It's a brand new month! What books have graced your threshold today?

LOL...so I went out at lunchtime intending to buy Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close which is my book club's selection for October. And I did buy it...but also picked up a couple of other items that were NOT on the approved list ;) that would be The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell whom I really admire, and Black Marks by Kirsten Hoyte who is a recently acquired friend of mine.

After I paid for the books, the lady at the bookstore told me that I've qualified for a 20% discount on my next purchase through their frequent-buyer program -- I'm not sure whether to be pleased or alarmed ;)

I traded The Best laid Plans for A Separate Peace today.

I just bought an entire set of Charles Dickens' works. The university library was selling antique books for 2 dollars a piece, and I was able to buy the entire set. I had to input them manually because they are not catalogued anywhere, not library of congress or any of the uni libraries available. Which is frustrating because I've been unable to find a publishing date, there isn't one in the text. The publishers are Lovell, Coryell & Company located in New York before the turn of the 20th century. The closest to a publishing date that I can come up with is 1892 to 1895. It's a great set though. Leather bound, etchings, forwards by Dickens himself. I just find it difficult to believe that there is virtually no recording anywhere that these books exist. Very frustrating when it comes to cataloging.

Picked up Baotown by Wang Anyi and The Remarkable Journey of Miss Tranby Quirke by Elizabeth Ridley from my local second-hand bookshop today. I was hoping to pop into the charity shop near the station which is open till 6pm, but it closed early today :( so I was deprived.

rosie harris biggest fan anyone out there like her books

Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman and The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson came from PBS today. Hooray for books in the mail!

The Muse Asylum by David Czhuchlewski arrived in my mailbox, courtesy of a bookmoocher.

From the Science Fiction Book Club, The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson.

On Chesil Beach from the library.

Predator BY Patricia Cornwell
Eleven on Top BY Janet Evanovich

DAMN IT. This is why working at barnes & noble is bad for people like me. It took all my willpower to walk away with only two books:
* Life With Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse
* Fell: Feral City by Warren Ellis.

30% off will be the death of me. Honest.

From the library today: Slan by A. E. Van Vogt (on the recommendation of an LTer in the Science Fiction group); Judas Child, a non-Mallory mystery by Carol O'Connell; and Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde (another reccie by LTers).

Finished The tarnished eye by Judith Guest, a really good mystery & started This common ground NF about organic farming by Scott Chaskey. Also good reading.

I got from Borders w/ the help of a coupon and Borders Bucks Soul Catcher by Michael White. Can't wait to read it.

Multi-reading, as always - "The Reaper's Gale," by Steven Erikson, and "Kiss, Kiss" by Roald Dahl.

Three more today!Blue Blood by Edward Conlon, Messiah by Boris Starling, and Evil Eyes by Corey Mitchell.

over the past few days i got through amazon blaze by richard bachman, suite francaise and the house that george built....and i was doing so well working on my tbr pile!!

A swap ARC of Tippererary.

I'm reading Ruby by Francesca Lia Block that I picked up from the library. Also brought home Necklace of Kisses to read when I'm done.

To try and improve my italian and keep on top of my night class:
Easy Learning Italian Grammar
Italian Verb Drills

Ah, there's nothing like curling up in bed with a good book of verb drills...

#4 sollocks - Wow! What a find! I only WISH our local libraries would offer up such beauties when they have sales!

Today I received a copy of Orlando by Virginia Woolf courtesy of Book mooch. By strange coincidence, it's an ex-library copy!

#4, Color me green.

I was very restrained today in the charity shop and only bought three books! They are:

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson,
The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, and
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad.

I received my bookmooched copy of Soul Magic by Karen Whiddon today and picked up two more romance novels at the used book store, The Highwayman by Anne Kelleher and Prince of Shadows by Susan Krinard.

I also found out the used book store will be having a half off sale next week which I am excited about!!

I'm nothing if not diverse. The asterisks indicate library books, and my comments are in parentheses.

