Thanksgiving Week Book Porn

Quite a few books have arrived in the past few weeks or that I purchased this past Sunday when going to my favorite Nashville-area used bookstore, McKay's.  As might be apparent from these pics and the ones of the previous few times, I'm beginning to drift away from my readings/purchases being spec fic-oriented to a more diverse reading list.  Some of these so-called "mimetic," "literary," or "mainstream fiction" books are easily the equal of the best spec fic works I've read in terms of prose, plotting, characterization, and thematic elements.  Some I will review in the coming week, especially Paul Auster's outstanding Invisible, Colum McCann's National Book Award-winning Let the Great World Spin, as well as Vladimir Nabokov's unfinished The Original of Laura, which might be the trickiest review/commentary I've contemplated attempting for this blog.  Oh, and that Remarque fellow has written some excellent books as well...

While I doubt I'll write a formal review of Ann and Jeff VanderMeer's flash fiction anthology, Last Drink Bird Head, I will note that the vast majority of the iterations of who/what is a "Last Drink Bird Head" were amusing.  Plus it was a bonus to get six author signatures in this book (the VanderMeers, Jesse Bullington (score!), Catherine Cheek,  Brendan Connell, and Rachel Swirsky), all from authors I've heard and/or read excellent things about (and yes, their stories were among the highlights here irrespective of their signatures besides their stories).  Finally got around to owning the Miller book, even though I've borrowed this book on a few occasions and I know it's well-deserving of its classic status.  The Lukyanenko is just mostly for completion's sake and it probably will be several weeks or months before I read the third and fourth volumes.  The Mahfouz is the opener to the Cairo Trilogy (I took pictures of the other two volumes last time) and I finished reading it Saturday night.  Excellent, excellent, super-excellent even narrative of family/social life in the Egypt of the British Protectorate of the early 20th century.  And finally, my Moorcock craving (how strange that sounds, I suppose!) continues with this volume of stories I've read and those I haven't from the Eternal Champion meta-series.

 

Proust - have to collect them all!

Remember how I said a week or two ago that I was looking to expand my French reading fluency?  Well, all of these books were between 35¢ and $1.75, so I snagged them all.  Helps that I've read all but the Sartre in English translation and that I enjoyed them quite a bit.  I think it's going to be fun learning to read French near the level of my Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian comprehension levels...

 

Oh, and before I forget, I studied classical Latin for two years at UT, so this was a refresher course.  Nice to see that I understood most of Cicero's smackdown on Catalline there, as my Latin is a little rusty after 15 years.  Will read the French originals of two beloved authors of mine later this year or next.  The graphic novel adaptation of The Merchant of Venice was near-flawless.  If I were still teaching high school English, I would use this as a supplement to teaching that play (or I would search for an analogue for another Shakespeare play).  Gareth Hinds did an outstanding job here adapting it for the graphic novel medium.  Oh, and there's some collection of stories by this George R.R. Martin fella.  Ever read any of his work before?  Nice to have a copy of "The Pear-Shaped Man," as I first read this in my school library when I was in the 8th grade back in 1987 when it appeared in the old OMNI magazine.  Freaked me out then.  Still freaks me out, 22 years later.

 

Boiardo in Italian!  Score!  Curious about the Roa Bastos, since I haven't read anything of his before.  Have read other works by Vargas Llosa, Maupassant (this in Spanish translation), and Calderón de la Barca, so I knew I likely would be reading quality works here.  Haven't read anything by Ferré, though, so that'll be new to me.

 

Read the Bordage a few weeks ago.  Very good, philosophical SF here.  Highly recommended (plus I wonder if his work is/will be available in English soon).  Jemisin's debut novel will likely be read just after the first of the year (book comes out in Feb. 2010), but I have heard many wonderful things about this book from people whose opinions I trust.  Same goes for Cherie Priest's latest novel, Boneshaker.  Read about 50 pages so far and plan on finishing it during Thanksgiving weekend.  So far, it matches or exceeds expectations.

Thirty-three books, to replace the several dozen I've traded in the past couple of weeks.  Not a bad exchange, since I suspect most, if not all, of these books will be keepers for years to come.