Book Hauls!

[Timba]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Just a couple although I'm also getting the subterranean edn. of Barry Hughart's classic Chronicles of Number Ten Ox and Master Li and Murakami's latest and I think longest by a decent margin work to date IQ84.

Of Men and Monsters - William Tenn *Latest in the Sf masterwork series. Not a name familiar to me but this novel seems to be well regarded. Blurb: Giant, technologically superior aliens have conquered Earth, but humankind survives - even flourishes in a way. Men and women live, like mice, in burrows in the massive walls of the huge homes of the aliens, and scurry about under their feet, stealing from them. A complex social and religious order has evolved, with women preserving knowledge and working as healers, and men serving as warriors and thieves. For the aliens, men and women are just a nuisance, nothing more than vermin. Which, ironically, may just be humankind's strength and point the way forward.

Skylark - Dezso Kosztolanyi *Finally an English translation (NYRB edn) of an Hungarian classic from a leader of that country's literary traditions. Blurb: It is 1900, give or take a few years. The Vajkays—call them Mother and Father—live in Sárszeg, a dead-end burg in the provincial heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Father retired some years ago to devote his days to genealogical research and quaint questions of heraldry. Mother keeps house. Both are utterly enthralled with their daughter, Skylark. Unintelligent, unimaginative, unattractive, and unmarried, Skylark cooks and sews for her parents and anchors the unremitting tedium of their lives. Now Skylark is going away, for one week only, it’s true, but a week that yawns endlessly for her parents. What will they do? Before they know it, they are eating at restaurants, reconnecting with old friends, attending the theater. And this is just a prelude to Father’s night out at the Panther Club, about which the less said the better. Drunk, in the light of dawn Father surprises himself and Mother with his true, buried, unspeakable feelings about Skylark. Then, Skylark is back. Is there a world beyond the daily grind and life’s creeping disappointments? Kosztolányi’s crystalline prose, perfect comic timing, and profound human sympathy conjure up a tantalizing beauty that lies on the far side of the irredeemably ordinary. To that extent, Skylark is nothing less than a magical book.

I read of Men and Monsters many years ago and all my memories are positive. I would say you are in for an enjoyable read.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Timba

I read of Men and Monsters many years ago and all my memories are positive. I would say you are in for an enjoyable read.

Thanks. The reviews I've seen of this book were pretty positive. I collect the SF Masterwork series, in fact I have the entire sert ot date (as well as fanatsy Masterwork). Finding out about new SFF names and their novels that generally are of a high quilaity is one of the reasons I collect this series.

[Extollager]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Skylark - Dezso Kosztolanyi *Finally an English translation (NYRB edn) of an Hungarian classic from a leader of that country's literary traditions. Blurb: It is 1900, give or take a few years. The Vajkays—call them Mother and Father—live in Sárszeg, a dead-end burg in the provincial heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Father retired some years ago to devote his days to genealogical research and quaint questions of heraldry. Mother keeps house. Both are utterly enthralled with their daughter, Skylark. Unintelligent, unimaginative, unattractive, and unmarried, Skylark cooks and sews for her parents and anchors the unremitting tedium of their lives. Now Skylark is going away, for one week only, it’s true, but a week that yawns endlessly for her parents. What will they do? Before they know it, they are eating at restaurants, reconnecting with old friends, attending the theater. And this is just a prelude to Father’s night out at the Panther Club, about which the less said the better. Drunk, in the light of dawn Father surprises himself and Mother with his true, buried, unspeakable feelings about Skylark. Then, Skylark is back. Is there a world beyond the daily grind and life’s creeping disappointments? Kosztolányi’s crystalline prose, perfect comic timing, and profound human sympathy conjure up a tantalizing beauty that lies on the far side of the irredeemably ordinary. To that extent, Skylark is nothing less than a magical book.

A friend of mine put me on to this book some years ago, before the NYRB picked it up. It really is a fine short novel -- something I'll want to read for a second (third?) time.

[Connavar]

The Wine Dark Sea by Robert Aickman -

Aickman's 'strange stories' (his preferred term for them) are a subtle exploration of psychological displacement and paranoia. His characters are ordinary people that are gradually drawn into the darker recesses of their own minds. First published in the USA in 1988 and in the UK in 1990 The Wine-Dark Sea contains eight stories that will leave the reader unsettled as the protagonists' fears and desires, at once illogical and terrifying, culminate in a disturbing yet enigmatic ending. For fans of the horror genre Robert Aickman is a must read. As Peter Straub notes in his introduction 'Aickman's originality was rooted in need - he had to write these stories, and that is why they are worth reading and rereading'. 'Superb tales of suspenseful unease . . . a contemporary master of the genre.'

[thatollie]

Back in this thread again.

Gold - Isaac Asimoc
The Wanderer - Fritz Leiber
The Santaroga Barrier - Frank Herbert
Who Goes Here? - Bob Shaw
Nifft The Lean - Michael Shea
Weapons of Chaos - Robert E. Vardeman
The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit - Storm Constantine
The Year of The Comet - John Christopher

[Spade]

I just bought House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski in paperback, seeing as how an ebook would be almost impossible.

[dask]

PHOENIX: THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS 1936 by D.H. Lawrence, edited by Edward D. McDonald. Massive Penguin paperback with over 850 pages of Lawrence's nonfiction with substantial introduction Penguin is noted for, at least by me. Condition is rough but not beat. Twenty-five cents at a local thrift store.

CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM EATER by Thomas DeQuincey. Wordsworth Classics edition with no index and no notes. Its miniscule introduction does assure me this 1821 presentation of autobiographical "reveries and nightmares" is complete and unabridged. Ninety-nine cents at Goodwill.

A HISTORY OF ENGLAND by David Harris Willson. Another 850 plus page tome, hardback this time with no dust jacket, covering the home of the Beatles from the Neolithic to the mid sixties. Looks good, well written. Fifty cents at a local thrift store.

BRAVE MEN by Ernie Pyle. Eyewitness account of WWII from the invasion of Sicily in 1943 to the invasion of France in 1944 by one of our most famous correspondents. Must have been a bestseller back then. This is a seventh printing and the war still wasn't over when it came out in early 1945. Hardback, no dust jacket. I like the double column layout, makes it feel like I'm reading a pulp. Fifty cents at a local thrift store.

THE CURSE OF THE UNDEAD (Classic Tales Of Vampires And Their Victims) edited by M.L. Carter. Deadication reads: This volume is dedicated to Leslie Roy Carter, a writer of beautiful science fiction, my husband. Unfortunately, I've never heard of Leslie Roy Carter. 1970 Fawcett Gold Medal paperback, twenty-five cents at a local thrift store.

BAD RONALD by John Holbrook Vance, who we all know as plain ol' Jack Vance, immortal sf author. 1973 novel of suspense made into a tv movie. The previous owner of this Ballantine paperback kept it in very fine shape. Probably worth much more than the quarter I paid for it --- at a local thrift store.

[GOLLUM]

Today...a particularly good haul....

Complete Stories Of Flanery O'Connor *Looking forward to reading this after recent discussions here. Blurb: This is the complete collection of stories from one of the most original and powerful American writers of the twentieth-century. Including A Good Man is Hard to Find and Everything That Rises Must Converge, this collection also contains several stories only available in this volume.

Jamaica Inn - Daphe Du Maurier *Another of Du Maurier's classic 'Gothic' novels...yeh! Blurb: Her mother's dying request takes Mary Yellan on a sad journey across the bleak moorland of Cornwall to reach Jamaica Inn, the home of her Aunt Patience. With the coachman's warning echoing in her memory, Mary arrives at a dismal place to find Patience a changed woman, cowering from her overbearing husband Joss Merlyn. Affected by the inn's brooding power, Mary is thwarted in her intention to reform her aunt, and unwillingly drawn into the dark deeds of Joss and his accomplices. And, as she struggles with events beyond her control, Mary is further thrown by her feelings for a man she dare not trust. This is a dark and intriguing Gothic tale that reminds one of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

The Prague Cemetery - Umberto Eco *From one of Italy's greatest post war novelists and intellectuals and a definite favourite of mine comes this latest offering. Blurb:Nineteenth-century Europe, from Turin to Prague to Paris, abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Conspiracies rule history. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. Italian priests are strangled with their own intestines. French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate black masses by night. Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating forgeries, plots, and massacres. From the unification of Italy to the Paris Commune to the Dreyfus Affair to the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Europe is in tumult and everyone needs a scapegoat. But what if, behind all of these conspiracies both real and imagined, lay just one man? What if that evil genius created the most infamous document of all?

1Q84 - Haruki Murakami *The latest from Japan's best known contemporary novelist and another personal favourite of mine. Blurb:The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled. As Aomame’s and Tengo’s narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector. A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s—1Q84 is Haruki Murakami’s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Spade

I just bought House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski in paperback, seeing as how an ebook would be almost impossible.

You most definitely would not want IMO to 'read' this intriguing, disturbing, challenging, cryptic and labyrinthine masterwork in anything other than the printed form.

[jojajihisc]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Of Men and Monsters - William Tenn *Latest in the Sf masterwork series. Not a name familiar to me but this novel seems to be well regarded. Blurb: Giant, technologically superior aliens have conquered Earth, but humankind survives - even flourishes in a way. Men and women live, like mice, in burrows in the massive walls of the huge homes of the aliens, and scurry about under their feet, stealing from them. A complex social and religious order has evolved, with women preserving knowledge and working as healers, and men serving as warriors and thieves. For the aliens, men and women are just a nuisance, nothing more than vermin. Which, ironically, may just be humankind's strength and point the way forward.

I just finished this book and loved it. The blurb gives away a bit more than I think it should. I suppose Tenn's small output and reputation more as a short fiction writer contributes to the book's relative anonymity.

[Rodders]

My copy of the Haynes Manual for the Millennium Falcon came through this morning.



It's a very cool book.

[Adasunshine]

I, Partridge by Alan Partridge
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

xx

[Timba]

Warriors, edited by GRRM and Gardner Dozois-very good so far.
Dreamsong volume II, George RR Martin
Legends II a collection of novellas.
Seizure by Kathy Reichs a sequel to Virals which I really enjoyed.
Grantville Gazette volume 38 in the e-magazine. Not the best volume by a long shot but I still enjoyed it.

[Devil's Advocate]

The Passage by Justin Cronin
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

[FireDragon-16]

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
Magic at the Gate by Allie Beckstrom
Silent Sea and Polar Shift by Clive Cussler
Phantom Prospect and The Dragon's Mark by Alex Archer
The first three books in the Chicagoland Vampires books by Chloe Neill