What Books Came Into Your Home Today? - DECEMBER 2007

It's that time. What books were in that big bundle you dragged into the house today?

the quicki A novel by James Patterson about a policewoman who's hubby cheats on her so she retaliates by having sex with a man & sees a crime committed.

Two Viragos from PBS: Frost in May by Antonia White and Winter SOnata by Dorothy Edwards. Plus The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald (but not the Virago edition).

>3 Cariola:: Cariola ... you temptress. It never occurred to me to search PBS for Viragos!

* scurries off to burn some book credits... *

#4 lindsacl, sorry, but you won't find many! I ordered about 18 over the Thanksgiving break. They were ribbing me about it over on the Virago thread. :)

It's the first of the month and I bought two books: The First American by H. W. Brands, and The Cambridge Biographical Dictionary.

>5 Cariola:: Cariola ... I snagged two, and wishlisted several!

While browsing at B&N got Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Then went to the Friends of the Library sale and picked up a new HB copy of Mister Pip for $1.50. Can't beat that.

#7 lindsacl, Hooray! The same seven have been showing up all week; I'm glad there were some among them that you didn't yet have.

I got a PBS windfall of Viragos today:

Year Before Last by Kay Boyle
Devil by the Sea by Nina Bawden
Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann
The Gentlewomen by Laura Talbot
The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by M. Barnard Eldershaw
Bobbin Up by Dorothy Hewett

Went to a big booksale at the downtown library in Biloxi where they had a bag sale for $1. Whatever you can fit in a bag for a $1!!!! I got the following:
We Were the Mulvaneys
Mrs. Dalloway
The Shipping News
Walden
Middlesex
The Things They Carried
Rock Star
Brave New World Revisited
Wuthering Heights
A Widow for One Year
Little Women
and The Great Gatsby

Funny how all these books are on the 1001 list except 1!!! LOL

Picked up Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman the other day and reserved a copy of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill.

#10 raggedtig - Don't you love those library sales?!

I received Cauldron by Jack McDevitt in the mail today! I can hardly wait to get started.

I also picked up three books from the used book store: Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, God's Little Acre and Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell.

**touchstone for Cauldron is incorrect**

From PBS:

Blessed Is the Busybody by Emilie Richards

m or f by Lisa Papademetriou and Chris Tebbetts

I took the kids to Half Price Books and got a few for myself. The Blood of Flowers was discussed here on LT and sounded interesting. I've had my eye on Critical Encounters in High School English for a while but didn't want to pay full price (score!). I also got an old paperback copy of The Graduate, just for curiosity's sake.

#12 Georgia_Dawn Those books sales are the best...especially when they are so unexpected. I'm just so excited about the books I have to read and yet I feel like I'm still missing some great ones. LOL

Yay! Three more Viragos from PBS:

Rising of the Moon by Gladys Mitchell
The Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw
Provincial Daughter by R.M. Dashwood

This is probably a stupid question, but does "PBS" stand for something - all I can think of is Public Broadcasting System, and I know that cannot be correct. A website would be appreciated! Thanks . . .

Paperback Swap. And NOT a stupid question -- you wouldn't believe how much time I spent on the Public B'cast System website looking for good book deals!! LOL.

#10 raggedtig you made out good! About the only thing I could buy in NZ for $1 is some gum lol!

#19 teelgee - Thank you for the help!

I stopped by a fabulous children's bookstore and did some Christmas shopping:

- two sets of the His Dark Materials trilogy The Golden Compass, the Amber Spyglass and the Subtle Knife. One set is for my daughter, and one for my niece.

- The White Giraffe, by Lauren St John

- The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, by John Boyne

- Felicity Wishes, by Emma Thomson (for my 7 yr old) (yes, THAT Emma Thomson--she's so talented)

- Warriors: Firestar's Quest, by Erin Hunter

and then I went to another great bookstore up the street and bought Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley.

I love Christmas shopping. I sneak in gifts for myself too.

I swapped a book at the library today for Apaches by Lorenzo Carcaterra. This book is a fiction unlike his other books.

Dead and Unburied by Felix Bogarte. At last I have all of the Dead Detective books, and never paid more than £1 for any of them !

I received in the mail from Bookmooch:

A Burnt-out Case by Graham Greene (today,Dec.4)

and yesterday:

My Other Life by Paul Theroux
Jungle Lovers by Paul Theroux
Snow by Orhan Pamuk

The post office just delivered my early Christmas present order from Chapters-Indigo.ca:

- An annotated edition of The Waves

- The Virginia Woolf Writers' Workshop: Seven Lessons to Inspire Great Writing (hardback with a really pretty cover), by Danell Jones, and

- The Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Virginia Woolf, by Sarah M. Hall

Does anyone see a trend? :-)

I was pretty amazed to find a hardback copy of Then we came to the end, Joshua Ferris in Oxfam for 2.99 GBP- and therefore couldn't resist :)
Also Bookmooch Russian Disco, by Wladimir Kaminer arrived today.