*Parasite Rex - Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures by Carl Zimmer (creepy truth about the varmits that feed on us)
The Places That Scare You - A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times by Pema Chodron (a good one to read concurrent with the parasite book )
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin - the first in his Song and Ice Saga (been meaning to get around to this set for awhile and now's as good a time as any)
Conspiracies by F. Paul Wilson, a Repairman Jack novel (this one just shoved itself into my consciousness in the course of 15 minutes one day - three very different references to it appeared in very different venues)
Reality is just an Illusion - The World of Shamans, Ghosts and Spirit Guides by Chuck Coburn (part of my ongoing study of same)
*A Home for the Soul - a guide for dwelling with spirit and imagination by Anthony Lawlor (a lovely book, about 50% photographs, that expounds on the trail blazed by Christopher Alexander in diagraming the needs of humane housing)
*Dollmaking by E.J. Taylor (included here is some information on making poured wax dolls, which is the direction my art dollwork has wanted to go for awhile now)
*Going Gray, Looking Great! The Modern Woman's Guide to Unfading Glory by Diana Lewis Jewell (after a lifetime of looking good without makeup, I have decided that perhaps it's time to make more of an effort. and I adore the grey hair I'm suddenly growing - I just love it)
*What the Dormouse Said - How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff (I'm a former computer enginerd AND a former hippie chick - okay so maybe I never really stopped being a hippie chick, and this book has been an interesting read thus far, blending drugs, sex and rock n' roll with the technology boom)
*Just An Ordinary Day by Shirley Jackson (Shirley Jackson was a wonderful writer, I highly recommend The Lottery or The Haunting of Hill House. This is a selection of short stories)
*Lisey's Story by Stephen King (Whatever happened to Mr. King's brain as a result of his horrendous motorcycle accident some years back, he has, after years of veering away from his initial path, returned to his glorious, lyrical way with words. Read Dreammaker Hurray!)
*Creative Sewing Ideas from the Singer Sewing Reference Library (very 80s with bold pattern, colour and angles, but there were a couple of ideas here I needed to study further)
*The Compact House Book - 33 Prizewinning Designs 1,000 Square Feet of Less Edited by Don Metz (I'm trying really hard to figure out how to live in 1000 sf with four cats, a studio, and a 7K volume library, and this is part of that process)
*The White House in Miniature by Gail Buckland (saw this at the LBJ Library in Austin, TX last year)
*Design Outlaws on the Ecological Frontier Edited by Chris Zelov and Phil Cousineau (okay, I confess, I've been in love with Buckminister Fuller since the 60s..and so have most of the folks in this book)

Message edited by its author, Oct 3, 2007, 7:20pm.

Just finished Exit Ghost by Philip Roth BoughtAnna Karenina today

Due to LT recommendations, mooched The Other Boelyn Girl and Mallory's Oracle. I joined BM and PBS to get books off of my shelf. Not an entirely successful idea, that.

#28 ~ Oh, do I hope you enjoy Mallory's Oracle, which is the first book of the Mallory mystery series, one of my very favorites!

MenOPop! I love pop-ups.

That's it so far this month (though there were a few at the tail end of September). However, there's a big used book sale this weekend! I expect to make a haul.

MenOPop! OMG, that is hysterical! (hmm, poor choice of words...) I have to get one for my girlfriend.

I received Fever Pitch from paperback swap. Nothing is better than expecting junk mail and opening your mailbox to see a lovely wrapped book.

October 5 -

Bookmooch

Knights of the Morningstar
Quantum Leap 08: Pulitzer
Ghost Ship
Teach Yourself Reflexology
Russian Short Stories
Ruslan Russian 1
THE TEACH YOURSELF RUSSIAN PHRASE BOOK

Amazon

Steve Irwin: The Incredible Life of the Crocodile Hunter
Steve Irwin: Wildlife Warrior: An Unauthorized Biography
Wildlife Warrior: Steve Irwin: 1962 - 2006, a Man Who Changed the World

A combination of a hard week at work and vouchers led me to get:

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman which I have chosen to fill the void Harry Potter has left.

The Gathering by Anne Enright which has been shortlisted for the Booker award. I took it to the cafe to have a look at it and before I knew it had read the first 50 pages it was so compelling! I of course had to buy it.

Finally I bought Playing For Pizza: A Novel by John Grisham. Because it was a hardback but on sale for the same price as a paperback.

Oh my. Friends of the Library book sale this weekend. I went both days and hauled home 30 books.

I know the touchstones will drive me batty; I'll do two messages to break it up a little.

Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion
Anne Tyler: Back When we were Grownups
Sarah Waters: Fingersmith
Margaret Atwood: Blind Assassin
Annie Proulx: Accordion Crimes
Wallace Stegner: Crossing to safety
Sandra Cisneros: Caramelo
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: A Midwife's Tale (to replace the one I loaned out several years ago that never found its way back home)
Laura Esquivel: Swift as Desire
Alice Walker: The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult
Richard Llewellyn: How Green was my Valley
Stephen Greenblatt: Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare
Bernhard Schlink: The Reader
E.M. Forster: A Room with a View

Book sale, part two:

Natalie Kusz: Road Song
Jeremy MacClancy : Consuming Culture
Anndee Hochmann: Everyday Acts and Small Subversions to replace another of those of mine that wandered off years ago.
Susan J. Douglas: Where the Girls Are : Growing up Female with the Mass Media.
Bill Bryson: Notes from a Small Island.
Annie Dillard: Holy the Firm
Craig Lesley : Storm Riders
Best American Essays 1992
Frances Mayes : Under the Tuscan Sun
Erma J. Fisk: A Cape Cod Journal
Amy Bloom : Come to Me - short stories

Well the touchstone tango wasn't too bad, I only had to wrestle with a few of them.

Teelgee I'm so jealous! what a haul!

Well The secondhand bookshop did me in again.
I found and bought:

Shadowbrook: a Novel by Beverly Swerling
The March: A Novel by E.L. Doctorow
The name of the rose by Umberto Eco

I also saw The Notebook and Dear John by Nicholas Sparks but reasoned with myself and left them behind... maybe next week...

26/glaxona, I, too, love the emerging gray.

35/teelgee, I brought home 140 books last month from library book sales. I need to stay away from such treasure hunts for a few weeks.

