New books: July

Up until the last few days in July, I’d only amassed the first four of these, and then…I weakened. Ahem. Anyway, they are as follows:

• Nancy Mitford –  The Pursuit of Love     25p (Library book sale)
• James Joyce –  Finnegans Wake     Free!
• Leo Tolstoy –  Anna Karenina     50p
• Philip K. Dick –  A Maze of Death     50p
• Virginia Woolf –  To the Lighthouse     £1.49
• Aldous Huxley –  Brave New World     99p
• Graham Greene –  Brighton Rock     99p
• Dante –  Inferno (trans. Robin Kirkpatrick)     £1
• Teresa Monachino –  Words Fail Me     Free!

The two books that were free were given to me by my line manager at work, as he cleared out his office at the end of the school term (he’s leaving for a year) and didn’t want them. Obviously, greatly received by me though, especially considering I’ve been looking to get a copy of Finnegans Wake for a few months now. I’m quite interested in the cover, though, as it’s one I haven’t come across before. The 1990s Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics edition that keeps popping up on Google is the one with an image from the Book of Kells (I think it’s the Book of Kells- I should know considering the Early-Medieval period is my specialism), and the head of cartoon Joyce also appears on the spine, which is a tad unusual. This haul has also been profitable, as three of the books (Joyce, Huxley and Greene) were on my list of Classics to look out for. Usually, I don’t come across many of these if any, and those I get are just what I come across. And yes, I do have a list of Classics that I would like to own; a sort of wish list, if you like. The Dante book I do already own in a black Penguin Classics edition, translated by Mark Musa, but wanted to compare translations, and also fell in love with that cover. It’s embossed too, you know. Just zoom in on it or Google it. It’s a thing of beauty.

Also, just a quick point that the box room I mentioned we were going to clean out is now free of unnecessary and unused crap, and is home to books that are eagerly awaiting the arrival of shelves to sit on. I’ll be sure to take some pictures and get a post up when these are done.

The further joys of library booksales

You may notice that this photo is decidedly un-crappy, which makes a change from the photos of my last few book-purchasing posts. This time, you can read the titles, but I will still list them anyway:

• Ian Fleming –  Casino Royale     50p
• C.S. Lewis –  The Great Divorce     25p
• Graham Greene –  The Human Factor     25p
• Donald Barthelme –  Forty Stories     25p
• Tennessee Williams –  A Streetcar Named Desire and Other Plays     25p
• John Steinbeck –  East of Eden     25p

As the title suggests, these were all from a library booksale (not the same one as those in previous posts)… well, ‘Casino Royale’ wasn’t. The rest were, though.

Also, we managed to get a very nice and very hefty copy of Oscar Wilde’s collected works for 25p as well, but my wonderful partner has commandeered this one. I may be able to borrow it if I ask very nicely.

The Barthelme book and the Greene book were only spotted by myself as we were leaving the library, as I happened to glance back at the table, and the former caught my eye due to the interesting cover image. I didn’t recognise the author, but recognised the title as being one I read about at the back of my Penguin Classics edition of ‘Ulysses’ and thought sounded worth getting. I’d actually forgotten about it until I saw it at the sale, and hadn’t added it to the list of classics that I want (yes, I do have a list). The fact that it was a silver-spined Penguin Classic also won me around to getting it, too. At the moment, I’m pouncing on any of the Modern Classics that I see. As an aside, this edition also raises an interesting issue (if issue is the right word), as it is in the Modern Classics series, but doesn’t have the Classics-style cover. This is similar to the recent reissues of Kafka by Penguin, and those of John Updike in the Modern Classics range: 

I’ve read some rather uncomplimentary things about these covers, but personally I quite like them myself.

A further random book-related point: these aren’t the only books I’ve had recently, but my other half has put some of my recent purchases up for Christmas, including one very special purchase that I am itching to mention, but will save for a special post at Christmas. I’ll do two them, actually- one on the books I already know about, and one on those that I don’t know the identities of.

Oh- one last point: I’ve got two more ‘Thoughts on…’ posts to get up soon- one on Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, and one on Penelope Lively’s ‘Heat Wave’. These will come soon, so please be patient!

A few more books, and ‘Reclaimed Books part 4’

Well it’s time for the inclusion of more crappy-quality photos. Those above are:

• Paulo Coelho-  The Alchemist     50p
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez-  One Hundred Years of Solitude     50p
• Graham Greene-  The Heart of the Matter     50p
• Nelson Mandela-  No Easy Walk to Freedom     50p
• Sue Townsend-  The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾    30p
• P.L. Travers-  Mary Poppins     50p
• African Art, a book from the 1970s     10p (library book sale)
• Gita Mehta-  Karma Cola     10p (library book sale)

I’ve been looking for the Marquez book for a while, so that was a nice find. Also, I’ve picked up a few more books from my parents recently. There are a few children’s books amongst them this time:

• J.K. Rowling-  The Tales of Beedle the Bard
• Roald Dahl-  The BFG
•                     – Danny the Champion of the World
• Brendan Hook-  Harry the Honkerzoid
• Bram Stoker-  Dracula
• J.K. Rowling-  Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them
•                       –  Quidditch Through the Ages
• Two ‘Doctor Who’ books: The Tomb of the Cybermen and The Five Doctors
• Mary Shelley-  Frankenstein
• Charles Dickens-  Hard Times

I do own the rest of Roald Dahl’s major books for children in the same editions to those shown (except ‘Boy’ and ‘Going Solo’, which are a more recent combined edition), but will pick up the rest (i.e. ‘James and the Giant Peach’; ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and ‘Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator’ as one volume; ‘The Magic Finger’; ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’; ‘The Twits’; ‘George’s Marvelous Medicine’; ‘The Witches’; ‘The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me’; ‘Matilda’, and ‘Esio Trot’) at a later date. The two I got this time have always been my favourites, and have been begging for another read for a long time. So what if they are children’s books- I enjoy them, and will read them as Classics, before passing them on to my children when they are old enough to read them.