Picked up some like-new second hand books for my daughter for Xmas at Value Village:
Azur Like It by Wendy Holden
Lucky Stars by Jane Heller
Sushi for Beginners by Marian Keyes
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
and one for me!
Artists in Crime by Ngaio Marsh

Anyone know how to pronounce Ngaio????

I didn't know what Virago was (see postings above)- but as I was posting my message above I looked at the copy of Rebecca - it's a "Virago Modern Classic''!

Oh dihiba -- you just caused a whole bunch of LTers to go apoplectic.

Okay, I'm really revealing my idiocy here, but what makes Virago book so desirable? (Note this question is posed out of ignorance, not as a challenge of tastes!)

#30 - Why?
I don't want to make anyone apoplectic!!!!

I got four Viragos in today's mail:

Mr. Skeffington by Elizabeth von Armin
The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns
The Men's Room by Ann Oakley
Gone to Earth by Mary Webb

#31 Many of the Viragos are out of print and hard to come by. The press was established in the 1980s to publish affordable editions of works written for, about, and primarly by women in the 17th through 20th centuries (and now the 21st). Many of them could be described as "lost" or "underrated" classics. But they vary greatly in style, genre, and content.

cariola, you've restored my very heart!

Dear dihiba, no worry. Just jump on over to Virago Modern Classics and join in the fun!

edited to fix link...

#28 dihiba - I just recently listened to a couple of Ngaio Marsh's books on audiotape and the narrator pronounced her name Ni (long i sound) - o (long o sound). Hope this helps.

Thanks! Certainly not what I would have guessed it to be : )

#33 Cariola: Thanks for the clarification - now I'm really resisting the urge to start another list of things I need to collect!

Received Charlotte Bronte's Villette from a BookMoocher in Greece the other day, and Patricia McKillip's The Forgotten Beasts of Eld from PBS. I also stopped at a thrift store and found Kostova's The Historian and some other books I had been wanting.

*sighs happily*

From Paperback Swap:

Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye by Victoria Laurie

Picked up a couple at the library today: The Quiet American by Graham Greene and also The Kill Artist by Daniel Silva.

I also received a package today from the Strand Bookstore with a copy of the final book in the WWI series by Anne Perry, We Shall Not Sleep.

From my bookstore wandering today: A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas.

And a surprise gift from a dear friend: Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell. Love those surprises!!!

Borrowed from the local library last night:

The Steep Approach to Garbadale by Iain Banks
Roots by Alex Haley

I keep getting sent money off vouchers by Borders, which ya gotta use really, haven't you, to buy stuff like:

All The King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell
The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs by Damon Galgut
Killer in the Rain by Raymond Chandler
The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor
The Collected Dorothy Parker
Wrong About Japan by Peter Carey
The Heart is a Lonley Hunter by Carson McCullers
Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy

I didn't just buy books for myself today! Though I couldn't buy presents at the discount bookshop, where I got:

At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien
for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf and other plays by Ntozake Shange, cos my drama teacher stole my copy about 9 years ago...
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
A replacement copy of Heart of Darkness, cos I just appear to have lost that.
The Way We Live Now cos I've seen several people raving about Anthony Trollope so I quite fancy getting in on the fun!

Excitingly, I also bought myself two Christmas presents: the new War and Peace translation in a lovely pretty nice edition. Nice books make me happy! And also Wordsworth and Coleridge, which I think I may have been sold on by the fact that the two maps at the front of the book are the two parts of England I love the most. I was wavering before that, but afterwards I had to! I did also buy Christmas presents for other people, though I can't possibly comment on them here.... though the possibilities of either my Dad or hubby wandering around checking my posts on LT are pretty remote!

I got the memoirs of a beautiful boy by Robert Leleux which is an Early Reviewer's book.

I got Vellum by Hal Duncan, The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon and Bangkok Haunts by John Burdett at the library this week. This should make for a great weekend on the couch!

I bought the course books for the two English classes I'm taking starting in January:

Measure for Measure
King Lear
The Tempest
Twelfth Night
The Winter's Tale
All of these are Shakespeare. The only time I've studied a Shakespeare play was way back in grade 10 when we did Julius Caesar. I was totally confused the entire time. I'm so much older now, so I hope I'm also wiser! If anyone has any tips on reading plays, please send them my way.

For my other course I bought:

Lady Audley's Secret, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Bleak House, by Charles Dickens
(This course also covers Jane Eyre and The Confessions of an English Opium Eater, both of which I've already read)

I also picked up a copy of The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood, just because it was a nice edition.

I'm tired just taking these all up to the cashier--let alone reading them all between now and the end of March!

A trip to town & a stop at the town library. The discard carts yielded: The plot against America Philip Roth, The mosquito coast A short history of tractors in UkrainianThe collected short stories of Katherine Anne Porter & Pastoral by Neville Shute in the 1944 edition.

>46 Nickelini: Nickelini: Re: Shakespeare plays - If you can, read them out loud. You'll get the rhythm of the language much better than if you read silently.

