I Recently Bought

OK, I'll start this one here, since I don't want to join yet another group, and I've actually have purchased a number of books. Roaming through the libraries here can be a horrible temptation to the impulse book purchaser. And there are those things I'm reminded that I always wanted to read as well:

The Old Gods Waken
Divorcing Jack
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ape
In The Realms of the Unreal -John G. H. Oakes
The Archivist
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
Seahorse in the Sky
Chateau d'Argol
We Almost Lost Detroit
Last Summer -Evan Hunter
The Secret of Lost Things
The Glorious Deception
The Magician and the Cardsharp
Nest in a Falling Tree
North -Celine
Rigadoon
Castle to Castle -Celine

Hey I just found out the touchstones that don't seem to work, will work if you bracket the book AND the author. Did everyone know that except me, or did I just discover radium ;)?

"Hey I just found out the touchstones that don't seem to work, will work if you bracket the book AND the author. Did everyone know that except me, or did I just discover radium ;)?"

No, I think you just discovered radium... :D

I just got a book from Book Mooch

The Promise of Joy by Allen Drury. It is the co-ending book for the Advise and Consent series.

I can't remember if I read the last 2 books or even had them at some point (they were my parents' books), but they somehow never made it to my place in the last move.

I haven't been buying many books recently. I moved over the summer and my wife pitched a fit over how many books I have, so I decided it might be politic to work on the "to be read" stack for awhile.

But, I couldn't resist the $0.25 shelf at one of the two used book stores in my new home town (Birmingham, AL), from which I came away with

Vineland
The Difference Engine
Venus Plus X
Mona Lisa Overdrive
Forbidden Planets
No Truce with Kings / Ship of Shadows
Cities in Flight
and Homer Price which I loved as a kid, and I've managed to get my eight year old hooked on.

Nothing like the $.25 shelf. I think 80% of my book collection is from the $.25 shelf. ;)

It might be too old school for some folks, but I got a kick out of Venus Plus X...

I have to update this thread with some books I forgot to list from earlier in the month:

From Book Mooch:

Nemesis by Chalmers Johnson
The 3rd in the Blowback Trilogy.

I now have books 1 and 3 of the trilogy, and book 2 is on the way from Book Mooch also.

I found BM a great way to get rid of duplicate books that I don't want, and to get books I do want, but don't necessarily want to buy.

URL: http://www.bookmooch.com/

Then from Bookcloseouts.com

Fowl Weather by Bob Tarte
A non-fiction memoir type of book about how a man went from pet-phobic, to pet-centric. This is the 2nd volume (after Enslaved by Ducks) and tells the story of how his wife converted him, to start, and then slowly he turns their home into a farm, as the animals themselves have their way with him.

The Tent of Orange Mist by Paul West
A book about the consequences of the Japanese rape of Nanking (China), during WWII. Looks at the plight of intellectuals and artists, through the story of the young daughter of one, who is caught and forced into prostitution in her own house when it is taken over by the Chinese.

This site has books from all over the world at discount prices. Some are oop, and others are not. They are located in Canada and NY. The advantage over Amazon's Marketplace is the shipping is less expensive, rather than the $3.99 a book.

http://www.bookcloseouts.com/

My Latest books:

The Fall of Rome by Michael Curtis Ford
Shadow of the Scorpion by Neal Asher
Thirty-Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill
Anarchy and Old Dogs by Colin Cotterill
Disco for the Departed by Colin Cotterill
The Snake Stone by Jason Goodwin
The Undead Kama Sutra by Mario Acevedo
Mona Lisa Awakening by Sunny
The Ravening by Dawn Thompson
Midnight's Daughter by Karen Chance
In The Woods by Tana French
The Return by Hakan Nesser
Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis by Cara Black

From Book Mooch:

All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot
The Sorrows of Empire by Chalmers Johnson

Just ordered two short story collections by Raymond Carver:

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Anyone else like this guy? Might make a topic about him. I know Ficus isn't into short stories too much, but damn Carver is good.

I had a couple more book mooches come in, and an order from Amazon Marketplace

Book Mooch:

Geisha by Liza Dalby, non-fiction, from the UK
Out of the Sun by Robert Goddard, the 2nd in the Harry Barnett series. This one came from Australia, and was traveling for 2 months !

