March 21-28 Book Porn

These are all purchases this week, as no review copies arrived. However, I think many here will be curious about what I am currently purchasing, as well as seeing cover art both old and new, so instead of just the spines, here are the photos of each book's cover art.

Left: David Shields and Bradford Morrow (eds.), Conjunctions 51: The Death Issue (just reviewed it last night and this is an outstanding collection of stories revolving around Death and its various aspects. Highly recommended.); Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone (this is from the first paperback edition released in the US in the late 1960s. Review will be forthcoming. Enjoyed it, but not as much as the first two. Note that this is the original edition and not the expanded, apparently better revised edition of a few years ago).




Left: Roberto Bolaño, Monsieur Pain (one of Bolaño's earlier novels, written in the 1980s but not published in Spain until later. Good, but it's obvious that he hasn't fully come into his own as a writer then); Daniel Goldhagen, A Moral Reckoning (this book complements his 1997 gadfly look at the Holocaust, Hitler's Willing Executioners. While I want to be sympathetic with some of his arguments, his methodology and tendency to make sweeping pronouncements with no primary source citation has made this book, 100 pages in, into an often-irritating read).




Left: Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Worlds' End (eighth volume in this excellent graphic novel series, this time recasting the Bocaccio/Chaucer frame story into a setting that fits with the overall Sandman world); Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist (I borrowed a copy from a friend in 2005 and decided that I wanted to re-read it shortly, so I went ahead and bought a copy. Good stuff).




Left: Steph Swainston, The Year of Our War (been meaning to read Swainston for a while now, so expect a review in the next month or so); Paul Auster, The New York Trilogy (omnibus of three novellas written by Auster in the 1980s. Outstanding work. Since this book may be voted in for a future review, I'll wait until the results are done before writing more than a cursory praise).




Left: Daniel Abraham, A Betrayal in Winter (second volume of a work I've meant to return to reading for almost two years now. Will do so in the next month or so); Michael Moorcock, Byzantium Endures (first in his Pyat quartet, which many writers whose opinions I value have held up as one of his better works. Will be reading this today and perhaps tomorrow, depending on time/energy).