Go out of town for a couple of weeks and what do you come back to? Boxes of books!! Received several by Martin Gilbert: The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War, The Righteous, The Boys: The untold story of 732 young concentration camp survivors, and Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century. I also received 6 Lyn Hamilton books in her archaeological mystery series. Plus The Know-It-All, A Reader's Guide Book, and Habits of the Mind. Whew!! Should keep me busy for a long while.

#46 I teach Shakespeare. That's an unusual list. I'll be teaching Twelfth Night and The Winter's Tale next semester and just finished teaching King Lear. Here are some tips I hand out on reading plays:

How to Read a Play

1. Always read the introduction. It may provide a plot synopsis, insights into characters and themes, or information about the playwright or his audience.

2. Be prepared to use your imagination--visualize and hear what you read. It may be helpful to create an imaginary cast of actors with whom you are familiar and ‘play the movie’ in your head as you read.

3. Pay attention to the list of characters and any information or description the playwright has provided.

4. Pay attention to gestures, movements, costumes, and props specified in stage directions which are usually bracketed and italicized, like this or implied in dialogue.

5. Keep in mind the kind of theater and the audience for which the play was written.

6. If the playwright describes the locale and furnishings, try to visualize the set.

7. Pay attention to notes on the lighting.

8. Pay attention to any sound effects specified in the dialogue or stage directions.

9. Be aware of silences, including pauses within speeches and between speeches.

10. Pay attention to dialogue, but remember that characters--like people in real life--can’t always be trusted. Sometimes they are deceitful; sometimes they say what they honestly think but are mistaken.

Some Additional Tips for Reading Shakespeare
Although Shakespeare wrote in modern English (NOT Old or Middle English), his language can be difficult for student readers. Have faith! Like any “foreign” language, the more Shakespeare you read, the easier it will become to understand. Here are a few tips for getting started.

Read a scene straight through, without stopping to look up unfamiliar words. Many of these words are defined in footnotes in our text, but you can figure out most of them on your own by reading them in context. Stopping to look them up disrupts your train of thought and slows down your reading process. Check the footnotes after you’ve finished reading the scene.

Don’t get hung up by the verse. Shakespeare’s most common meter is iambic pentameter--the most common meter in our own everyday speech. Instead of focusing on the fact that most of the words are set into poetic lines, let the rhythm and punctuation guide your reading. Don’t stop at the end of a line unless there is punctuation there. Pause briefly when you see a comma; pause a little longer when you see a colon or semicolon and longer still when you come to a period. Try reading out loud--your breath, the sounds of the words themselves, and the rhythm of the lines will help you.

While you should never use study guides (like Cliff’s Notes) as a substitute for the original text, they can be helpful accompanying tools. Some students prefer to read a scene summary before tackling it in Shakespeare’s language; others “check” their own reading afterwards. But be careful! At worst, these guides often contain substantial errors; at best, they limit possible interpretations and distort the power of the original language. Remember that teachers have access to them, too; most of us routinely check “suspicious” student work against Cliff’s Notes and web sites. Don’t rely solely on films and videotapes either. While they can help us understand what’s going on, they offer only one director’s interpretation of a play and often cut, add, rewrite, or rearrange lines and scenes.

Keep a pencil and paper beside you as you read. Jot down questions, notes on characters, things that interest or confuse you, ideas that might be explored further in class discussion or in a paper. If you don’t understand something, don’t hesitate to ask the instructor to explain.

#46 Reading aloud does help--better yet if you can get a group of people together to read the various parts.

#42 Borders got me today as well. I came home with Nigella Express--another cookbook I really didn't need but couldn't resist.

After waiting a whole month, my Amazon package came:
Candide by Voltaire
The Misanthrope by Moliere
Vertigo by W.G. Sebald
Top 10 Copenhagen (Guess where we're going for Christmas?).

And on top of this, we got two large Amazon parcels that have gifts from the family inside. The suspense is killing me!

#50- Cariola

Wow! Spectacular tips. Thanks a lot. I'm printing it out now. Very much appreciated.

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy.

I've ordered a few Virago Modern Classics from Paperbackswap, and the first arrived today: The Ladies of Lyndon, by Margaret Kennedy (poor woman, no touchstone!)

Got a bonus at work and decided to (partially) spend it on myself. Went to B&N an got:

The Zookeeper's Wife
The Lost, a Search for Six of the Six Million
Sundown, Yellow Moon by Larry Watson whose work I really like (besides, his novels are always placed close to where I grew up, so the settings are familiar)

Well at a holiday street fair last night, I went into a nice little used bookstore and picked up:

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner for $4

the first edition hardcover of Acts of Worship by Yukio Mishima for $9

and The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats in hardcover for $8

:) just what I needed, a bigger TBR pile hahahaha

I did my Christmas shopping on Amazon and all the books came in today...
Dangerous Book for Boys (2 copies)
The Daring Book for Girls
Twinkie Deconstructed
All Cats have Asperger syndrome
The Pirate Primer
Plus a slew of books for the kiddos (the first two are going to adults, not kids).