From Amazon

Cheops by Paul West
I had this on my wishlist since 2003. I was waiting for it to go into paper. It never did, so I finally broke down and bought it (used).

My latest new books:

Butcher Bird by Richard Kadrey
An urban fantasy about parallel worlds with magic leaking into our world because of a conflict between the elder beings whose job it is to keep them apart.

Collision Course by William Shatner
A book set in the original Star Trek universe, Shatner version. It is about young Spock and Kirk and time at Starfleet Academy. Its a guilty pleasure that I may regret.

I am a fan of the original series, but haven't read media tie-ins since I was a teen. Don't really like them as an adult. But given the subject I thought I would try the first book in the series. I have never ready any of the Shatner verse books, apparently he shreds the continuity/cannon of the story.

The Black Ship by Diana Pharaoh Francis
Part of the Crosspointe series. Fantasy with sailing ships, magic, politics and adventure

Heart and Soul Soul of Fire Heart of Light by Sarah Hoyt
A fantasy set in an alternate reality: a Victorian British Empire that never was. Magic, dragons, magic jewels, and travel all over the world.

Radio Freefall by Matthew Jarpe
A new author, who is a friend of one of the people in my RL SFF book group. The cover says its a cyber punk, rock and roll, updated version of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress but set on earth. It is our January read.

True Confessions of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend
Book 3 in the Adrian Mole series. I got this via a Book Mooch from Austria. It is OOP here in the US.

Tengu by John Donohue
Book 3 in the Conner Burke Martial Arts series. I got if through the Early Reviewer program on LT.

I had a couple of Book Mooches come in

The Lord God Made Them All by James Herriot
The 4th book (USA) of the life and stories of a Yorkshire vet.

Seasons of Plenty by Colin Greenland
The 2nd book in the Plenty series, a space opera.

I found at BJs

Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan.
Set in New England, about the last shift at a Red Lobster restaurant that is being closed because its a failure. Wackiness ensues.

Which is accurate because no real New Englander is going to eat Lobster at a chain. The standard lobster on their menu is warm water, from South America. The Maine Lobster is like $25.00 or higher, and you can go to the beach (or the supermarket) and get it for about $7.00.

We had one at the end of our town and it closed. I used to go for the different shrimp dishes, but never had lobster.

I got another Book Mooch in

A Working of Stars by Debra Doyle and James MacDonald
It is part of the Mageworld series.

I picked up 3 books this week

Prayer of the Dragon by Eliot Pattison
5th book in the Shan Tao Yun series set in modern Tibet. It follows the disgraced and exiled Shan who was sent to a work camp in Tibet. He is an inspector and sympathetic to the Tibetan religion and works to help the monks. The series has incredible cultural detail and portrays the ruthless Chinese repression. Stories, characters and writing are good too.

Murder is Binding by Lorna Barrett
A new author and series Booktown mysteries. It is for my RL mystery group. The setting is a fictional NH town, but is based on Milford, NH, just down the road.

Ronnie by Ronnie Wood
Autobiography by Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones. Not just about his life, but also rock history.

I recently got a Book Mooch in

The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other by Tzvetan Todorov

A non-fiction book.

I recently placed an order for:

The Bronze Horseman trilogy by Paullina Simons -- epic love story in WWII Russia

The Last Summer of the World: A Novel by Emily Mitchell -- Aerial photographer in WWI.

The Boar Stone (Dalriada, Book 3) by Jules Watson -- been putting off reading this trilogy until I had the 3rd book.

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

Gosta Berling's Saga by Selma Lagerlof -- Swedish novel in the style of the sagas.

$40 in christmas and birthday gift certificates for Reed Books yielded a nice haul of used books:

The Persistence of Vision by John Varley
Pilgrimage to Earth by Robert Sheckley
On Wings of Song by Thomas M. Disch
Neveryona by Samuel R. Delany
Man Plus by Frederik Pohl
The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica by John Calvin Batchelor
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge
Way Station by Clifford Simak
Journey Beyond Tomorrow by Robert Sheckley
More Soviet Science Fiction (Ivan Yefremov, Anatoly Dnieprov, Victor Saparin, Valentina Zhuravleva, and the Brothers Strugatsky)
Greybeard by Brian Aldiss
Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement
Coyote by Allen Steele

My X-Mas Haul:

