Books Brought Home November/December 2015

Just getting the new thread started.

I went out shopping and DIDN'T buy books. As this has never happened before, I thought I'd report it, in case it is the beginning of some horrible disease.

I did buy supplies for Christmas crafts. Also a bad sign.

>2 ahef1963: Be mindful! ;)

In advance of the holidays, my husband and I have vowed to have a No Spend November. We can buy things for others--hello, early Christmas gift shopping!--but not for ourselves. I'm not sure how I'm going to manage a month without buying books...

The Burned Bridges of Ward, Nebraska by Eileen Curtright

The Angry Hills by Leon Uris

Tool of the Trade by Joe Haldeman

City by Clifford D. Simak

Valor by John Gwynne

Bought a copy of Andy Weir's The Martian today.

Our library's annual book sale is tomorrow morning. As always, I will try to limit myself, but let me go find those two canvas bags to bring along... just in case.

>6 ahef1963: Hope you enjoy it - I did!

Library book sale update: A rather small selection at today's sale. Came away with just a handful:

Roadside Baseball by Chris Epting
The Baseball Reader by Charles Einstein
This Great Game by Doris Townsend
The Battle of Britain by Richard Townsend Bickers

Went to B&N today and came away with the following:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (newly illustrated by Jim McKay)
The Sword of Summer (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard)
A Man Called Ove

The Harry Potter is so gorgeous I can't wait to begin reading it, though I'm in the midst of three books already and have read it several times.

419 by Will Ferguson

#10 whymaggie may- a man called ove is wonderful!! I hope you enjoy it!

A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk

I received my Early Reviewer today, Ashley Bell by Dean Koontz.

Dinner at Deviant's Palace by Tim Powers

Deerskin by Robin McKinley

Borrowed
Alert by James Patterson

For my Kindle:
Torn to Heal by Mike Leake
The Burned Bridges of Ward, Nebraska by Eileen Curtright
This is the Night by Jonah C. Sirott

Used Bookstore:
The Turnaround by George Pelecanos
Pretty Boy Floyd by Larry McMurtry
A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell

Should keep me busy for a while

Hermine: An Animal Life by Maria Beig
The Empty Beach by Peter Corris
White Meat by Peter Corris
Plotted: A Literary Atlas by Andrew DeGraff with essays by Daniel Harmon
Chelsea Girls by Eileen Myles

Just had a lovely trip to my favorite used bookstore:

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Mr. Darwin's Shooter by Roger McDonald

Scent of the Missing by Susannah Charleson
Wildflower by Drew Barrymore

Picked up The Aeronauts Windlass, Lincoln Lawyer, Beans of Egypt Maine, The Heart of the Sea and one other.. but for the life of me I can not remember the title.. sigh Great trip to Bull Moose Music! :)

Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station by Dorothy Gilman

From a friend (will return when finished) Signs of Life by Anna Raverat

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff is waiting for me at the library. Anyone here read that? I'll have to read it next since I only get it for 2 weeks.

So, No Spend November (see post #2) became One Book November yesterday when I dropped by our local book festival office, and bought Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic.

From BookMooch:

The Counterlife by Philip Roth

Early Reviewer:

The Most Wanted Man in China: My Journey From Scientist to Enemy of The State by Fang Lizhi

LTER audiobook, Numero Zero by Umberto Eco

Swap w/ LT friend, The Vegetarian: A Novel by Han Kang

e-book, Colleen McCullough's Bittersweet: A Novel.

Who cares if it's cold and wet outside, I've got my books to keep me. . .

If anyone would like to join in the fun of a little group I started please feel free. It's a place where we can share books that we've found in charity/thrift shops, library sales, garage sales etc. You can find the group here:

https://www.librarything.com/groups/charitythriftshoppur

All welcome!

I got The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood at my favorite used bookstore. No more trips there for awhile!

I got 5 books today - 3 from the library and 2 in the mail. From the library - Fifteen dogs : an apologue by André Alexis, What I've stolen, what I've earned by Sherman Alexie and A small story about the sky by Alberto Ríos. The last two are poetry books. I read the first few of both and really like them. In the mail I got a used library copy of Headhunter by Timothy Findley and as a bonus for a campaign donation I got Outsider in the White House by Bernie Sanders.