Two more Viragos from PBS arrived today:

Who Was Changed and WHo Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
Lantana Lane by Eleanor Dark

From the library:

The Land of Women by Regina McBride

Quartet in autumn by Barbara Pym

Cakes and ale for the Pagan soul by Patricia Telesco

#50 Cariola: Wow - That's a wonderful way to describe how to read drama, of any kind! Mind if I steal some of your tips for my Classical Lit. classes?

I got 28 books at a Library book sale this week..I even got some cutesy chit lit...(3) ha ha

#50 scaifea, be my guest!

#50- I teach Shakespeare. That's an unusual list. I'll be teaching Twelfth Night and The Winter's Tale next semester and just finished teaching King Lear.
------------------

Hi, again Cariola

The course is a third-year university class titled "Late Shakespeare". There is another class called "Early Shakespeare." The course description says that we're reading two tragedies, two comedies and two romances. My ten-year old daughter and I had a fun time trying to categorize the books based on the cover illustrations. The woman on the cover of Measure for Measure was so extremely ugly, we couldn't see how the book could be either comedy or romance, and that it must really be a tragedy :-)

#64 Oh, I love Measure for Measure, but it has never been too popular with my students. It's a tough one to categorize--usually considered a comedy because there is a marriage at the end, but see how you feel about it . . . More often it's called a "problem play" because it doesn't fit neatly anywhere.

You listed five plays; what's the sixth one?

I love teaching the late plays. It's so obvious that Shakespeare is thinking about going home to Stratford to be with his daughters. You'll find that King Lear, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest are all about daughters who "redeem" their fathers in one way or another.

We just offer one Shakespeare course, so I try to span the years. They will start with Titus Andronicus and end this time with the Winter's Tale.

#65 Cariola: When I took a Shakespeare class in college, the Prof (one of the best I ever took a class from), on the day he lectured on A Winter's Tale, had his wife dress up in a bear suit and, about 15 minutes before the end of the class period, she ran in and chased him out of the classroom. He didn't come back (that day) and never explained it to the class - I only found out because I had an appointment with him in his office hours later that day and the bear suit was draped over a chair in his office. It was fantastic!

I took Shakespeare in college and still have my Riverside Shakespeare. I enjoy looking back at my marginalia, written in purple ink, and the dried rosebuds from my old college boyfriends that I tucked in between the pages of my favorite plays (including The Winter's Tale).

No professor's wives in bear suits, though. =)

#65- You listed five plays; what's the sixth one?

-------

Ooops! Hamlet, one of the biggies.

#58: Kaelirenee,

All Cats have Asperger syndrome

------------

That's an interesting title. It sounds like a humorous book. Is it?

#68 I was just curious. I will be teaching these plays next semester:

Titus Andronicus
Henry V
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Merchant of Venice
Twelfth Night
Macbeth
The Winter's Tale

I change a few of them every semester and try to mix up the unfamiliar with the familiar (done more in depth than they probably had in high school). I just finidhed Pericles last week.

#66 Where can I find Rent-a-Bear?

Books that I obtained today (gift and book order from Daedalus):

Musicophilia : Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks

War and Peace - the new translation

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

Need to do some weight training before I tackle the last two - they weigh a ton!

teelgee: I know what you mean - I'm getting the new War and Peace in hardback for Christmas and I feel like I'm going to have to engineer some cunning book supporting solution if I'm going to be able to read it in bed (reading place of choice)!

I have so far received Mooches
Russian Disco - Wladimir Kaminer ; I requested this after visiting Berlin in October
and Oxygen- Andrew Miller; this was recommended to me by Amazon.
*bringing up the 'wrong' touchstone for Oxygen :P

#70 Cariola: Well, I took the class as an undergrad at Indiana University, but I think the prof has since retired (ugh, I'm getting old!). If I had a bear costume and lived nearby, I'd love to help you out - it was such a great idea, since you could tell that some people hadn't read the play and were completely confused, but those of us who had completed the reading assignment (oh, I was *such* a good student :)) were taken aback at first, but then laughed for a good long while!

>#71 teelgee: Do enjoy Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell! I loved it.

Cariola, your tips were great. I'm saving them, if I may.

A treasure trove arrived today!

From a Secret Santa, We Need to Talk about Kevin, which I heard about here on LT and am very much looking forward to reading.

From a thoughtful fellow LT member, two Viragos: Jenny Wren, and Devoted Ladies.

And from Paperbackswap, another Virago, The Gentlewomen.

Woo - hoo!!

More Viragos here as well:

Poor Caroline by Winifred Holtby
The Blush by Elizabeth Taylor
The Third Miss Symons by F.M. Mayor
Circles of Deceit by Nina Bawden

#75 wisewoman, be my guest--glad they were helpful!

Got in an audiobook today: The Golden One by Elizabeth Peters. I am currently re-listening to the entire series, and did not have that one. Just an early Christmas present from me to me.