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell
Child of a Dead God by Barb & J.C. Hendee
The Unnatural Inquirer by Simon R. Green
The Vacant Throne by Joshua Palmatier
The Ridiculous Race by Steve Hely & Vali Chandrasekaran
Hammer of God by Karen Miller
The Tapestries by Kien Nguyen

Bit of a stash for the New Year-most-not all- from noseying around in LT libraries:

Mister Roberts-Thomas Heggen
The Ginger Star-Leigh Brackett
The Demon Breed -James H Schmitz
The Children of the Green Knowe -L.M. Boston
The Unlikely Ones -Mary Brown
The Elements of Murder -John Elmsley
The Eighth Circle -Stanley Ellin
Mercer Plays:One+David Mercer
Collected TV Plays:2-David Mercer
Satori in Paris-Pic-Jack Kerouac
The Search-Tom Brown

and some comic related business, for what it's worth:

Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles-Noel Sickles
Creepy Archives
Creepy Archives Volume 2 -Archie Goodwin

I am behind on my new book entries. I got these last week.

From Borders:

Booked to Die by John Dunning
A mystery book for a RL group. Start of the Cliff Janeway series about an ex-cop who is a book lover/collector. He opens a bookstore and bookish crime is all around.

The Kill Artist by Daniel Silva
Another book for my RL mystery group. The start of the Gabriel Allon series. A former Israeli Agent has become an art restorer, but his old job calls and he is off after a terrorist.

The Story of the Cannibal Woman by Maryse Conde
Another RL book group book (Fiction). It is set in South Africa and deals with a woman whose husband goes out for cigarettes and never comes back. He is murdered and the woman sets up as a clairvoyant to support herself. Turns out she isn't a fake.

From BJs Warehouse

The Tales of Beedle The Bard by J.K. Rowling
Saw this at the store for a small price, it looked like a neat book (physically) and everyone has been talking about it, so I picked it up.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Like her stuff. The title and cover look interesting, and it just came out it paper. Story about a rare book expert, a rare book, and the culture and history of the people whose book it is. Seems to have mysterious artifacts, so it also seems to be one of those historical thrillers, so popular now.

From Barnes & Noble

Lord John and the Hand of Devils by Diana Gabaldon
3rd book in the Lord John series. He is a spin off character from the Outlander series. A gay English Lord who is sympathetic to Jamie and Claire (not in the book) - though if I remember correctly, Jamie may have killed his brother.

Historical fiction set after the Highland Clearances in Scotland, and just before or during the American Revolution.This is called a novel , but appears to be 3 novellas.

Be Near Me by Andrew O'Hagan
Another RL book group book. We picked it because we were intrigued abut the blurb, and couldn't agree what it was trying to say or hint about the book.

About a young man who is a Catholic priest and ends up with a small rural Scottish parish. He has to deal with their insularity, and suspicion of outsiders. He doesn't make it easy by befriending two rebel teens, and an incident and friendship from his past brings him into conflict with the town.

White Corridor by Christopher Fowler
Another RL book group book, for mystery group. It is part of the Peculiar Crimes Unit series. Set in London, it is a classic locked room mystery with a unit member being killed in the morgue. The rest of the staff are away, and the two main detectives are stuck in van in a snowstorm in the Dartmoor countryside. There is a killer loose in the traffic jam, and they also have to detect the morgue murder by cell phone.

Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous
Interesting cover. The story seems to be about the murder of a neighbor in a culturally mixed apartment building in Rome. The story is told as each tenant gives their testimony to the police about what happened. Like a game of cultural telephone.

Firmin by Sam Savage
Saw this on LT as an ER (didn't get it). Then saw it in the bookstore. Love the bitemark on the side. Its a story of a literary rat who wants to interact with humans after eating and reading our books. I am hoping its like the Sheep mystery in Three Bags Full.

I just ordered a bunch of children's and YA books from Amazon (including Boston's Children of Green Knowe, which I've heard good things about over the years but never read). Also ordered Scott Oden's historical Men of Bronze (Phoenician mercenary in service to the Pharaoh in 500s BC Egypt) based on some positive reviews I've read.

Also requested some books from a swap site:
Captain of Castile, Samuel Shellabarger. I read several of his books when I was a teen, but often confuse what I've read with the movies I've seen. This is one I've wanted to go back and read, and it's becoming very hard to find these days. I was excited to find the book on a swap site given how much used copies are going for on Amazon Marketplace.

