The OF Blog: April Fools' Book Porn

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

April Fools' Book Porn



The rush of books that I've ordered over the past couple of weeks is now arriving from all corners, so here's a look at books that I've purchased that have arrived the first three days of this week. Hopefully, a few of these will titillate a few of you book porn purveyors and perhaps a few of you might be inspired to sample these delicious treats.

Left: Alastair Gray, Lanark (I've heard so many positive things about this book that I just finally decided I had to buy it and see for myself. Will read shortly.); Peter Beagle, A Fine & Private Place/The Last Unicorn (some of my closest friends were shocked that I've yet to read these two 1960s books by Beagle so I went to Amazon and found an omnibus of the two for a nice, cheap price and I plan on reading this sometime this month).




Left: Michael Moorock, The Cornelius Quartet (currently in the midst of a Moorcock craze - pun intended? - and I saw this omnibus available for a good rate and so I bought it. Will read over the next few weeks); Tananarive Due, The Living Blood (been meaning to sample her work for some time now, so I thought this book might be a good place to start. Will read in a month or two).




Left: M. John Harrison, Climbers (MJH is another author whose works I want to read now, so I've already begun this book. Excellent, so far. More on it later); M. John Harrison, The Centauri Device (see what I just wrote, minus the fact that I haven't yet begun this one).




Left: Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (I've sadly neglected Nabokov's works until recently and I'm currently about 40 pages into this book. Good so far); Bradford Morrow (ed.), Conjunctions 50: Fifty Contemporary Writers (after enjoying the 51st issue, I ordered the 50th so I could read more fine short fiction of all stripes. Will read this over the course of the month).




Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: The Kindly Ones (just finished reading the 9th volume in this famous graphic novel series and was very impressed with how all the threads - another pun? - tied together. The ending was superb and has raised my already-high opinion of this series to another level. Highly recommended).

5 comments:

Seth said...

I Haven't read The Living Blood, but I read The Good House by Tananarive Due, which I really enjoyed. She's great at developing character. I'll look forward to your review.

MatsVS said...

If someone put a gun to my head and told me that I HAD to list my favourite books, Pale Fire would most likely be somewhere in the upper echelons of said list. Absolutely brilliant!

Larry Nolen said...

Will try to get around to commenting on the Due book in the next 2-3 weeks. As for Pale Fire, I think it'll take at least one re-read before the layers really come together for me, but yes, I can sense the layers already, 150 pages in.

Martin said...

I think The Centauri Device is the one mis-step Harrison has made in his career. It certainly doesn't compare to his later work. Climbers is in my immediate in-pile and I'm looking forward to it.

Anonymous said...

I read Pale Fire on Jeff VanderMeer's recommendation and it really is as good as they say. Early 1960s metafiction.

 
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