Today, a DHL delivery truck arrived with:
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and
Innovation Nation : How America is Losing its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back by John Kao.

The latter is a timely arrival. Many references to Finland and I will be spening the weekend at a Finnish-American Heritage conference.

Message edited by its author, Oct 8, 2007, 4:35pm.

Too many to list. Go to my catalogue and sort by entry date. Sixty-six so far! A bunch of books I had ordered arrived a few days ago, and there was a big book sale this weekend. I went every day, and today was "$4 bag/$5 box" day. You can get a lot of books in a box.

I got The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner today for a quarter. I held back from getting any more, but may still wind up going back. LOL

Good Omens
2008 Writer's Market

I'm allowing myself one book a week. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

I also have to express jealousy at #4... and that MenOPop is freaking hilarious. My mom's birthday is in two weeks, she'll be getting that rofl.

I was naughty at Half Price Books last night, picked up

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Crown of Shadows by C.S. Friedman (I had already bought the first two in the series at HPB a month or two ago)
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
The Morgaine Saga and Exile's Gate by C.J. Cherryh

Of course, as I was checking out at the store, my girlfriend made the comment, "You know you're just getting more books we'll have to move, right?" I'm moving at the end of the month... so she might be right. *Shrug* - what are friends for if not to move your boxes upon boxes of books, right? ;)

October 9

Bookmooch

Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors

Paperbackswap

Withered roots: The remnants of Eastern European Jewry
Megarate$: How to Get Top Dollar for Your Spots
Jane Applegate's Strategies for Small Business Success
The X-Ray Information Book

Bookins

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Titletrader

Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning

3 for 1 at BookMooch brought:
Chasing the Dime
Death of an Expert Witness
Murder Being Once Done

1 for 1 at BookMooch:
The Sleeping Doll

PaperbackSwap:
Oryx and Crake

Bookmooch Bonanza:

Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner
Murder at Five Finger Light and Cold Company by Sue Henry.

Griffon's Daughter by Leslie Ann Moore

Leslie was my college roommate for 3 years. this is her first published novel. you go girl!

Two in the mail from a friend on the other side of the country:

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid.

I love sharing books!

Found East of Eden and The Historian at a discount store today. Spent $7 on the two.

Audrey Niffenegger's The Adventuress arrived in the mail yesterday.

The book I ordered from half.com finally got here - Left-Libertarianism and It's Critics, eds. Peter Vallentyne and Hillel Steiner. I've been wanting this book for a while, but it's hard to find and expensive, so it took me a bit to finally get it... Yay!!

On the recommendation of LTer 'tinylittlelibrarian' I have just got Digging to America which had a 'buy 1 get 1 half price' so was also tempted into Purple Hibiscus. I read one of Adichie's short stories some time ago which haunted me for a while. Oh well thats another 2 on the TBR pile.

Arrived in today's mail......
Little Big by, John Crowley
and
Soul Catcher by, Michael White

Both used from Amazon.com........such a dangerous site :>o

I got home yesterday evening to discover Ulysses, which I must confess to being kind of excited about. I enjoyed A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man but it was quite developmental somehow, so I'm interested to see where he ended up going.

On a slightly lighter note, A Wrinkle in Time arrived this morning, which I think might be a more straightforward read!

Both from the wonderful bookmooch. How I love it!

I snagged an ARC of Confessions of a Part-time Sorceress: A Girl's Guide to the D&D Game by Shelly Mazzanoble from BookMooch yesterday. I'm already a little put off by the first sentence (Let me just lay it out here: I am a girly girl), so if I end up not liking it, at least I didn't pay full price!

Message edited by its author, Oct 11, 2007, 8:11am.

through amazon i got oprah's book club's newest selection love in the time of cholera by gabriel marquez

It's been a slow month for me so far. I've only picked up Foundling by D.M. Cornish.

#55 cdyankeefan I read Love in the Time of Cholera about 10 years ago or so and really enjoyed it. Marquez is a talented writer. I think you will enjoy that book.

I picked up three books that were on hold for me at the library - Sins of the Fathers by Patricia Sprinkle, The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney, and Candy Cane Murder by Joane Fluke, Laura Levine, and Leslie Meier.

Just arrived, The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories by Connie Willis.

Another book from a friend cross-country arrived today, totally unexpected! Actually, two books in one: The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford. Very much looking forward to reading these!!!!!!

Books - Oct 12

Bookmooch

Summer in Alaska
Tales of Alaska and the Yukon
First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
Edges of the Earth: A Man, a Woman, a Child in the Alaskan Wilderness

Biblio

Biomedical Results from Skylab

I just mooched about 40 books from bookmooch mostly from the same sender... I don't look forward to when they come in all at once.

thanks raggedtig- i skimmed through several pages and it looks good- today a friend at work gave me the following books-the knitting circle; the man of my dreams;the hneymoon's over and this book will save your life- oh my poor tbr pile!!!

I know about the TBR pile getting out of control. Mine is overflowing out of the bag I have them all in. I don't have them in any order, I just do a blind selection of what I will read next and put it at the end of my stack thats on my nightstand.

