Books Brought Home: November 2011

What books have come home for a visit or a long stay this month?

Bonnie short term visit from the library. =:)

From Audible:
Zero Day by David Baldacci
Out of OZ by Gregory Maguire
IQ84 by Haruki Murakami
I am Half Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley
The Devil's Star by Jo Nesbo
Nemesis by Jo Nesbo
A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley

Ordered, shipped, and expected to have a long stay once they arrive:

The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling (an old favorite)
The Sackett Companion: A Personal Guide to the Sackett Novels (I had this one, new, years ago, and am sorry I got rid of it!)
Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know by Joseph Telushkin

More waiting in my abebooks 'basket'....

#3 Now see, that's why I keep an eye on this thread - it tells me when new books in my favorite series are out. Go Flavia de Luce . . .

Two book sprees in five days! On Saturday I bought five books in Toronto (as mentioned on the October "Books Brought Home" thread), and then today there was a used book sale at the office in support of the workplace charity campaign. Another four books made their way home with me:

- Cinq semaines en ballon, by Jules Verne (I want to read more books in French and like what I've read of Verne in English)
- The Last Canadian, by William C. Heine (one of those books you buy secondhand for a dollar because the plot is just too wacky to pass up)
- The Eagle Has Landed, by Jack Higgins (this has been on my list for a while)
- Pompeii, by Robert Harris (also on my list for a while)

I wasn't actually expecting to buy anything -- I just went to browse around for a few minutes as a way to get away from my desk -- so this was quite the haul!

An order sparked by a coupon from Barny Noble was in today's mail. It had spent more time than usual being reckoned by the post office in New Jersey.

The Oxford Handbook of Milton edited by Nicholas McDowell and Nigel Smith. This was the coupon book. I took a course in Milton when I was an undergraduate. I haven't followed up on it much in the ensuing five decades except that I read Paradise Lost every few years. I've forgotten Lycidas which I had to memorize to qualify for the course. But my memory clings to the notion of the greatness of Milton, and so I am here looking for more understanding of his work and works.

Persuasion by Jane Austen. This is the Norton Critical Edition for which there was no touchstone this morning but for which there seems to be one now. I already have The Annotated Persuasion and was dissuaded from Persuasion, an annotated edition by the hard covers, the expense, and the sparseness of the notes. I was finally convinced that I wanted this after a short conversation with jnwelch who admired The Annotated Persuasion and after reflection on my contentment with the five other Norton Critical Editions of Jane Austen's novels this year.

Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sanditon by Jane Austen. Yes the title omits the serial comma, but I am hopeful that the texts will be readable. This collection is probably for those of us who have read the six adult novels and want just a little bit more and maybe want to know just a little bit more about the author. I can't dance, so I wouldn't have been an acceptable suitor for Ms. Austen, but I can wish.

The Fifth Queen by Ford Madox Ford. I was enamored of Wolf Hall. When I saw this on display in a store I thought I could do more with the wives of Henry VIII. The only book I have read by Ford is his book of criticism, The March of Literature, and I think I am due for something by him.

Robert

To the previous poster (#7) I have the 4th title you mentioned--mine's an older Penguin paperback edition.

Black Lamb & Grey Falcon by Rebecca West
I've been reading this book since Sept. I borrowed a library copy after going to Croatia's Dalmatian coast last year. Long but worth it!

Books arriving this week:

Blue Nights by Joan Didion
My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse
Passage to Ararat by Michael J. Arlen
Talking it Over by Julian Barnes
The Good Apprentice by Iris Murdoch
The Keats Brothers: The Life of John and George by Denise Gigante

I have not brought this home but I just won a copy of Into The Light by Darcia Helle from Member Giveaways. =:) Thank you!!!

I ordered another book from amazon yesterday (hangs head).

It's a book that I had for years, but gave away at one point. I have missed it and while on Amazon, I noted that someone was selling a copy in very good condition for only $4.00...so I ordered it immediately.

It's The Harper Hall of Pern, which consists of the three Harperhall books: Dragonsinger, Dragonsong, and Dragondrums. It's the one dragon trilogy by Anne McCaffrey that I really liked, a lot.