Sarantine Mosaic duology by Guy Gavriel Kay. Trying to read his complete oeuvre. I'm more interested in his historical fantasies than some of his other ones.

Borrowers Avenged by Mary Norton. One of my favorite Children's series, and is the one book I was missing and haven't yet read.

I made my annual trip to Strand books in Manhattan and came away with:

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
The Book of the Long Sun (complete) by Gene Wolfe
Toll the Hounds by Steven Erikson
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

A few acquisitions:

The Road to Wigan Pier -George Orwell
Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters -Kit Pedlar/Gerry Davis
Hunger -Knut Hamsun
Inverted World -Christopher Priest
Michael Palin Diaries 1969 -1979 -Michael Palin

I've dialed book buying way,way back for the past 6 months or so, but here's the accquistions that end the year:

Mercury Station -Mark von Schlegell
Dillinger :A Short and Violent Life -Robert Cromie
Catch the Star Winds -A. Bertram Chandler
The Hub: Dangerous Territory - James H. Schmitz
Voice of the Fire -Alan Moore

$50 in Birthday money yielded the following haul from Reed's Books in downtown Birmingham:

The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley
The Fourth Galaxy Reader edited by H.L. Gold
Worlds without End by Clifford Simak
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Winterlong by Elizabeth Hand
The Cosmic Puppets by PK Dick
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow
A Specter Is Haunting Texas by Frist Leiber
The Worlds of Fritz Leiber
The Dark Side of the Earth by Alfred Bester
The 6 Fingers of Time selected from Galaxy by an anonymous editor
6 and the Silent Scream edited by Ivan Howard
The Creature from Beyond Infinity by Henry Kuttner
A Mile Beyond the Moon by CM Kornbluth
The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner
Learning the World by Ken MacLeod
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (which somehow I have never read)

Just replaced my missing copy of Soul of a Robot and got a nice copy of The Fall of Chronopolis for free :D May could be a Bayley month.

A Bayley month, always a good thing. :D

Nice haul, clong. The Creature from Beyond Infinity -that's Kuttner's first novel. I might pick that one up myself...

Seeing as I have been selecting books from internet transcriptions of David Pringle's Science Fiction the 100 Best Novels for the past 5 years or so, I thought it was about time I bought myself a copy. The book itself is very well presented and each choice has a succinct, two-sided essay explaining why it is on the list. Only cost me £2 and was well worth it :)

Another visit to Reed Books in downtown Birmingham yielded 6 collections and a novel:

The Queen of Air and Darkness and Other Stories by Poul Anderson
The Worlds of Clifford Simak
Shards of Space by Robert Sheckley
Tales of Ten Worlds by Arthur Clarke
No Time Like Tomorrow by Brian Aldiss
The Unexpected Dimension by Algis Budrys
The Day of Timestop by Philip Jose Farmer

Birthday giftees and then some:

The Getaway Face-Richard Stark
The Outfit-Richard Stark
The Sour Lemon Score-Richard Stark
The Score-Richard Stark
The Mourner-Richard Stark
The Rare Coin Score-Richard Stark
The Jugger-Richard Stark
Get Carter -Ted fields
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius -David Eggers
You Only Live Twice -Ian Fleming
Despair -Vladimir Nabokov
Pale Fire -Vladimir Nabokov
the Museum of Dr Moses -Joyce Carol Oates
Burmese Days - George Orwell
Literary Lives -Edward Sorel
The Sheltering Sky -Paul Bowles
Patterns of Chaos - Colin Kapp
A Case of Curiousities Allen Kurzweil
Paul McCartney: A Life-Peter Carlin
Now Dig This: The Unspeakable Writings of Terry Southern, 1950-1995 -Terry Southern

Picked up a first edition copy of Collision Course by Barrington Bayley in a record store in Brussels (2 Euros) :)

Neat!

Not bought, but given my friend's dad's small collection of SF:

Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham
Occam's Razor - David Duncan
Sirius & Last and First Men - Olaf Stapledon
Limbo '90 - Bernad Wolfe
The Black Cloud - Fred Hoyle
One - David Karp

Plus these, which are all HB Science Fiction Book Club editions:

Gunner Cade - Cyril Judd (Cyril Kornbluth & Merril Judd)
Airs of Earth - Brian Aldiss (collection)
Tales of Ten Worlds - Arthur C Clarke (collection)
The Expert Dreamers - Various (anthology)
Doppelgangers - Gerald Heard
Space Born - Lan Wright
The Joy Makers - James Gunn

I have read the Stapledons and know the Wyndham, Hoyle & Wolfe. The others I had not heard of before and there is scant info on the web. Anyone read any?