Another glorious book-catching day. From a Secret Santa: The Rainaldi Quartet by Paul Adam and The Women of Scranton, a pictorial history.

And a totally unexpected surprise: Aimee and Jaguar by Erica Fischer.

Yummy! I love surprises!

Apparently the book I bought off of Half.com has been here longer than a week, waiting in the office, only the postman never left me a notice!

Anyway, The Constitution of Liberty by F.A. Hayek arrived, and I'm a bit disappointed because the seller listed it as a "brand new book," but it is actually yellowed with water stains on the cover. *sigh* unfortunately I can't wait long enough to send it back and get a replacement copy.

>76 lauralkeet: lindsacl

Do you know last year I was buying 3-4-2 paperbacks as Xmas presents and allowed myself We need to talk about Kevin as a treat- which I still haven't read !
so many books, so little time ...

#69-
All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome isn't really a funny book. It's a picture book written to explain the symptoms of Asperger Syndrome. Cats are the subject of every picture. I think I'm one of the few people who just keeps buying copies of it for everyone. Some of it is good for a chuckle and the pictures are really cute. I think the book is excellent for read-alouds in classrooms (especially inclusive classrooms) or to help children better communicate how they feel about their AS. I give it to family members to explain my son's autism (AS is a form of autism). We're very positive about his condition and I want them to read a book that's positive and upbeat rather than one that's all about overcoming something or how odd they are. I also gave one to a sister-in-law who teachest kids with AS.

Just received in the mail,
Good Omens and a Jasper Fforde - Something Rotten, for fiction.

For my mind and soul Moving toward balance: 8 weeks of Yoga.

#84-Have fun with the Jasper Fforde book! I always reread The Eyre Affair when I want something fun to read, though I haven't read the rest of the series nearly as many times.

Went to Goodwill today and bought myself Dune and Lord of the Flies for a buck a piece. Goodwill has some great books every so often.

Treasures from the library:

Critical Space by Greg Rucka

Iced by Carol Higgins Clark

Run by Ann Patchett

Evans to Betsy by Rhys Bowen

Open Season by C.J. Box

Literary Murder by Batya Gur

Grievous Sin by Faye Kellerman

Saturday by Ian McEwan

The Master by Colm Toibon

The Giver by Lois Lowry, which I have heard wonderful things about here on Library Thing

Yet another surprise in the mail today: Madras on Rainy Days by Samina Ali. Boy, do I feel lucky!!!

My first December purchase. I'm glad I was able to find this again, the last copy!

The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 17, edited by Stephen Jones

#64 & 65 - Measure for Measure is an odd play, but it's one of my favorites.

Yesterday I came home to a gift

Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis

and two books I had ordered from Amazon.

Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet, and Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson.

I just picked up The Gathering by Anne Enright from the library.

For a winter class: Category 5 by Ernest Zebrowski and Judith A. Howard

Miriam, at first I was a bit skeptical about Warren Ellis's Crooked Little Vein, but I laughed all the way through it, and have recommended it several times since.

I checked out a few library books today:
Kitchen Literacy-this is a great one for people who are interested in the whole food movement or who just wonder what in the heck goes into making our foods and how we got to this point.
Heavy Words, lightly thrown
A Natural History of Families

Received another audiobook today: The Grilling Season by Diane Mott Davidson.

In my P.O. Box today I received The Calling by Jennifer Ashley via Bookmooch.

# 93 - Louis, oh good. I've read Transmetropolitan (the first volume) and have been looking forward to reading this one.

I had a bad day at work and then got totally gypped by my Secret Santa. (Microwave popcorn and a three-hole punch.) I consoled myself with a trip to Half Price Books and got A Good and Happy Child, The Almond Picker, and For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. I feel better now.

I ordered Edible Woman and Packaging Girlhood from Barnes & Noble. I had a 25% coupon & ended up paying $21 for two books.

From the library:

The Art of Emily Carr
And on audio: The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

Picked up Choke and Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk.

#100 - teelgee - I bet The Penelopiad would sound interesting on audio book - with the maids in a Greek-like chorus and the narrator so very sarcastic...

In the mail yesterday, I got To Infinity and Beyond, which has nothing to do with the Pixar movie. It's a textbook for a class I'm sitting in on next semester called Surprises at Infinity - I'm a humanities prof, and math still scares me a bit, so I thought I'd try to broaden my knowledge just a bit. I'm really looking forward to it!

From the library, the next book on my reading list: Barbara Pym's Excellent Women.

And whaddaya know, there's a library book sale on through December 31, $2/bag. In a show of remarkable restraint (well actually I was short on time), I came away with only two: A.S. Byatt's Possession, and The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat.

I was up at the Persephone bookshop today, picking up Christmas presents (two Miss Pettigrews, Mariana, The Fortnight In September and The Far Cry) - they discount every third book so I had a good excuse to buy The Victorian Chaise-Longue for myself - finally! - I've been wanting it for ages...