I received my September ER book Between Heaven and Earth by Sue Kerman over the weekend

Added three titles to the pile:

The First Day of the Rest of My Life by Cathy Lamb
Walden 3.0: A Dystopian Romance by Phil Fragasso
The Shakespeare Thefts by Eric Rasmussen

Two more arrived:

The Sackett Companion
Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know

That second volume is HUGE...about 700 some odd pages and just looking at it, I have a feeling I'm going to love getting lost in it!

Harper Hall of Pern has not yet arrived...

I can't believe it's taken me three years to notice this group.

I received lots of books today from Better World Books and Awesome Books. I wish I understood the economics that make it significantly cheaper to order used books from the US or even the UK than to order them here in Canada.

Many of them were hardcover replacements for old copies that were falling apart:
An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott
The Foundling by Georgette Heyer
Queen's Folly by Elswyth Thane (I am very happy about this one. I've been looking for a hardcover copy for twenty-five years years, and this one is beautiful.)
Parker Pyne Investigates and
A Caribbean Mystery both by Agatha Christie
The Four Graces by D. E. Stevenson (This one was a bit of a disappointment, as it turned out to be in large print with very thin pages. But at least it's more readable than my old copy.)

Books that I haven't read before are:
City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
Curiosities of Medicine : an assembly of medical diversions, 1552-1962 by Berton Roueché
Spilling the Beans by Clarissa Dickson Wright

And a few more, but I don't want to get too carried away here. There are also three that haven't arrived yet.

From a free give and take day at the weekend, I took:

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation by Jeremy Hardy
The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith

I stopped by the Friends of the Library booksale, and bought four books. I feel quite virtuous, since I'd wild released a book through Bookcrossing, and also dropped off a very large bag of books for the FOL..

The four I came home with:

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, which I've already started reading because it drew me in from the first words.

Summer by Edith Wharton

The Six Iron Spiders by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

and

The Plain Old Man by Charlotte MacLeod

From the library.
Ghost Stories by Jeff Lemire
Tales from the Farm by Jeff Lemire
The Country Nurse by Jeff Lemire
These are a graphic novel trilogy.
The Nobody by Jeff Lemire
The Rabbi's Cat 2 by Joann Sfar
the last two are also graphic novels.

>17 bookwoman247

Charlotte MacLeod is one of my favourite authors. Have you read many of her books?

Went on a yarn crawl and came home with yarn and A Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara G. Walker. Also picked up Headhunters by Jo Nesbø.

#19 Sylvia: No. I've only read one just recently, Exit the Milkman. I enjoyed it enough to try more of her work. From the small bit I've peeked at, I think I'll like this series better than the Peter Shandy books.

>21 The Sarah Kelling books have more depth than the Peter Shandy books, and I think would have a broader appeal. The first one in the series, The Family Vault, would also be a good one to read.

Picked up 11/22/63 by Stephen King last night at Bull Moose. ahhhhhh like spending time with an old friend. SK's voice can be heard in every word. =:)

My ER book, The Western Lit Survival Kit by Sandra Newman arrived by UPS last evening. I'm already enjoying it greatly! It's hilarious, and interesting and informative at the same time.

Three books arrived today:

The Lemon Table - stories by Julian Barnes
Straight Out of View - poems by Joyce Sutphen
A Summer Bird-Cage - a novel by Margaret Drabble

I had a number for a magic Barny Noble's coupon and found a book at my regular brick and mortar store, but they demanded a hard copy of the coupon. The coupon was wasted, but Barny sent a successor to use on-line, so I ordered that book and a couple more. They were in today's mail.

Japanese Philosophy, a sourcebook edited by James W. Heising, Thomas P. Kasulis, and John C. Maraldo. There is no touchstone yet; this is a link. Poor John Maraldo is not recognized by the touchstones. This is the book I wanted from the magic coupon. The book is an anthology of original philosophical works from Japan.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Philosophy edited by Eric Bronson. This is in the long series of ... and Philosophy volumes from Wiley that I had thought I had enough of. I was an avid reader of The Millenium Trilogy, however, and thought I could not ignore this. There is no cover available for this yet.

A Splendid Exchange by William J. Bernstein. The woman in our church book group who prefers non-fiction to fiction especially to older, nominally classic fiction mentioned this book. I looked into it a little and decided I could look much closer, so here it is.

Robert

I saw Bob, Son of Battle at the local Goodwill and purchased it.

I have a weakness for dog stories, especially those that are shepherds...