$35 in Birthday money yielded

Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen
Impossible Things
Six Great Short Science Fiction Novels
The Killer Thing
The Cassini Division
Times without Number
First Lensman
The Ultimate Threshold
The New Adam
Jirel of Joiry

at the used book store

Edit - and a trip to the other used book store in town yielded

The Best of Leigh Brackett
The Best of C.L. Moore
Binary Star #1
Where Late the Sweet Bird Sang

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is one of my all-time favourites, Curt.

I just picked up a used copy of Cyteen. It's one of those I have very often heard mentioned but know nothing about either author or title.

Just received a couple of classics, and favourites of Mr Frayn:

The Man in the Maze by Silverberg and The Rod of Light by Bayley :)

I like both - Rod of Light I like even better than Soul of a Robot!

Another crop of used SF classics, this time from Hay-on-Wye (the Mecca of second hand bookshops in the UK):

The Rose and The Paradox men by Charles Harness
The Killer Thing by Kate Wilhelm
Wreath of Stars by Bob Shaw
Dying Inside by Bob Silverberg
Pavane by Keith Roberts

and non-SF..

Flight from the Enchanter by Iris Murdoch

:)

The most recent exciting purchase I've made is Dangerous Ways, a collection of 3 mystery/crime novels written by SF writer- Jack Vance. Jack Vance was also a writer of mysteries - he wrote Ellery Queen novels under an alias, and a lot of other stuff as John Holbrook Vance. This collection contains his Edgar award winning novel -Man in a Cage. But the reason I got the edition was that I recently found out that the only movie adaptation of anything that Vance wrote was Bad Ronald -a 70s TV movie with Scott Jacoby, Kim Hunter and Dabney Coleman.Had to check that out- remember the movie quite well. I was looking at OOP PBs people were selling of this for insane prices like $300, so it was a great find to discover it was included in this newly printed anthology!

My buying has dialed way back, especially since now I have enough potential reading for 2 or so lifetimes, but I recently purchased The Complete Lyonesse. Beautiful edition.

On another note, how weird is it to buy ebooks for me, but I've recently purchased Kim Oh 1: Real Dangerous Girl, Kim Oh 2: Real Dangerous Job, Game of Thrones, Wireless and Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath which I reread during jury duty.
The world has changed.

'The world has changed.'

Tell me about it - I have had Wool by Hugh Howey on my phone for a few months, though I can't really get into it. I find it much better for short story reading and those by Liu Cixin that I've read have been excellent!

Nice to have something to read in your pocket always, is what I like. I have a pretty good selection of stuff on my phone, if I have an inclination.

My birthday haul at the local used bookstore:

The Jagged Orbit by John Brunner
The Fall of Chronopolis and The Grand Wheel by Barrington Bayley
Water Sleeps by Glen Cook
3 to the Highest Power by Bradbury/Oliver/Sturgeon
Galactic Cluster by James Blish
The Shores of Space by Richard Matheson
You Can Die Laughing and Shills Can't Cash Chips by A.A. Fair
Prisoners of Power by the Brothers Strugatski
Notions: Unlimited by Robert Sheckley

Buying a much more modest enterprise than in previous times:
Death in the Afternoon
Across the River and Into the Trees
Stonemouth
Morlock Night

Hi there!

"Buying books has become an extravagant luxury" said the man with way too many books, and not enough time to read them, but here are a few giftie books and sundry that have made their way into my hands anyway:
Tennessee Williams by John Lahr,
Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created Mad and Revolutionized Humor by Bill Shelly,
And So It Goes Kurt Vonnegut: A Life by Charles Shields,
Vox by Nicholson Baker,
The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq,
Company and Lexicon by Max Barry,
The Diary of a Drug Fiend by Aleister Crowley,
and To Live Forever by Jack Vance.
Bunch of art books you can see on my profile page, won't bother listing them here.

