Search eswnr's books

Random books from eswnr's library

Soul Circus by George P. Pelecanos

Parasites Like Us by Adam Johnson

Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut

The Wapshot Scandal by John Cheever

White Noise by Don DeLillo

Elephant Destiny: Biography of an Endangered Species in Africa by Martin Meredith

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder

Members with eswnr's books

Member connections

Friends: AlexandraRobbins, danner1515, tedmooney, TracyatBN

Interesting library: abductee, abecedary, bnbooklady, bookmountain, davidabrams, EnriqueFreeque, like_a_K_of_bricks, Schmerguls, slickdpdx

Member gallery (2)

(see all 2 pictures)

RSS feeds

Recently-added books

eswnr's reviews

Reviews of eswnr's books, not including eswnr's

Helper badges

see all 2 pictures

Member: eswnr

CollectionsYour library (1,967), Read but unowned (40), Currently reading (1), All collections (2,007)

Reviews23 reviews

Tagsfiction (1,117), BC remainder (492), history (469), U.S. history (351), B&N remainder (306), read (208), biography (178), music (165), Book Barn Niantic (160), junk store (159) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud, tag mirror

Recommendations2 recommendations

About meI'm part of a solution and part of a problem, sometimes both on the same day.

In addition to amassing books, I also tend to obsess over music. Symptoms of this are on display at the insular Music Babble message board or over on Rate Your Music. Should be a link below somewhere.

About my libraryMost people think I'm a complete freak because I'm completely incapable of actually deciding what to read next. So, I write all my unread books on little scraps of paper, throw them in a small box, and pick them at random. Of course, I frequently deviate from this ridiculous scheme, but it's nice to fall back on.

This is all stuff I actually currently own, much to my own chagrin. I can't help it - I find books cheap, I stockpile them for when I'll eventually get to them. In the past two years, I believe I've bought 4 books at list price. All the rest have been remaindered or used. It's much more fun to wander blindly into a used bookstore and find what's lying around for $3 that has underlining and someone's inscription written in the title page than it is for the immediate satisfaction of order the book, get it in 3 business days. Where's the sport in that? (Cheaper, too.)

The bigger problem, though, is when I use the interweb to buy in bulk. Shipping is free when I spend over $75! Well, why didn't you say so? Like my last order: $75 for 32 books or so. I need help.

Favorite inscription I've ever seen in a used book: a '60s vintage mass market paperback of John Rechy's sorta-trashy sorta-literary City of Night. Next to the author's dedication, "To Mom and Dad", continues an inscription from the prior page about how this is "probably the biggest dig in the whole book". Ouch!

GroupsBob Dylan, Booksellers, Booksellers who LibraryThing, RYM/Rate Your Music, Used Books, USERS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

VenuesFavorites | Visited

Favorite bookstoresBarnes & Noble Booksellers - Glastonbury, Barnes & Noble Booksellers - Millbury, Barnes & Noble Booksellers - West Hartford, Ben Franklin Bookstore and Worcester Antiquarian Book Center, Raven Used Book Shop, The Book Barn, The Book Barn Downtown, The Book Bear, The Old Book Store

Homepagehttp://www.eboards4all.com/841116/

Also onFacebook, Last.fm, Rate Your Music

Real nameEric

LocationMeriden, CT

Favorite authorsNot set

Account typepublic, lifetime

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/eswnr (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/eswnr (library)

Member sinceJun 1, 2007

Currently readingLet the Sea Make a Noise: Four Hundred Years of Cataclysm, Conquest, War and Folly in the North Pacific by Walter A. McDougall

Most recent activity

eswnr added:
The Pink Lady: The Many Lives of Helen Gahagan Douglas by Sally Denton

eswnr added:
The Burn Palace by Stephen Dobyns

eswnr added:
Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard

eswnr added:
Raylan: A Novel by Elmore Leonard

eswnr added:
Shots From the Hip by Charles Shaar Murray

eswnr added:
Farther Away: Essays by Jonathan Franzen

HO! I just reread Ebenezer, , , hope you will like it as much as I do. (And Hoban's "Bat Tattoo" is a good introduction to a fine author. I recently reread his "Her Name Was Lola," a gem.)

posted by Esta1923 at 1:42 am (EST) on Dec 17, 2009

I heart Blue Yonder in Rainbow Stories. Let me know what you think.

posted by slickdpdx at 6:57 pm (EST) on Apr 22, 2009

I split it open and read some paras. Good stuff. I am looking forward to it. I need to finish Ulysses off and also Shantaram which is a much easier read but is a behemoth. I like Shantaram, despite the Pat Conroy/Dr. Phil life lessons that are explicitly spelled out at every turn, its a fun read full of adventures. A solid three-star book.