#27.......:-)

I got the rest of my book order a couple of days ago. The highlight is a hardcover copy of A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute. It was also published as The Legacy, but I far prefer the title A Town Like Alice, so I have been looking for a copy with that title for a long time. So now, every time I look at it in my bookcase, I don't have to think, "There's A Town Like Alice, too bad it has the wrong title."

At present reading a novel based on the thrilling case of Schapelle Corby who was stopped at Bali Airport by customs officials, carrying 4.1kg of cannabis in her unlocked bodyboard bag.The author Tony Wilson who is also a crime reporter has build up the story very well... I didnt feel like keeping the book down for hours...

From Audible:

11/23/63 by Stephen King

I recently discovered a little gem of a store only a few blocks from my apartment--Acorn Bookshop. I went in last Sunday on a whim and found out they were doing 25% off all military history books for Veteran's Day, so naturally I picked up The Great Boer War. And on the way to the counter, I also found Germinal, An Instance of the Fingerpost, and Uncle Silas. I'm off of work this Thursday and am already planning another trip!

I can't stop pushing those buttons on my Kindle and so I have added,

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
Winter In Thrush Green by Miss Read
Victors and Lords by V.A. Stuart
Rakossy by Cecelia Holland

The Harper Hall of Pern arrived today. It'll be a reread when I get to it, but I wanted to have the trilogy of Dragonsong, Dragonsinger and Dragondrums available to read whenever I want to.

I've read a lot of Anne McCaffrey books, but this group is special: the stories are sweeter than the other Pern books, imho.

The UPS man brought me a box of books today:

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
Pilgrimage by Annie Leibovitz
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken
Leaving Cheyenne by Larry McMurtry
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz
Collected Poems by A. S. J. Tessimond

And, because I'm reading it just now and needing some encouragement . . .

Why Read Moby-Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick

Nice haul, Mollygrace. When you're in the mood for some light reading and high adventure, I encourage you to pick up The Thirty-Nine Steps. It's a fun read!

Thanks, bookwoman247 -- I'm so intrigued by Annie Leibovitz's photographs that it may be awhile before I return to the Pequod -- or take a detour up (or is it down?) those thirty-nine steps.

I finally broke down and bought a Kindle, which I received last night. For $3 I bought:

the Collected Works of Jane Austen
the Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini and
Great Expectations

#38 - Aha! Another one falls to the lure of a push button world and instant gratification! Enjoy your new Kindle whymaggiemay.

Hmm, don't think I've really succumbed yet. I'm reading 6 books - 5 are in paper, and I have over 550 unread books on my shelves, so don't expect to have the Kindle fully take over my reading for quite some years. But, I do appreciate that I can put a Dickens tome on it and not have to heft it around.

Maggie I can't wait to hear what you think of the Kindle! It sure would have come in handy when I read War and Peace!

I ventured out to a Friends of the Library bookstore that I'd never visited, and came away with:

Macbeth by the bard, of course.

Evelina by Fanny Burney, which I was delighted to find as it is rather obscure these days;

The Levant Trilogy by Olivia Manning

and

The Blue Nile by Alan Moorehead

All for $3.25! They even had books for .10. Mine ranged from .25 for Shakespeare to $1 for each of the others. Newer releases ranged from $2 - $3.

A coupon led to a Barny Noble order which came today after orbiting in the area post office for a few days:

The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World by J.P. Mallory and D.Q. Adams (CURSE THE TOUCHSTONES). My ancestry is Indo-European or largely so, so this is a fat reflection on a big part of my ancestors' history, prehistorical though it may be. I suspect this was mentioned on LibraryThing.

Time and Eternity, exploring God's relationship to time by William Lane Craig. Time is one of the tough questions; timelessness too. If there is a God, how He fits into time or lack of it has got to be an interesting question. This was received well by someone on LibraryThing who will eventually resurface and whose library will be marked as interesting as soon as he does.

Robert

All of the below are pre loved!! and are my latest, for this week. This girl can't help it!!!

When she was Good by Philip Roth
Nights with Grace by Rosie Scott
Star Sullivan by Maeve Binchy ,it is a "quick read" 106 pages, very unusuall for this author.
Under Gemini by Rosamunde Pilcher
Talking to the Dead by Helen Dunmore

hazeljune, I like that expression, "pre-loved".