I treated myself to a trip to HPB today, and came home rich! I got

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds
The Three Muskateers by Alexandre Dumas
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

Not a bad haul for under $20. Also, although I didn't realize it at the time, when I came home I discovered that all but the Alastair Reynolds book are from the 1001 list, so bonus there, I guess.

Picked up Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Betrayal by Aaron Allston and Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines by Karen Traviss.

My folks are here for a visit which means a trip to Barnes & Noble which means a stack of books for me as prezzies. Today I got

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
I am Legend by Richard Matheson
The Butcher of St Peter's by Michael Jecks
Master of Souls by Peter Tremayne
Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon
Moon Flights by Elizabeth Moon
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow

I picked up Do What Thou Wilt: a life of Aleister Crowley at Borders today. I also received a like new copy of pride and prejudice in the mail from Amazon that I got for a penny plus shipping. =)

Now no more books until I read ten. I'm doing the 50 book challenge starting on the first and I vowed to only buy 1 book for every 10 I read. My TBR pile is getting somewhat large. haha.

From a book share:
Life Class by Pat Barker

and another unexpected gift:
A Child's Christmas in Wales

From Amazon:
Listening is an Act of Love : A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project by Dave Isay

and apparently another gift book in the Amazon box, which my partner grabbed out of my hands before I could open it!

I received a $25 Borders gift card from my employer and picked up Atonement by Ian McEwan and The Gathering by Anne Endwright today - I must have been in a Booker mood!

Lucky you, mrstreme, both of those are just sublime.

If downloaded audio books count for coming into my home today, I purchased Jim Dale's reading of A Christmas Carol. It's divine.

I came home today to 2 packages. One with 3 Bookmooched gems:
Trouble on Planet Earth
War with the Evil Power Master
Escape
(All Choose Your Own Adventure Books)

The other contained the second of two textbooks for the math class I'm sitting in on next semester: Journey through Genius by William Dunham.

Then, at work, through the mail I received a complimentary copy of the new Twelve Lives of the Caesars by Suetonius. Free book - yay!

#112 - LouisBranning - thank you! I am really looking forward to reading them both - they're burning holes on my bookshelf.

Yesterday Once on a winter's night a traveller popped through my door from Bookmooch, which I'm deeply excited about!

And today Journey to the West, Volume 2 arrived. Yay for books :-D

More Christmas shopping for me! Yesterday I went to a used bookstore in downtown Vancouver that seemed to have every book in the world. I brought home:

The Sea, by John Banville, which I now hear is boring (oh well)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, by Louis de Bernieres
Going After Cacciato, by Tim O'Brien
The Bloody Chamber, by Angela Carter
and
a signed edition of The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

I went gift shopping and grabbed a couple for ME that I've wanted for awhile:

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Possession by A.S. Byatt

Plus a couple more Viragos I found lolling about on the shelves just begging to be sent far and wide!

Two Viragos, both by ELlzabeth Taylor: Palladian and The Devastating Boys.

Visited the local library secondhand store and came away with:

Blood Ties by C.C. Humphreys (anyone know this one? it's about Anne Boleyn's executioner)
Duplicate Death by Georgette Heyer
Betrayal by Karin Alvtegen
Bad Blood by Lorna Sage
What was She Thinking? (Notes on a Scandal) by Zoe Heller
The Kingdom by the Sea by Paul Theroux
A Civil Tongue by Edwin Newman
The Long Divorce by Edmund Crispin
Piranha to Scurfy by Ruth Rendell
The Grave Tattoo by Val McDermid

Also got 4 to add to my Mooch inventory and a hardcover Nelson DeMille Up Country for my brother for Xmas!

I've been trying to keep a lid on aquisitions this month (short on money and shelving), but a few snuck in anyway:
Conservatives Without Conscience by John Dean ,was on sale for less than half price. Current events AND on sale, how could I resist.
Pyramids by Terry Pratchett, life without Pratchett is just not fun
Griffin's Daughter, autographed, a gift for my nephew
The Other Bible, a gift from a friend

dihiba - that's good going. Notes On A Scandal is an excellent read, and I love Edmund Crispin. Time to curl up under a duvet or by a fire and get reading!

wandering_star - I didn't realize Notes on a Scandal was what the movie was based on until I got home and looked it over. I saw the movie, look forward to the book.
I don't know Edmund Crispin at all - a new BritCrime read for me!

Treasures in from the library (I was stocking up before the holidays):

A Christmas Beginning by Anne Perry

Slander by Ann Coulter

Denying the Holocaust by Deborah Lipstadt

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

Noah's Choice: The Future of Endangered Species by Charles Mann

A Death in Vienna by Daniel Silva

The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America by George Nash

Several that have been recommended on LibraryThing:

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer

Cultural Amnesia by Clive James

Bootlegger's Daughter by Deborah Maron

Christ the Lord by Anne Rice

The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

Experiment with Death by E.X. Ferrars

and finally, The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs

Another rare and happy find at a bargain bookstore!

Tombs, edited by Peter Crowther and Edward E. Kramer

I was buying gifts for hubby & my sister, which just happened to be in a 3 for 2! And Paul Auster's Travels in the Scriptorium just looked too tempting. So I gave in.