#10-whymaggie may- I loved loved LOVED A Man Called Ove-just an incredible read and definitely one of my favorite books of the year

I'm reading Fates and Furies now and struggling with it

>30 cdyankeefan: I have fates and furies and looked it over and decided not to read it.

#31 hi dianeham- it's getting to the point where I don't want to continue with it

>10 whymaggiemay: I second - or third - the people who are urging on A Man Called Ove; it was a wonderful book, and one of my favourites of the year. I just purchased the author's second book: My Grandmother Sends Her Regards And Apologises, and I'm looking forward to reading it.

Also in the shipping box was Sally Bedell-Smith's Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch. It has simply wonderful photos in it!

#33 and #10-why maggiemay and ahef1963-I read my grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry as well and it's just as good and as wonderful as a man called ove

I couldn't resist a Black Friday deal for The Martian by Andy Weir.

>29 cdyankeefan: and >33 ahef1963: I finished A Man Called Ove and gave it 5 stars. Wonderful and I've already passed it on to another who promises to pass it on to two others. I look forward to his second book.

Meanwhile, I added Ship of Fools to my kindle, a book I've wanted to read for years.

#36-why maggiemay- so glad you liked a man called Ove. I recommended it to a bunch of people too

A Death in Sweden by Kevin Wignall

This Old Man: All in Pieces by Roger Angell
Two Prospectors: The Letters of Sam Shepard and Johnny Dark
Boys in the Trees: A Memoir by Carly Simon

Ebooks downloaded to my kindle: A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians by George Stephen Goodspeed, Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Kriwaczek, Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson.

From the library: Fifteen Dogs: An Apologue by Andre Alexis.

I went crazy; I am mad. Overfed my Kindle because Amazon spread a buffet of delights before us that we could help ourselves to with the click of a button. "All you can eat for $2.00 per person."

Just to name a few clicks. . .

Let's Kill Uncle by Rohan O'Grady
A Serious Man by David Storey
The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty by Vendela Vida
Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim

That's about half of them.

Bought today: Adult Onset by Ann-Marie MacDonald, and Dead Wake by Erik Larson.

Since the series "The Expanse" is about to start of SyFy, I thought I'd finish off the books: Cibola Burn and Nemesis Games by James S. A. Corey. I enjoyed the first three books.

The fact that the public library here always has a couple bookcases of books for sale seems almost unfair to the addicted. But they're cheap! ($1.50 - $3.00 for the hardcovers).

So, went to the library to borrow books, and bought:
The History of History by Ida Hattemer-Higgins
Appassionata by Eva Hoffman

And some Modern Library hardcovers - always a score:
William Faulkner: Novels 1926-1929
William Faulkner: Novels 1936-1940
William Faulkner: Novels 1942-1954

Arriving in the mail, protected by the beautifully illustrated blue cover jacket, is Umberto Eco's Island of the Day Before.

Who has read it and what do you think?

>45 Limelite: Read it probably 20 years ago - like all Eco, a mix of really engaging main character, odd magic, and then long philosophical asides (nature of time and location in time & place in this one if I remember). You're not getting a riveting narrative, you're getting something beautiful to read. I liked it since I'm a fan - since I remember it 20 yrs later, obviously had something to recommend it! Enjoy!

>46 buffalopoet:

I've read a number of Eco's novels with mixed success, having to put aside his Zionist conspiracy novel, The Prague Cemetery, unread. Yet, I loved Baudolino.

I requested and received as an LTER Numero Zero and am very disappointed. Quite simply, it isn't a novel, it's a rambling treatment for a bad novel. I'm flabbergasted that he took this thing to a publisher and the publisher actually published it. It's my hope that "Island" will erase any bad taste from "Zero."

Of course, The Name of the Rose remains a masterpiece of story telling and Foucault's Pendulum an enigma. That one I have to take another stab at in my much more advanced age than my first attempt at it.

The Apothecary Rose and A Trust Betrayed by Candace Robb

5 additions today...