Today I stopped by Habitat for Humanity and checked out their used book selection. Since they had a sale (buy 3 get 2 free), I brought home the following for $1.50 plus tax:

Rascal by Sterling North
Silas Marner by George Eliot
The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank by Erma Bombeck
and a book of short stories by Herman Melville

I could have gotten another one for free, but there wasn't anything that piqued my interest. Four books for that price was good enough.

There was a book sale today in support of our local tornado relief fund. The selection wasn't great, but payment was just whatever you wanted to donate. So I made my donation and took a bunch of books without worrying too much about what they were. The best two were The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer, (I've read this before, but I don't remember it) and The Girl Who Heard Dragons by Anne McCaffrey (a collection of short stories, and certainly not one of my favourites by her, but it is a hardcover in excellent condition). The rest were a few books for the kids and a pile of romances that I have to sort through to see whether any are worth keeping. It was money that I would have donated anyway, so whatever books I get out of it are a bonus.

Temporarily (from the library) I brought home:

Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
When Men Become Gods: Mormon Polygamist Warren Jeffs, His of Fear, and the Women Who Fought Back by Stephen Singular
Agua para Elefantes (Water for Elephants - spanish edition) by Sara Gruen
Zombie Cupcakes by Zilly Rosen

I liked the first couple of chapters of Mistborn, but now it's kind of getting "eh" so I don't know if I'll finish it. Man, the cupcakes in Zilly Rosen's book looking amazing. And in the author bio I saw she has a bakery in my hometown! How weird is that? I'll have to check out her shop next time I'm home.

Since I've been really good and haven't purchased a book since the Brooklyn Book Fair in September I treated myself to these:

Night Circus by Erin Morganstern;
11/22/63 by Stephen King;
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami; and
since the spree was spouse apporved I picked up a biography of Charles Dickens for him but I can't remember who wrote it

>41 Ann, I'm enjoying the Kindle more than I thought I would. I started Pride and Prejudice and find it very easy to use and read from. Occasionally I make an error touching the screen where I don't intend to or touch too hard and have to go back, but otherwise it's simple. Highlighting the text doesn't work so well, but I'm getting more adept at that, too. I really got it for my Classics Book Club because we're reading so many large books in 2012. It will make them much more portable.

#48 Maggie: I'm glad to hear that the Kindle seems to be user-friendly, and that it's working out so well for you! I can understand your reason for getting one. So many are so large and heavy!

Barny Noble sent a few coupons in a row and posted one on Faceboook; I bit.

The Novel, an alternative history by Steven Moore. With most of the things I've ever been interested in, I've also been interested in what is meta to them. So it goes with novels.

Robert

Just finished Cybill Disobedience on my new Kindle Fire. I learned new things about Cybill and it was free. I was also able to overcome my guilt about buying an ereader. Books still have a place in my heart, and you can't beat the technology--no battery, no connectivity issues. I am now going to read the traditional way, starting with The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, which reminds me of The Book Thief.

Hurray! There is a new edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of English out. I had a coupon. There was a listing of expensive books with the dictionary on it. I ordered it. Barny Noble sent it. The post office kicked it around the warehouse. Today it came.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition edited by Joseph P. Picket and others. I am of the rare breed that admires and respects both the Merriam Webster unabridged and The American Heritage dictionaries. I've thought that it's been awhile since the fourth was published and had my eyes open in the bookstores; I was cocked and ready to fire when I saw it on-line. This one has Semitic roots; I don't remember that the earlier had those, and I'm too lazy to stand up to check. This one does not have a complete dust jacket; the publishers must think we will be using the book too much for one to survive.

Hurray, hurray.

Robert

PS There is no way to distinguish the fifth edition from the others in LibraryThing's listing. There is no cover for the fifth edition among those shown on the work page.

R

PPS But there was an image buried:

RD

Thanks, Robert, for letting me know there's a new dictionary out - especially the AH, which is a favorite of mine, too. I've been wanting a new, larger dictionary than the one I have, and I have a 20% off coupon from B&N - obviously a sign.

From Audible:

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Nightwoods by Charles Frazier

Oh, wow...someone else who actually likes dictionaries and doesn't rely wholly on spellcheck.