Teelgee, I just love those two Nancy Mitford novels, and I re-read my paperback copy so often that it literally fell to pieces one day. The only time that's ever happened to me. Of course, I replaced it immediately with a hardcover edition. Hope you enjoy them as much!

Just picked up Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan.

30 or so books came into my home, but that was for work purposes.

For once, we did allow ourselves one o two to keep - I had the english by j B Priestley and a book about the founder of the Pinkerton detective agency. My wife had Topping, the autobiography of one of the senior officers in the Moors Murders case.

From a library sale:

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon
Abundance by Sena Jeter Naslund
You Suck by Christopher Moore
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
The Dead Fathers Club by Matt Haig

All for $22! Hooray!

Had a $25 Border's gift card. I came home with The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean and I Think of You by Ahdah Soueif.

Message edited by its author, Oct 13, 2007, 11:22pm.

From work: I Am America (And So Can You!)

I just bought Tyrannosaurus Sue by Steve Fiffer.

> 69 ellevee - Please let us know what you think about it. I'm mildly curious as I enjoy watching Colbert but don't typically go for books written by current public figures.

>71, ditto, I am also curious. Love the show, but not sure how it works in book from.

I went away for the weekend and came home to a box full of goodies:

The Liar by Stephen Fry (My current intellectual crush)
Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore

I'm *so* excited to dive into both of these!

69 (ellevee) and 71 (philosojerk),

Colbert was a guest columnist within Maureen Dowd's column in today's NY Times. I was not impressed - what works on tv was not so entertaining in print. I doubt I will buy the book.

Returned from a weekend Finnish-American heritage conference with:

This Finnish Episode by Walter W. Grass
Finnishness in Finland and North America: Constituents, Changes and Challenges edited by Pauliina Raento
Defiant Sisters: A Social History of Finnish Immigrant Women in Canada by Varpu Lindstrom
and a trilogy of historical novels by Vaino Linna:
Under the North Star
The Uprising: Under the North Star 2
Reconciliation: Under the North Star 3

Deep Water Passage by Ann Linnea. I just got back from a fabulous writing retreat with this remarkable woman and her partner, Christina Baldwin. Had to buy this book!

Division Street by Steve Tesich for school.

One of the used bookstores in town is going out of town so currently all books are 30% off so I picked up a few things.

Alone by Richard E. Byrd

Alessandra Comini's Gustav Klimt

The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh: Chemicals, Crises, and Creativity by Wilfred N. Arnold

Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited by Vladimir Nabokov

They are having a book sale at the library on the 20th so I will be looking forward to that!

I returned to the library book sale and got:

God's Politics by Jim Wallis
You and Your Only Child by Patricia Nachman
The first two Dark is Rising books by Susan Cooper
Angus, thongs and full-frontal snogging by Louise Rennison
Two of the Mallory mysteries by Carol O'Connell
and
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Please someone stop me from going to the bag sale on Saturday...my tbr pile can't take it!

From the library (why do they all come in at once?):

The Ode Less Travelled : Unlocking the Poet Within by Stephen Fry
A Long Way Gone : Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
Klee Wyck by Emily Carr
If They Give You Lined Paper Write Sideways by Daniel Quinn
Ethel and Ernest by Raymond Briggs

Author touchstones still acting up..

Message edited by its author, Oct 15, 2007, 7:48pm.

Went to hear Vandana Shiva in Cambridge, MA tonight. I now have signed copies of:
Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability and Peace
Stolen Harvest : The Highjacking of the Global Food Supply, and
Manifesto on the Future of Food & Seed

Received a copy of The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith today - courtesy of a kind moocher on Book Mooch. :)

Got Frankenstein today for a quarter at the thrift store.

Barbara W. Tuchman's The Proud Tower came via BookMooch.

---

That's the second time tonight the author touchstone has come up in red boldface with its paired square brackets still hanging there. It should have come up with this.

---

Managed to type <i> again after that title, instead of </i>. Perhaps that means I should get some sleep now.

Message edited by its author, Oct 16, 2007, 11:37pm.

Borrowed Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace from the library.

weighed it on the kitchen scales it comes in at 3.5kg.

Something tells me it is going to take a long time to complete.

Bookmooch Le Grand Meaulnes by Henri Alain-Fournier arrived, and goes straight to the top of my TBR pile- I tackle mine alphabetically :)
Can't quite remember why I mooched it in the first place, I don't think it's part of the 1,001 to read before you die ...

#85 trinah: David Foster Wallace gave the commencement speech at the college I work for a couple of years ago and he was *hilarious*. I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't gotten round to reading anything of his yet (he's on the teetering TBR pile), but I've heard great things about Infinite Jest - please let us know what you think when you've finished.

I got an unexpected book in the mail (aren't those the best kind?) My mom sent me Come On People by Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint after seeing them do an interview on Meet the Press this past weekend. I'm not sure what I think about it after taking a quick glance, but we'll see once I get a chance to read it.

Touchstones doing that weird thing with the bold red again.

Yesterday I received The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and today I brought home Join Me by Danny Wallace.