While buying something for Mum, I also picked up The Adventures of Captain Alatriste for £1 cos I've been tempted by some other Arturo Perez-Reverte novels, and it seemed like it should be a fun read at least!

Author touchstones are on strike...

New today:

ron carlson writes a story, a gift from a writer friend

the backwash squeeze and other improbable feats, about the history of the game of bridge, for my mother but I might read it too

and

ex libris, which I learned about in the groups on LT!

A funny little number called Food Play, by the Play with your Food people.

Just brought home from the library, Run by Ann Patchett and Into the Wild, which I want to read before I see the movie.

I hate seeing a movie knowing there is a book and I haven't read it yet. I always wonder, how they are messing with the real story.

I haven't read Bernard Cornwellyet, supposedly very good historical fiction writer, if a bit heavy on the war/battle stuff. I have a couple on my TBR shelf, and got The Lords of the North at the Sally Ann today. It's the third in a series - hmm.....guess I'm on the hunt for the first two : )

In from Amazon.com today: Bound to Please by Michael Dirda. Having read his memoir, An Open Book already, I am looking forward to reading this one as well.

#124 alcottacre I just finished Christ the Lord a couple weeks ago and really enjoyed it. Tell me what you think.

I fought so hard today to not buy any books because my mom bought some for me for Christmas. Our local discount store had a shipment from a bookstore and so many were calling to me from the shelves, but I had to shut them out! Poor books. :0(

Library scores today:

The Muse Asylum by David Czuchlewski - came highly recommended by some LT folks. And The Portable Dorothy Parker.

Yesterday - an Early Reviewer book arrived - The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block which has gotten nothing but rave reviews so far. Good reading for the holiday week!! woo hoo!

Touchstones are taking a complete holiday.

I received a pleasant surprise, an ARC of a book that's not coming out until June. It's The Seven Sins by Jon Land.

My SantaThing books, Queen Isabella and Ethan Frome. The latter was a bit of a surprise, but more than likely right up my alley given my tastes in fiction. (Brenda Dayne did a good reading of The Age of Innocence for LibriVox.)

My family exchanged a few Christmas gifts early today and I ended up getting The Republic and Other Works by Plato, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri and The Aenied by Virgil.

I got the following books yesterday, Christmas gifts for my boyfriend:

Infinity War by Jim Starlin
The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks
The Wishsong of Shannara by Terry Brooks

I had a really great weekend for books - how am I ever going to read all these when I already have a big backlog? Ah, the joys of loving books.

Via SantaThing:

Four Tenths of an Acre: Reflections on a Gardening Life by Laurie Lisle
Prairie Winterscape: Creative Gardening for the Forgotten Season by Barbara Kam

From December Early Reviewers:

Saraminda by Jose Sarney

While Christmas shopping for others:

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

The following are books that have come in the house in the last week:

Fiction:

The Snow Empress by Laura Joh Rowland
Cloud Atlas picked up for $1
Gone for Soldiers ditto, and
Peter and the Shadow Thieves

Non-Fiction:

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, which I've already read from the library, but bought for reference with a gift card

Holiday gifts for me include:

Getting a Grip : clarity, creativity and courage in a world gone mad by Frances Moore Lappe.

Seize the Daylight : the curious and contentious story of daylight savings time by David Prerau

Lifelines : How Personal Writing Can Save Your Life by Christina Baldwin (audio0.

I imagine this thread will be pretty busy tomorrow!!!

Here's a holiday miracle: touchstones are working this morning!!!!

Early Christmas presents from mommy:

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

Disciplines of a Godly Man by R. Kent Hughes

I got my SantaThing books!!!

Blaming the Victim by William Ryan
The Master by Colm Toibin.

So excited!!! :)

Another Christmas gift, I got Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Tempest by Troy Denning.

Christmas presents!

Storm Front
No Ordinary Time
A History of the Pulitzer Prize Plays

Plus a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble and a $50 gift card to Borders. I feel some book buying coming on.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

And $100 gc to Books Inc.

I'm a bit upset that my family didn't get me any books for xmas :(
Maybe they figured I have enough to be getting on with with all the Bookmooch packages I always seem to be receiving...

I gave my dad Cloud Atlas as it was one I enjoyed this year.

I didn't get any books for Christmas, so I went to Borders and treated myself:

Marley and Me by John Grogan
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Coal Black Horse by Robert Olmstead
Negotiating With The Dead by Margaret Atwood

Most of these were on the bargain table!

Then, I met my friend for lunch, and she's letting me borrow:

Children of God by Mary Doria Russell
A bunch of Tim Dorsey books, in preparation for ER book: Orange Crush, Triggerfish Twist and Hammerhead Ranch Motel. These have AWESOME book covers!

Not a bad haul!