I have my Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary close at hand: it was a graduation gift from my mother, and all the more precious as it was probably all she could afford for me at the time.

I have the OED and an atlas next to my reading chair. I use them both frequently. Also, I recently got a Kindle and use the dictionary feature often. It's not that I don't already know most of the words, it's that they're being used in a new context or in a much older text and I want to know what the meaning would be in that century.

I want the Kindle to have an atlas, too (without me paying for a Kindle Fire to reach the internet). When the book mentions the Marianas islands, I want to verify that they are where I think they are and how far from there to wherever that's also mentioned in the book, etc.

I've now started A Daughter's Love: Thomas More and His Dearest Meg by John Guy. This is a fascinating biography of Thomas More...and his daughter, Margaret.

From the library.
The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman (her latest)

The Nose By Nikolai Gogol

Was out shopping with my mother and grandmother and ended up browsing in a Chaptigolesbooks while they were busy getting new glasses. It also happened to be a "buy 3 books get the 4th free" sale... I succumbed to the temptation. But really, only one was for me: SS-GB, by Len Deighton (one of the few Deightons that my parents do NOT have, apparently). I also bought my grandma the second Three Pines book, A Fatal Grace, because she read the first one and really liked it. The other two books are Christmas presents for my parents so I won't write them down in case they are looking over my shoulder between now and Dec 25. :P

I wasn't actually in the market for books, but I was at a Barny Noble brick and mortar with a few magazines in hand when I saw Songlines by Bruce Chatwin. Recalling that many LibraryThing patrons think highly of it and knowing that I had to go to the cash register anyway, but not knowing whether it would be cheaper on line, I picked it up and brought it home.

Robert

I was at a sale of farm toys today, and , unexpectedly, someone had a few books for sale. I got The Shell Seekers, which I have been looking for, because Rosamunde Pilcher is a recently discovered author for me. I also got a new cookbook put out by a local church group. My husband got two big toy tractors, so we both managed to add to our collections.

I ordered a whole pile of books online in the last week, during the sales. Most of them were from BookCloseOuts, and they always seem to get delivered quickly, so I'm hoping to see them soon.

#60 rabbitprincess - I like that "Chaptigolesbooks". It covers all the bases.

Three books arrived last week:

The Geography of the Imagination - essays by Guy Davenport
A Long Retreat - Andrew Krivak's memoir about his search for a religious calling
The Violet Dots - Michael Kernan's biography of Tom Easton, British miner and WWI soldier

I had a spa day on Saturday courtesy of my husband and quite incidentally there is a book store across the street. I picked up In The Garden of Beasts by Eric Larson- the book store was having a holiday book drive for community children so I contributed to that too.....as I was quite upset with said husband last week I ordered the Wicked series by Gregory Maguire which arrived today through the good folks at Amazon

Another book purchased because of the spate of coupon from Barny Noble was in today's mail:

Surpassing Wonder by Donald Harman Akenson. I am not a member of any of the religions of the book, but I am part of Western culture which derives from a couple of those religions. So here's one of the stories of the book.

Robert

#62 SylviaC -- Thanks! I can't take credit though; a co-worker of mine came up with it.

My recent trip home also saw me borrowing books from my parents' extensive library...

- The Big Four, by Agatha Christie
- The Labours of Hercules, by Agatha Christie
- Dead Man's Folly, by Agatha Christie
- Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, by Agatha Christie Spike Milligan

The first three will be adapted for the next season of Poirot, and the fourth I borrowed because (a) my dad recommended it and (b) I have been on a very long WW2 kick this year. Also (c) I have always liked that title.

Today's mail, all the way from USA to down under is The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak, purchased from Amazon following Mollygrace's recommendation.

I checked out Fiction Ruined My Family on my Nook from my local library's digital library. I just finished A Beautiful Child and Cake Wrecks the same way. Digital library books are AWESOME!

Hi, I'm "fuzzi", and I have an addiction.

It's called "abebooks.com", and I can't seem to stay away from it!

:D

Quite some time ago I decided that I needed the Library of American volume of Thornton Wilder's novels. I got and have since mislaid it. Somewhat obsessive, I decided that I probably needed the volume of plays and writings on theater, too. There has been a spate of coupons, and they are more valuable the more expensive the book. Thornton Wilder, collected plays & writings on theater was in today's mail from Barny Noble.

Robert