So there you go! Hope everyone is well!

a visit to 2nd and Charles today yielded:

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (reading this for my online book club)
Garrett for Hire by Glen Cook
The Paths of the Dead by Steven Brust
Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold
All Flesh Is Grass by Clifford D. Simak
Count Zero by William Gibson
The Phoenix Guards by Steven Brust
Time Travelers Never Die by Jack McDevitt
Five Hundred Years After by Steven Brust
Hunter of Worlds by C. J. Cherryh
The Eternity Artifact by L. E. Modesitt
Where the Evil Dwells by Clifford D. Simak

Cheers!

I love Neuromancer, but Count Zero for me was a bit of a disappointment -Giibson goes robot in his plotting of that book-abc-abc-abc. It put me to sleep.
Mona Lisa Overdrive an improvement.

A $50 Fathers Day gift card was good for

Northwest of Earth by C.L. Moore
The Agent Gambit by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Sky Coyote, In the Garden of Iden, and The Empress of Mars by Kage Baker
A Fortress in Shadow by Glen Cook
The Judging Eye by R. Scott Bakker
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen Donaldson (which somehow I have managed to never yet read)

Read a couple of Northwest Smith stories in The Best of CLMoore -the famous "Shambleau" and it's follow up "Black Thirst" both of which I liked a great deal. Be curious what you think when you get around to reading Northwest of Earth.

I enjoyed this collection. While some of the stories start to feel repetitive (with "Shambleau" as the model), they are solidly atmospheric and generally quite inventive in an Edgar Rice Burroughs meets H.P. Lovecraft sort of way. There is even a wonderfully anachronistic Jirel of Joiry meets Northwest Smith story.

I think I like Jirel of Joiry better than Norwest Smith from the stories I read. Certainly "Black God's Kiss" has really gotten the Lovecraft thing down, and with a female POV, which is very refreshing. Enjoyed that one a lot. Very pleasantly surprised Definitely want to read more of her adventures and a "meeting of" story sounds like it could be fun.
I have a best of Kuttner/Moore volume, but I don't like how he writes as much as her, so I stopped somewhere in the middle of one of his solo efforts. I'll get back to it though. I have read a few cowritten novels such as Fury, and Earth's Last Citadel which I liked.

I thought that "Black God's Kiss" was stunning. I would also recommend Doomsday Morning, which I am pretty sure is another solo Moore effort.

Just did a little homework on that -that's her last solo penned effort, from what I'm reading. I will grab that -thanks for recommend!

I have a ton of inbetweeny Vance novels coming in and other stuff, but, in the meantime:
The Three Body Problem a hot recommend over at SFFWorld -they are always good for it...
The Green Eagle Score -back to racking up on my Parker reading
I shouldn't be buying anything, but -OK!!

More Vance soon, but:
The Brains of Earth / The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph
Son of the Tree / The Houses of Iszm
The Space Pirate
Ports of Call and Lurulu -these are last things he wrote
Fiendish Schemes -Jeter's followup to Infernal Devices one of the seminal steampunk novels
Doomsday Morning - CL Moore's last solo novel -thanks for recommend, clong!

Discovered Dark Carnival, a new to me bookstore in Berkeley, CA where I could have spent a ridiculous amount of money, but managed to control myself sufficiently to only purchase:

The Dead Mountaineer's Inn by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky
Super-Cannes and The Crystal World by JG Ballard
Hospital of the Transfiguration by Stanislaw Lem
Get in Trouble by Kelly Link

Hospital of the Transfiguration I thought was great. Think I have a review here.
The Crystal World is early Ballard -kind of weird. Super-Cannes is interesting, but the only thing I've read by Ballard that actually had moments of inappropriate glibness. Cocaine Nights is supposed to be yet another reworking of that gated community theme. That's on the TBR pile.
Arguably High Rise was the first.
All 3 of them are worth reading.
I have Kelly Link's Stranger Things Happen collection around somewhere. Havent gotten to that one either.

On vacation at the beach in Florida this week. $28 at the Book Bin in Panama City yielded

In The Enclosure, The Men Inside, and SCOP by Barry N Malzberg
Look into the Sun by James Patrick Kelly
Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson
Natives of Space by Hal Clement
Fury by Henry Kuttner (and CL Moore I assume)
Dread Brass Shadows and Whispering Nickel Idols by Glen Cook

Fury is the first Kuttner/Moore thing I read. It's about another one of those unstopable super men who are really angry. It's okay, but the thing that really made me want to follow up on those two was Earth's Last Citadel which had a lot of that great C L Moore imagery we discussed about the Jirel of Joiry stories..
Native of Space compilation, is fun stuff. I love Hal Clement.