>86 If Le Grand Meaulnes is not part of the 1001 books (perhaps it's hiding under its most common titles in English translation, The wanderer or The lost domain), it should be! It is a very great book, a true classic of 20th century French literature.

Message edited by its author, Oct 18, 2007, 8:17pm.

I treated myself to an hour at Oxfam, and got:
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
How to Read a Novel: A User's Guide by John Sutherland
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
A Pound of Paper by John Baxter
Moab is my Washpot by Stephen Fry

Plus free in the mail (can't say no to a freebie):
Notes from a Friend by Anthony Robbins

Author touchstones are a bit shonky...

Arrived today: The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers, Spellbinder by Melanie Rawn, and Eifelheim by Michael Flynn.

Three books from the thrift store: Correlli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres, Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker, and The Time Machine by H G Wells. I believe all are on the 1001 list too.

The local used book emporium has a $2 off sale going on most books right now; most of their mass market paperbacks normally sell for $2.95, so effectively I paid $0.95 apiece for When the Sacred Ginmill Closes, The Burglar on the Prowl, The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza, The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams, and Burglars Can't Be Choosers.

I just found the Bernie Rohdenbarr mysteries this week at the library, and when I saw these at the bookstore I couldn't resist.

#87 scaifea

I'll let you know when I've finished, though it may take quite a while.

:)

Looks like I've been keeping myself under good book buying control this month. I was at a bargain book shop yesterday and picked up my first book for October:

I Shudder At Your Touch, edited by Michele Slung

It's a worn copy with browning pages, but still a rare and lucky find locally! I'm so happy to have found this, since I already have the second volume at home.

>94. Oh, I love Lawrence Block and both the Burglar and Scudder series. Have a great time. I personally have never been engaged by the Hit Man books though. Although for .95 I might give them a try.

I read "Ginmill" in one go last night. It's the first Scudder book I've read.

Wow. Dark. I've never been a barhopper, but he gets that culture about as well as I could ever imagine it. And the end was an absolute surprise.

I may have to go back and see what other Scudder books are on sale. I bought every Bernie book the store had on its shelves.

There's a new bookstore in town so I had to investigate! I was looking for some scary stories and so I bought: Gaslit Nightmares edited by Hugh Lamb and The Haunted Hotel : a Mystery of of Modern Venice by Wilkie Collins and The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling.

Hmmm, I'm having a tough time with touchstones today. Why doesn't the one for Wilkie Collins work?

This is teacher appreciation weekend at Half-Price Books. I appreciate them too. $20 got me:

Finding Fish by Antwone Fisher
The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt (to replace a copy stolen by a student)
Brief Encounters with Che Guevara by Ben Fountain
The Sweetest Dream by Doris Lessing

And last night from Amazon I got Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Picked up The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton today. Tis the season!

A few days ago I bought Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati. I have already read it but originally borrowed it from the library. The only one of the series I own (because I was too impatient at the time to get it from the library is Dawn on a Distant Shore. I have now decided I really must own the series.

Having read 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die last week, I bought the following from the library sales yesterday:

A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene
1984 by George Orwell
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Total cost $1.

A wonderful new book of poetry by a local (Portland OR) writer, Kate Gray titled Another Sunset We Survive. (touchstone not loading even though I entered the book - grrr.)

Women Artists of New Britain (CT) by David Hyland and Lindsley Williams.

I bought it yesterday when I attended an art lecture on the Wyeth women at the New Britain Museum of American Art. But I left it in the car overnight (went from the museum to dinner and then a Holly Near concert and forgot to remove it from the car when I got home) so technically it did come into my home today.

I bought these books yesterday at various yard sales:

Sonnets From the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Hollywood Anecdotes by Paul F. Boller
Escape Stories by various authors
Close Range by Annie Proulx

The author touchstones aren't working even though all the books but one listed with it's author. And that one didn't list correctly anyway.

Bought throughout the month of October:

Fortress of Dragons by C.J. Cherryh (I already had the other 3 books in the series)

Artists in Crime and The Nursing Home Murder by Ngaio Marsh because my local library does not have them and I am trying to read that series

Adventures of a Biographer by Catherine Drinker Bowen because I checked it out of the library and loved it, so I decided to buy it

Until Proven Guilty by J.A. Jance the beginning of the J.P. Beaumont series

The Ghost Writer by John Harwood because it looked interesting and was only $1 in hardcover

Straight Into Darkness by Faye Kellerman because I like her Decker/Lazarus books

I also purchased a couple of audiobooks: Final Target by Iris Johansen and A Kiss of Fate by Mary Jo Putney

I intend to reread a book from my childhood.
I briefly posted about it on my blog
www.lilydippers.blogspot.com
the title is Ronia the robber's daughter
isbn 0140317201
It is a sweet adventure story.

