Monday, December 01, 2008

November Books Bought

Okay, so things got a little crazy when I went to the Green Valley Book Fair this past weekend, otherwise it wouldn't be a bad month. Really! So here we go:



The Divine Comedy: Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso (Everyman's Library) - Dante Alighieri
Only two books from Daedalus Books in November, but this was one of 'em. Couldn't turn it down.
Hardcover - Price = $7.95










Carried Away: A Selection of Stories (Everyman's Library) - Alice Munro
I've read a handful of Alice Munro stories over the years and thought this might be a good representation of her work through a number of years. Another Everyman's Library edition and another Daedalus offering. That's a combination that I can seldom turn down.
Hardcover - Price = $7.95







The Essential Doctor Strange - Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, etc.
Which brings us to the Outlet Mall portion of our program. I picked up this and the next one at an outlet mall somewhere between here and Charleston, SC a couple of weeks ago. After finishing the Blake Bell book on Steve Ditko, I'd been looking for a collection of at least some of Ditko's Doctor Strange artwork, since I read almost none from that title as a kid. This is a pretty massive volume, covering Strange Tales #110, #111 and #114-168.
Trade Paperback - Price = $9.99








X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga - Chris Claremont and John Byrne
I never owned the original issues, but bought the reprints sometime in the mid-80s. Incredible writing. I can't wait to read these stories again after, what? Twenty years?
Trade Paperback - Price = $6.99









Animal Crackers: Stories (2004) - Hannah Tinti
Tinti is the editor of One Story, which is literally that, one story published every three weeks. I'd read the first story when I checked this out from the library not long ago. That was enough to know I wanted to own it. Looking forward to the rest of the stories and just maybe a subscription to One Story. (We'll see what Santa says about that.)
Hardcover - Price = $8.00









Bleak House (1852, 1853) - Charles Dickens

(All books from here on out came from The Green Valley Book Fair.) Bleak House is the second novel Vladimir Nabokov discusses in his book Lectures on Literature, and since I'm working my way through the first book he discusses, Austen's Mansfield Park, why not pick up this one? And yes, that is Gillian Anderson from X-Files fame on the cover, from the BBC mini-series. Aliens, Dickens... maybe they're the same?
Trade Paperback (a whopping 1017 pages) - Price = $4.50








Madame Bovary (1856) - Gustave Flaubert
Okay, this isn't the actual cover, but I couldn't find the cover to the QPB edition I bought. Another book discussed in Nabokov's book. (Do we see a pattern here?)
Trade Paperback - Price = $2.50










Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906) - Jack London
No, these are not part of Nabokov's book, but at this price, who could resist?
Trade Paperback - Price = $2.50










Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas (trans. Gwyn Jones)
My good friend Trent has lots of good things to say about the Icelandic sagas and I finally decided to give them a try. (Trent, I hope this is a good place to start.)
Trade Paperback - Price = $3.50








Presidential Debates: The Challenge of Creating an Informed Electorate (1990) - Kathleen Hall Jamieson and David S. Birdsell
Initially I had to get this one through interlibrary loan, so I was delighted to find it at Green Valley. Maybe I'll read it in time for the 2012 debates. Don't hold your breath.
Trade Paperback - Price = $3.00









Collected Stories - Saul Bellow
I can think of absolutely no good reason for purchasing this one, other than I'm a sucker for short story collections.
Trade Paperback - Price = $4.00










The Book of the Damned: The Collected Works of Charles Fort
I've heard Fort's name knocked around for years and even submitted some stories to the now defunct Fortean Bureau without ever knowing much about Fort himself. This mammoth volume should probably correct that oversight. As to when I'll get to it, well....
Trade Paperback - Price = $5.00





Total = $65.88

That's it for November's book purchases. Finally....

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