Picked up from the treasure house (my local library) today:

Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson, which I have seen recommended here on LT

The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd

Modern Times by Paul Johnson

Coming out of the Ice by Victor Herman, another LT recommendation

Ripples of Battle by Victor Hanson

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones, a book highly recommended on Library Thing

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill
Ally by Karen Traviss
Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Exile by Aaron Allston

I received Logorrhea (edited by John Klima) as a Christmas present, and finally found White Jenna by Jane Yolen yesterday. There was only one copy in the bookstore, and I was so thrilled to get it because I've been looking for this for years! I already have The One-Armed Queen, but couldn't start because I want to read White Jenna first. At last!

I had Murder of Angels by Caitlin R. Kiernan in the mail today. I ordered it quite a while ago and am excited to read it. I love her books.

(Sorry, touchstones aren't loading)

Bookmooch:
Z for Zachariah by Robert C O'brien. I wanted to read this after a piece on it in the Review section

http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2219749,00.html

One in today's mail: Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris. I have read her Southern Mysteries series featuring Sookie as well as her Shakespeare series, but this will be the first for me in the newer Harper Connelly series.

Touchstones not working at all for some reason.

From my LT Secret Santa, I received On Agate Hill by Lee Smith and Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, and I also received my ER book - Atomic Lobster by Tim Dorsey.

No touchstones, unfortunately.

And the TBR pile gets higher and higher! =)

I knew I wasn't destined to receive books for Christmas so I ordered myself some manga from Amazon which came in yesterday:

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle Volume 12
Cardcaptor Sakura Volume 5
Sensual Phrase Volumes 10 and 11

I also went back over to my local indie store and picked up Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle Volume 14 since I was tickled they actually had it in stock and I knew I'd be chomping at the bit to read it after volume 13 which I already had at home.

Some on-line purchases arrived:

Art books:

Sister Wendy's American Collection
Ansel Adams 400 Photographs

Fiction and Non-Fiction:

Charlotte's Web
Do You Remember Me? A Father, a Daughter and a Search for the Self
Infidel
Half a Yellow Sun

Two audio books from the library:

Pontoon written and read by Garrison Keillor

I Feel Bad about my Neck : and other thoughts on being a woman written and read by Nora Ephron

Some fun listening to look forward to.

I received two new Barbara Pyms from Paperbackswap: Quartet in Autumn and No Fond Return of Love. Earlier this week I received Jane and Prudence, so I have a little Pym TBR going now.

Two in from the library today:

Flying Colours by C.S. Forester in my continuing quest to read through the Horatio Hornblower series

The Founders of the Western World by Michael Grant, recommended on Library Thing

Half Off sale at Barnes & Noble:

Slam by Nick Hornby
Bones to Ashes: A Novel by Kathy Reichs

Two books came in the mail today :)

From Bookmooch I received Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife
and from TitleTrader I received House Sand and Fog

Purchased two books online (used from Amazon)..
Boy Still Missing and Housewrights

>158 lauralkeet: lindsacl : I recently read Quartet in Autumn and thought it a very good read. Enjoy your Pym-fest!

From the In-Laws for Christmas:

The Complete Idiot's Guide to The Ultimate Reading List (I'm pretty sure this isn't a comment on my intelligence, since they ordered it off my amazon wishlist!)

100 Knitting Projects - also from my wishlist.

December reading:
Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman, Ms Moffett's First Year, and Giving by Bill Clinton. I do love my Public Library, where all of these came from.

Those Christmas book tokens got spent on:

Lust, Caution by Eileen Chang
Piercing by Ryu Murakami
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo
Erasure by Percival Everett
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now by Andrew Collins

and perhaps best of all

Jeeves and Wooster Omnibus by PG Wodehouse

I went to the CSI: The Experience exhibit at the Museum of Science today, and came home with The Bone Lady by Mary H. Manheim, as well as Written in Bones, a fascinating book about forensic archaeology.

I picked these up at the library today.Swan Dive by Jeremiah Healy,The Ever Running by Marcia Muller,Unhinged by Sarah Graves and Out Of The Deep I Cry by Julia Spencer-Fleming. Snow tonight so I should be OK

Yay! I got several items from my wishlist. The first three are gifts from my boyfriend:

Salon Fantastique edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
Gothic! edited by Deborah Noyes
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Sexy by Joyce Carol Oates

Stopped by our Goodwill store today - I swear their books are better organized than most book stores! For under $18 I picked up:

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers
Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz
Night by Elie Wiesel
That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx
The Mating Season by P.G. Wodehouse

and even found a Virago, which will go to an LTer who collects them!

Picked up 3 from HPB today:

Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde - hardcover on clearance for $2

The Torment of Others by Val McDermid - I've not read anything of hers before, but she is recommended here on LT - hardcover on clearance for $3

Simply Love by Mary Balogh

Not bad for under $10!

Hitman by parnell Hall.A new author for me

165>
I know this is an old thread, and I am going off topic, but I have a question about Erasure by Percival Everett. Do you, or anyone reading this, know what the entry on page 186 means? It merely says, "Numbers 23, 24". I would appreciate any possible interpretations. Of course, my first thought was a Biblical reference, but I don't see how that fits. HELP!