I picked up the following books from City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco last week:

1. The European Tribe by Caryl Phillips
2. A State of Independence by Caryl Phillips
3. A New World Order: Essays by Caryl Phillips
4. Poetry as Insurgent Art by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
5. Night Haunts: A Journey Through the London Night by Sukhdev Sandhu
6. That the World May Know: Bearing Witness to Atrocity by James Dawes
7. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (fellow Rutgers alumnus!)
8. Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
9. The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa
10. Coltrane: The Story of a Sound by Ben Ratliff
11. The Nature of Blood by Caryl Phillips

Picked up Dubliners and Mansfield Park today at the library book sale for $.20 today. Adding to the 1001 books list.

kidzdoc, is it obligatory to buy one of Ferlinghetti's books when you're in his bookstore? ;)

Some of my library holds came in today:

The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon
Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair by Laurie Perry
The Blood Doctor by Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell

Have started The Devil in the White City and can hardly put it down.

Ha ha! No, Linkmeister, you aren't obligated to buy any of his books. There is a section of the bookstore, in the upstairs poetry section, that is dedicated to his books, but you would have to know -- or be told -- where to look for them. City Lights is my favorite bookstore, as I always find books there that I don't see featured in other bookstores, books that both interest me and broaden my knowledge.

#71, 72, 74

It's actually very funny. I can't read it all in on sitting - I need a break after a while - but I'm really enjoying it. I think Colbert is aware of his limitations as a writer, and plays it well. I've definitely laughed out loud at bits. It's entertaining and silly.

But it's not as good as America (The Book). Sorry, Stephen.

I have recently purchased:
Gonzo: The Life Of Hunter S. Thompson (I LOVE Hunter S. Thompson. Love him. Soul mates.)
The Color Of Magic
Reaper Man (I'm trying out Discworld, after you guys have inspired me. It's ALL your fault!)

(touchstone for Hunter is wonky. BLASPHEMY!)

#114: Blasphemy, or just the way he would have like it...?

#115 That was awesome! And if it were up to him, all our compters would explode when we tried to work the touchstones. Or redirect to some horrifying website.

edited for idiotic spelling error. just the way hunter would have wanted it.

Message edited by its author, Oct 24, 2007, 9:03pm.

Tonight, I stopped by Title Wave on Northern Lights in Anchorage and picked up:
Icebound: the Jeanette Expedition's quest for the North Pole by Leonard F. Guttridge
Farther than any man: the rise and fall of Captain James Cook by Martin Dugard
Mrs. Chippy's Last Expedition: the remarkable journal of Shackleton's polar-bound cat by Caroline Alexander

Picked up Circus Fire by Stewart O'Nan yesterday (on an LT recommendation) and received my Early Reviewer copy of Every Last Cuckoo by Kate Maloy Can't wait to read them.

I'm currently most of the way through reading The Circus Fire. It gets depressing in places (it was, after all, a circus tent that burned), but is generally well-written. And O'Nan doesn't dwell more than he really has to on the most stomach-turning parts of the story, which is certainly a point in his favor.

Picked these up at the library yesterday:

Beat to Quarters by C.S. Forrester - I am trying to read the series through

Civilization on Trial by Arnold Toynbee

Angels in the Gloom by Anne Perry - again, another series I am reading

The Triangle Fire

Extraordinary People - this book was mentioned in Born on a Blue Day that I just finished

Voyage of the Damned

Letters to Auntie Fori

Got two today off the buy-one-get-the-second-half-off table at the Borders near work. They are:

Charles C. Mann's 1491

and

Caroline Weber's Queen of Fashion

Message edited by its author, Oct 23, 2007, 5:28pm.

AnnaClaire--I think Circus Fire might be next up--after the ER book I just got Every Last Cuckoo.

Last night I purchased at B&N: Reservation Road, Into the Wild, and The Light of Evening All sound very good and can't wait to dive into them. Ok I have to stay out of a book store for a while!

Message edited by its author, Oct 24, 2007, 12:14pm.

For OTHER people, I've purchased:

Run
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
50 X 50

But none for Elle. I weep.

Curse the Barnes & Noble right across the street from my apartment!!

I met a friend over there for a 1/2 hour and left with:

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
Seeing Redd by Frank Beddor
Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott

Got in today from Frugal Media 3 books in the Molly Murphy Mystery series by Rhys Bowen: Murphy's Law, For the Love of Mike and Oh Danny Boy.

I ran across Confederacy of Dunces in the paperback swap at the library. Whoo hoo.

tapestry100--oooh to have a B&N or any bookstore across the street from home!! But for me also would be extremely dangerous as I would probably live there and spend way to much $ there as well. But enjoy it while you have it!

On the way home last night I got The Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning.

momom248 - Yeah, I'm there way too much and spend way too much $$. The employees know me by name! I do take advantage of it though; as soon as something on LT catches my eye, I run across the street to see if they've got it!

Got three packages today:

Hester by Margaret Oliphant--Virago Modern Classic
The Female Quixote by Charlotte Lennox-Virago Modern Classic
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell

Bookmooch brought me The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling. I've recently discovered Bernie and am catching up.

Haweswater via BookMooch today.

#131 How are those books? I spent an hour organizing mystery today, and scanned the backs of a few in the series.

Today, I bought The Gonzo Way and A Pocket Style Manual. (I have a job interview as a copyeditor.

Once again, the Good Doctor's touchstone is wonky. He would be very happy.