From the library - Beatlebone by Kevin Barry

In the mail (used) -
Dinner Along the Amazon by Timothy Findley
The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy
Into the Heart by Kenneth Good
The Nuns by Marcelle Bernstein

>47 Limelite: No promises, but I think you'll find this one closer to the things you like about Eco than Numero Zero and the others on the 'punt' list - good luck!

Like Family by Paolo Giordano

The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas by Ann Voskamp (gift from my mom)
The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff
The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge by Charlie Lovett

Two lovely treats by mail and UPS. . .
Border Town by Shen Congwen
and my November LTER, Georgia (Touchstone only links to another book w/ same title) by Dawn Tripp.

This is Why I Came by Mary Rakow
Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske by Julia Blackburn

Library books

The Novel an alternative history by Steven Moore
The Moment by Douglas Kennedy
War and Peace
Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow

In the mail, bought used

Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians by Pierre Clastres translation and forward by Paul Auster

In the mail: Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin - I thought I'd give his Inspector Rebus books a whirl.

From Alexander McCall Smith's No. Ladies' Detective Agency series:

The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon
The Handsome Man's De Luxe Cafe
The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine

In the mail: Victoria: A Life by A.N. Wilson. Looks really good. Lots of excellent photographs.

Kaleidoscope by Dorothy Gilman

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

In the mail today I got The Grownup by Gillian Flynn which I won online.

Shockaholic by Carrie Fisher

Way Station by Clifford D. Simak

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman.

>65 Limelite: The Ocean at the End of the Lane is one of my favourites. So darkly scary. I will be interested to see what you think of it.

In the mail: Murder at Mt. Fuji by Shizuko Natsuki.

As a Christmas gift from a friend, William Shakespeare's Tragedy of the Sith's Revenge by Ian Doescher.

As a Christmas gift from myself, The Haj by Leon Uris. I've never read this one.

Sung In Blood by Glen Cook

Christmas gift from my sister The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

The Autobiography of Ben Franklin downloaded from Amazon for my Classic Book Club.

Corrag as a Christmas gift from my husband.

I love the public library's book sale shelves: 25 cents/paperbacks, $1 hardcovers. Came home yesterday with:

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott - 5-star personal favorite that I keep giving away and having to find another copy,

On Empire: America, War, and Global Supremacy - short-take essays by historian Eric Hobsbawm - supposed to be great at exactly this kind of writing.

Swell - contemporary Greek novel

manazuru - contemporary Japanese novel - since reading The Master of Go, been interested in contemporary Japanese lit - like the less-narrative-more-contemplative style I've happened to hit so far.

Two books I had ordered with a Christmas gift card arrived today:
The Passage by Justin Cronin, which apparently is part of a trilogy, and
The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder by Charles Graeber - I love true crime. The fact that the title uses the Oxford comma also pleases me.

Merlin's Booke: Stories of the Great Wizard by Jane Yolen

Somebody in this group recommended Denise Mina's The End of the Wasp Season some months ago, and I bought a copy of it; it arrived today in the mail.

....and more books in the mail!

Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye
Kings and Queens of Great Britain by David Soud

Just a few of the books acquired this week:

Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian
Fall of Japan by W Craig
The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud
The Semi-Detached House (Xist Classics) by Emily Eden

Books received for Christmas:

The State We're In: Maine Stories by Ann Beattie
The Promise: An Elvis Cole and Joe Pike novel by Robert Crais
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
X by Sue Grafton
Avenue of Mysteries by John Irving
The Best American Short Stories 2015 - edited by T. C. Boyle
The Argonauts - a memoir by Maggie Nelson
Begin Again: Collected Poems by Grace Paley

#78 Mollygrace- I loved the little Paris bookshop-I hope you enjoy it!!

My wicked index finger did the one-click thing again today, and I ended up with The Turner House by Angela Flournoy. But I forgave it.

My sister and nephew sent me some books from my Amazon wishlist for Christmas:

Gambling with the Enemy by Toni Leland
Unfinished Business: A Kovak & Quaid Horse Mystery by Toni Leland
Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott
Art Journal Freedom by Dina Wakley

NEW THREAD - https://www.librarything.com/topic/210836