantasy story "The Last Drop" written with L. Sprague de Camp. Just curious, since the subject seems to be singular in the novel's title, shouldn't it read IF I WAS YOU? Plural: IF THEY WERE YOU.

JACKPOT: The Short Stories Of Erskine Caldwell. 1940 first edition published by Duell, Sloan, and Pearce. Another outfit I never heard of.

THE FLOWER AND THE LEAF: A Contemporary Record Of American Writing Since 1941 by Malcolm Cowley, edited by Donald W. Faulkner.

THE SATURDAY EVENING POST TREASURY, anthology edited by Roger Butterfield.

And now for the find of the summer. If J.D. didn't already know about this his eyes would audibly "pop". THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT. This 1903 P.F. Collier and Son collection is 1003 pages long, TEN VOLUMES IN ONE! For fifty cents. Neither hardbound nor softbound, it's somewhere inbetween, pliable like a Bible. Gonna preach the good stuff.

[antiloquax]

Had a read of Gardner Duzois' intro to his anthology "Modern Classics of SF". He mentioned some novellas that he wasn't able to include, so I tried to get some of them:
Nancy Kress: "Trinity"
Lucius Shepard: "R & R"
Brian Aldiss: "Total Environment"
Cordwainer Smith: "On the Storm Planet"
Michael Bishop: "The Samurai and the Willows"
Connie Willis: "Blued Moon" and "The Last of the Winnebagoes"
Michael Swanwick: "Trojan Horse"
Pat Cadigan: "My Brother's Keeper"
Walter Jon Williams: "No Spot of Ground"
John Varley: "In the Hallof the Martian Kings"
a

[J-Sun]

Originally Posted by dask

IF I WERE YOU by L. Ron Hubbard. Galaxy Press release from a few years back of a short novel originally appearing in the February 1940 issue of FIVE NOVELS MONTHLY. Also contains the fantasy story "The Last Drop" written with L. Sprague de Camp. Just curious, since the subject seems to be singular in the novel's title, shouldn't it read IF I WAS YOU? Plural: IF THEY WERE YOU.

It's the subjunctive.

Originally Posted by dask

And now for the find of the summer. If J.D. didn't already know about this his eyes would audibly "pop". THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT. This 1903 P.F. Collier and Son collection is 1003 pages long, TEN VOLUMES IN ONE! For fifty cents. Neither hardbound nor softbound, it's somewhere inbetween, pliable like a Bible. Gonna preach the good stuff.

Score! Congrats.

Originally Posted by antiloquax

John Varley: "In the Hallof the Martian Kings"
a

The best of the lot.

[antiloquax]

Thanks for your comment J-Sun. I haven't read any Varley yet. I also have "The Persistence of Vision".


Found this nice list of female hard SF writers and got a few books that were mentioned:
Catherine Asaro: "Primary Inversion"
Catherynne M. Valente: "Palimpsest"
Elizabeth Bear: "Dust"
C. S. Friedman: "The Madness Season"
Karin Lowachee: "Warchild"
Sarah Monette: "Melusine"
Carol Berg: "Transformation"
Tanya Huff: "The Truth of Valor"
Justina Robson: "Keeping it Real"

Also got hold of the Jack Vance Tschai books!
a

[Fried Egg]

antiloquax, your book buying is going crazy, when are you going to find time to read all those books?