#133, Bernie? Hilarious. A very dry humor, often self-directed at the hero. If you like Donald Westlake's caper books, you'd like Bernie Rohdenbarr. He's a burglar who's trying to run a used bookstore but enjoys entering other people's houses too much to quit. Invariably (so far as I've read) he's in the house when there's a murder and he's got to find the real killer to get off the hook for the crime.

Like Cariola, I too just got Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox from B&N w/a big coupon off!! Sounds like a good read. Am waiting for 2 Ken Follett books World Without End and Pillars of the Earth which I heard I must read first. Can't wait.

I tried reading Pillars of the Earth years ago on recommendation from a friend, and just couldn't get into it, but everyone I know who has read it loves it. Must just be me.

And I'm heading over to B&N tonight to pick up The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox myself!! Got a handy coupon in the email, which is nice.

I received The Island of Adventure by Enid Blyton and Misreadings by Umberto Eco in the mail today from bookswap.

I also found a good copy of 1984 by George Orwell yesterday and bought it...

Does anyone else wonder why classics (including modern classics) have such crap covers? Surely publishers can put a bit more imagination and colour into them. They are so stark and dull it's no wonder that a lot of people get a bad impression about classics.

#131, 133, 134

I wish I could rediscover Bernie all over again. I love that series. Now, though, it looks like I get to discover Donald Westlake. Does he, like Lawrence Block, have caper series and other series? If so, which is which?

edited for grammer

Message edited by its author, Oct 26, 2007, 5:53pm.

nancy, here's Westlake's website. There's a full-on bibliography for his name and all of his pseudonyms (probably over 100 books). Dortmunder is probably his most famous character, but he writes all manner of things.

For a sample of his style, this passage is from his self-written biography at the site:

" My wife, severally Abigail Westlake, Abby Adams Westlake and Abby Adams, which makes her three wives right there, is a writer, of non-fiction, frequently gardening, sometimes family history. Her two published books are An Uncommon Scold and The Gardener's Gribe Book.

Seven children lay parental claims on us. They have all reached drinking age, so they're on their own. "

Message edited by its author, Oct 26, 2007, 6:51pm.

I went back to my neighborhood "$2-off till 10/28" bookstore and picked up Singularity Sky, Way Station and Time is the Simplest Thing. Charles Stross is a current sci-fi author; Clifford Simak doesn't get enough credit as one of the early sci-fi masters, IMO.

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

via BookMooch

Great day at my house since I got a box from EBay: 14 books in the Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly, 7 books by James Rollins, and the 6 books of the Charlie Parker series by John Connolly.

I had been given a gift card to Texas Art Supply, and was delighted to find the book "500 Metal Vessels: Contemporary Explorations of Containment".

This is part of a series of gorgeous trade paper art books from Lark Books; the series includes things like "500 Baskets", "500 Pitchers", "500 Animals in Clay", and so on. The objects in the books are no ordinary objects, but incredibly creative, intricate, beautiful works of art. I highly recommend the series.

20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill arrived in the mail today!

^and adding to my message above....

I just moved the book out of the way of my one cat whose nickname should be Sneezy.

He promptly moved to where I put the book, and sneezed.

While I was cleaning it off, I dropped it and put a huge crease in the front cover.

Sigh.....

Good think I love my cats slightly more than I love my books!

>145 amysisson: Eeeew, cat snot on your new book! Well, at least it wasn't a hairball!!!

amysisson -

I love those books. I'll have to look for the metal vessels one, since that's a new interest of mine, but I have most of the jewelry-related ones already (my main art interest currently). I even know a number of the artists whose work is in the books.

Message edited by its author, Oct 27, 2007, 2:43am.

whoops, double post

Message edited by its author, Oct 27, 2007, 2:42am.

I had a 50% of one item coupon from B&N so I stopped by there and picked up One hundred and forty five stories in a small box which features three gorgeous little hardcovers of flash fiction, one by Dave Eggers, and two by some other authors I've honestly never heard of. But I have a huge weakness for anything that Eggers writes.

Continuing on that trend, on my way out I noticed a display for the new Best Americans and of course grabbed a copy of Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007, which is one of the books I look forward to each October, not because Eggers is the series editor, but because the kids he works with at 826 Valencia, who actually do most of the selection, it seems, do such a stellar job of picking out interesting and offbeat stories and articles.

On Friday I went to the library to pick up A Thousand Splendid Suns, which I've been eagerly anticipating. Much to my delight, I found the library was having a book sale, $2/bag, and I bagged: The Boleyn Inheritance, Girl, Interrupted, The Stories of Eva Luna, Dreams from my Father, and Breath, Eyes, Memory. And a Dick Francis mystery for my husband.

Later in the evening I adopted some books from some dear friends: Roman Fever, The Master and the Margarita, The Sugar House, and The Misses Mallett. The latter two are Virago Modern Classics which my friends tell me are to die for. I suspect a new addiction has begun.