posted by slickdpdx at 6:51 pm (EST) on Apr 22, 2009

Yeah I hear you. Perhaps the best way I've seen of explaining DON (Federman says his friends call Double or Nothing "DON"--pays to email forgotten postmodernists from the 70s for tidbits like that! oh and he called Samuel Beckett "Sam" during their friendship; you should email him too -- moinous@aol.com -- I bet he'd love to hear from another fan!) is by calling it a "concrete novel". But then that assumes a person would know what "concrete poetry" is, and if they didn't, you'd then not only have to explain "concrete novel" but "concrete poetry" as well! If you ever think of a better way of explaining DON do let me know because you're right, it's very funny (what I've read so far, just got it myself) and of the most creatively originally structured novels ever. Critics would call it "gimmicky," but then they'd also have to call two future classics it influenced, "House Of Leaves" and William H. Gass' "The Tunnel" gimmicky too--and they'd be wrong on both counts.

posted by EnriqueFreeque at 4:28 pm (EST) on Apr 11, 2009

Hi,

Was wondering if you'd be interested in reviewing my new novel and posting your comments here as well as a few other book-related sites. Saw you liked Paris Trout, and I thought you might like my novel since it's also southern and a bit dark. I could e-mail you the novel in an e-book format if you'd like. Let me know if you're interested. Here's a link to a summary in case you're interested:

http://christophertusa.com/blog/?page_id...

Thanks,

Chris

posted by cmtusa at 9:54 am (EST) on Mar 20, 2009

Between the used books, the galleys, the amazon used-book sellers, and the occasional got-to-have-it new book, I'm beginning to think there is no real hope for people like us. Online bookswapping hasn't really helped me, either, because, I just trade books I already have for books that I don't have.

Just to let you in on what a lost cause I am, since writing that original comment on my profile, I bought a three-shelve, fairly wide new bookcase to keep my piled-up titles. After transfering all the piles to the shelves, I realized that I now had exactly enough room for more piles to develop.

posted by efear at 10:50 am (EST) on Feb 2, 2009

Cold Dog Soup!

posted by slickdpdx at 9:26 pm (EST) on Aug 8, 2008

Good to know I am not the only one who agonizes over what to read next. I may try out your method, as my current method of "stare at books, pick up and put right back down, stare some more, grab one and read 5 pages, put down and stare some more" is not very efficient.

posted by edreese at 8:55 pm (EST) on Mar 19, 2008

Oh Billy. Oh Milly.

posted by slickdpdx at 10:44 pm (EST) on Feb 28, 2008

We share some interesting books.

posted by archivesman at 12:18 am (EST) on Feb 2, 2008

Thanks so much for enabling me to see Senator Hoar's statue. It is almost as good as being in Worcester in person.

The book I listed : George Frisbie Hoar and the Half-Breed Republicans, by Richard E. Welch, Jr. (read 20 Oct 1984)

is mostly about him and I thought it a good book. Only one other Library Thinger list the book.

posted by Schmerguls at 9:15 pm (EST) on Nov 23, 2007

Greetings from Manchester!!! Are you enjoying the holiday setup? Our warehouse was so crowded today we actually lost an employee for a little while. Ok, it was me, and I was hiding from customers :-> You know the ones: "I was here last week and saw a book on a table up front - where is it now? I think it was blue." Someone really should tell Corporate that we need to start shelving books by color for our intellectually challenged customers. Cheers!

posted by TracyatBN at 6:15 pm (EST) on Nov 14, 2007

Yeah, the dialogue is ridiculously good. I didn't realise when I started to read it, but since discovered that his use of long emphasis dashes instead of quotation marks was thought to be still very radical at the time of publishing (I don't know whether he uses this technique in Carpenter's Gothic too). See: http://www.nyx.net/~awestrop/ftb/ftb.htm (at pp. 34-35, "conform! (punctuationwise)").

posted by etcetera at 6:33 pm (EST) on Jul 18, 2007

I'm reading The Recognitions. Within a hundred pages it was my favourite book.

posted by etcetera at 2:31 am (EST) on Jul 18, 2007

Wow...really, wow. It is so refreshing to see someone who has a such a unique and self-personified collection of incredible modern fictional works - i.e. Pynchon, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Stephen Wright, Robert Coover(!), Delillo, A.M Homes, William Gaddis (!!!), I could go on and on...so I won't.

I'll second the excellent photo remark; the only thing better than boxes of books filled w/styrofoam peanuts is a person buried beneath such buffering. Cheers! - Jeremy

posted by abductee at 10:53 pm (EST) on Jun 21, 2007

Cool pic!

posted by varielle at 9:07 am (EST) on Jun 6, 2007