Hope everyone had a great holiday!

Birthday loot (some new, some used):

Oathbringer by Brian Sanderson
The Unreal and the Real and The Found and the Lost by Ursula Le Guin
The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross
A Feast Unknown by Philip Jose Farmer
Obsession edited by Paula Guran
E Pluribus Unicorn and Sturgeon in Orbit by Theodore Sturgeon
Mouse and Dragon by Sharon Lee and Steven Miller
Carve the Sky by Alexander Jablokov
Virtual Light by William Gibson
Lady Slings the Booze by Spider Robinson
Catch a Falling Star and The Whole Man by John Brunner
Redemolished, The Deceivers, and The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester (I've read TDM, but didn't own a copy)

Some interesting sounding choices there, Curt. I've read The Jennifer Morgue and The Demolished Man but don't know any of the others apart from the Gibson!

Good to hear from you, ropie. Hope you are well!

I am sorry to report that The Decievers and Lady Slings the Booze were both pretty awful; Catch a Falling Star and The Jennifer Morgue were so-so to my taste; and Oathbringer was fine, but not good as I had expected. Plenty more from this batch still to get to.

Thanks Curt, you too! Still in charge of the orchestra?
I picked up a couple of bargains: The Gods Themselves and Tower of Glass. My mum bought me a copy of TGT when I was young and I stupidly gave it away during a clear out a few years ago and always regretted it even though I don't love the book, so I bought a copy of the same edition again :)

Yes, ropie, I am still in the orchestra business, although I moved to a new city last August (Rochester, NY).

I have reasonably fond memories of TGT, although I don't own it. While I have read a fair number of Silverberg's short stories, I appear to have never read any of his novels.

Recent new-to-me reads continue to include more than my fair share of duds, although I've really been enjoying getting to know some of the novels of Barry Malzberg.

Hi guys! Tower of Glass is a good one -I've read most of Silverberg's 70s novels -but none of the Vancian styled longer novels of his later career like Lord Valentine's Castle or Roma Eterna...

I walk into book stores and see I have pretty much everything I need for the next 100 years at home. My cup ranneth over a long time ago. But I just bought:
Dark State
and a graphic novel adaptation of Downward to the Earth adapted by Phillippe Thirault & Laura Zaura Zuccher

Also bought or acquired these things but realized I never put them up:
Salinger a biography
Furious Cool
Grim Expectations
The Liar Stephen Fry
Friday Robert Heinlein
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the night-time
The Night Manager
The Speciality of the House and Other Stories
Maurice E M Forster
Loon Lake E L Doctorow
Da Vinci's Ghost
Men of Tomorrow Gerard Jones
Swift Major Works
That's Not in My Science Book
Hand To Mouth
The Elephant to Hollywood
Showboat World

Found a new favorite used book store in my still relatively new home town of Rochester, NY, and got a bit carried away:

The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
Peace on Earth by Stanislaw Lem
Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch
The Reproductive System by John Sladek
The Dreaming Jewels by Theodore Sturgeon
Angry Candy, Paingod and Other Delusions and Medea: Harlan's World by or edited by Harlan Ellison
Skinny Dip, Native Tongue and Strip Tease by Carl Hiaasen
Who? by Algis Budrys
Ylana of Calisto by Lin Carter
Warm Worlds and Otherwise by James Tiptree, Jr.
Cycle of Fire by Hal Clement
Holding Wonder by Zenna Henderson
Hangman's Holiday and Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers
Pickup on Noon Street, Trouble Is My Business, and The High Window by Raymond Chandler
Traps Need Fresh Bait, Owls Don't Blink, Give 'Em the Axe, Top of the Heap, Fools Die on Friday, Widows Wear Weeds, Cut Thin to Win, Bachelors Get Lonely, and The Count of Nine by A.A. Fair

A stash of Hem stories always worth an acquisition -same with Chandler.
Camp Concentration really good-unusual
The Dreaming Jewels -a little bit of a dissapointment. Some goofy plotting. A Disney villain...
Cycle of Fire a fun one!!