I went back to City Lights on Wednesday, and bought the following:

1. Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses Isegawa
2. The Famished Road by Ben Okri
3. Painting Chinese: A Lifelong Teacher Gains the Wisdom of Youth by Herbert Kohl
4. Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
5. Gifted by Nikita Lalwani
6. Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer
7. Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat
8. The World in a City: Traveling the Globe Through the Neighborhoods of the New New York by Joseph Berger
9. Finding Iris Chang: Friendship, Ambition, and the Loss of an Extraordinary Mind by Paula Kamen

I picked up The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue and Dead Funny by Tom Holt at Half-Price Books. At another store I got The New Kings of Nonfiction and the new Believer magazine. This should keep me busy for a while.

A major expedition on Saturday with a group of friends yielded:
- High-Yield Gardening - touchstone not loading
- Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
- Oscar and Lucinda
- A Woman
- Baltasar and Blimunda - touchstone says "no title" but it brings up the correct book!

I highly recommend the small town of Hobart, NY and its 6 used bookstores!

Yesterday I came home to Blood of the Fold by Terry Goodkind (on audiobook) from Overstock.com, and a few days ago through the mail I received Underground Kingdom by Edward Packard (a CYOA book - I'm reliving my childhood) from Bookmooch.

I bought the following today:

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Fire Lover by Joseph Wambaugh
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
The Stone Monkey by Jeffery Deaver
The Shark Net by Robert Drewe

I bought The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint and Peeps by Scott Westerfeld today. LT is reintroducing me to the joys of good YA books.

Yesterday I picked up Dubliners by James Joyce as well as Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille.

In the mail I recieved the horror anthology Spellbinding Tales of Terror and the Supernatural

I checked it out from the library when I was about 12 or 13 and loved it... I then forgot about it and always wondered 'what was that book?". Glad I finally rediscovered it.

I downloaded the the last sections of a few books from LibriVox today. I'd started downloading them a while ago, but had some undetermined... issues. They are:

Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence
Jane Austen's Lady Susan, and
Jane Austen's Persuasion.

Somehow I could only get Lady Susan onto CD's, but I'm not nearly enough of a geek to troubleshoot it.

Just got back from a theatre trip to DC. Waiting on my doorstep:

The Ladies of Lyndon by Margaret Kennedy
The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte by Daphne Du Maurier
Manhattan Music by Meena Alexander

Oops, one more box arrived:

Consolation by Michael Redhill
Afterwards by Rachel Seiffert

>158 Yay, LibriVox! I use it too AnnaClaire and have also downloaded Age of Innocence to listen to later. Currently I'm listening to Washington Square by Henry James.

Do you copy your books to CD? I got Lady Susan onto a pair of them, and then the program stopped working. And I can't really carry around my computer to listen to an audiobook.

> 162 I put them on my little (2GB Samsung) MP3 player, rather than on CDs.

Ah, see, I don't have an MP3 player. ;)

Just in from the library (my own personal treasure house, don't you know):

Marconi by W.P. Jolly

Spying for America by Nathan Miller

The Warden by Anthony Trollope

The Confessor and The English Assassin by Daniel Silva

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

G.K. Chesterton by Dudley Barker

The Proud Tower by Barbara Tuchman

Evan and Elle by Rhys Bowen

. . . and why some of the author's touchstones are working and some are not, I have not got a clue!!

A PBS gem arrived today: In My Other Life by Joan Silber.

Using a 40% off coupon at Half Price Books

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

Spindle's End by Robin McKinley

Best American Short Stories 2005 edited by Michael Chabon

From PBS

The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett

From BookMooch

Shadow Man by Cody McFadyen

Other Powers by Barbara Goldsmith

3 of 7 author's touchstone loading...

Part of my Amazon.com order arrived today
When the rivers run dry Fred Pearce
The woman at the Washington Zoo Marjorie Williams
Perpetual war for Perpetual peace: How we got to be so hated Gore Vidal
An ER copy of The Air we breathe by Andrea Barrett arrived Saturday.

Today I got Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Easton Press version, from an eBay buy. These books are so very beautiful that I don't mind buying something I already own.

Message edited by its author, Oct 30, 2007, 5:47pm.

kidzdoc - stop it! I'm so jealous. You keep going to City Lights.

On the other coast, I stopped by Borders today with a 30% coupon and bought End of the Hamptons: Scenes from the Class Struggle in America's Paradise by Corey Dolgon. Also bought Love and Desire - Photoworks by William A. Ewing off the bargain books rack and 4 magazines (so much for willpower). And I'm eagerly awaiting a box of books from www.hamiltonbooks.com.

A trip to Powells City of Books yielded:
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
and another that shall remain a secret for the time being.

Went over to HPB today and managed to trade a bunch of kids books (from when I taught reading) for John Scalzi's Old Man's War, Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry, John Knowles' A Separate Peace (which I have since realized I've already read... darnit), and Isaiah Berlin's The Crooked Timber of Humanity. Ahhh how the TBR pile never seems to get any smaller...

Got a copy of The Circus Fire in the mail yesterday. My family used to live in Sarasota, and I remember my mother telling me stories about her grandmother running a day care for the circus kids when they were wintering in Sarasota, and I had heard about this fire. I didn't know about this book, so am interested to read some more about it.

music to an author's ear -- thanks!