Here are five Library of America editions of works by Henry James, Edmond Wilson, and Jack Kerouac that I received from my family on Christmas Eve. One of the benefits of having family members who are mostly clueless about what you really like to read is that they'll ask for a list of books that you want, so while none of these were a surprise, all certainly are greatly appreciated and will be read either this week or during the coming year.
In addition, I received a $25 Amazon gift card and $150 in cash, virtually all of which will be funneled back into buying more LoA editions (yes, I've decided to collect as many of these as I can in order to supply myself with necessary review materials for Gogol's Overcoat and this blog in 2012). Here's the list of impending Amazon orders that should arrive Wednesday or Thursday:
Library of America Editions:
Zora Neale Hurston, Novels and Stories (bought with gift card)
Vladimir Nabokov, Novels 1969-1974
Jack London, Novels & Social Writings
W.E.B. Du Bois, Writings
Henry James, Literary Criticism Volume Two: French Writers, European Writers, Prefaces to the New York Edition
Herman Melville, Pierre, Israel Potter, The Piazza Tales, The Confidence-Man, Tales, Billy Budd
Plus I decided that I wanted to start learning another language in 2012, so after some deliberation and discussion on a message board, I chose Persian/Farsi. So with the remaining bit of money (and some of my own), here's what I bought for that:
W.M. Thackston, A Introduction to Persian Revised 4th Edition
Abbas Aryanpur-Kashani, The Combined New Persian-English and English-Persian Dictionary
M. Darwish, Poems from the Divan of Hafiz (bilingual)
I must admit that a big reason for my decision to learn some Persian revolves around the extremely high regard I have for the medieval Persian poets like Rumi, Hafiz/Hafez, and several others. Since to me at least poetry rings truest when experienced in the original (I'm an auditory learner, so I "hear" poetry when I read it) and since I wanted a sort of back gateway into a possible future exploration of Arabic (yes, I know Persian is an Indo-European language and Arabic is a Semitic, but I wanted to learn how to read the script (even if modified by four extra letters in Persian) first before tackling that likely very difficult language), Persian made perfect sense to me.
So, what did you receive book-wise for Christmas?
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2 comments:
It's not that my family won't buy books for me. I simply don't ask for them due to the cost of buying new books. But I did get a gift certificate to a local used book store, so I will likely be heading out to see them some time this week.
And I used the Amazon giftcard I got to purchase the last 4 Malazan books I didn't own so that I can attempt to read that enourmous series this year.
I like those LoA editions, I have both Jack London volumes, but I didn't get the Kerouac one as I have all of his stuff in the penguin editions.
Good luck on the Persian.
A mixed bag: Three German books about geology, rocks and fossils, plus Understanding Earth a classic about geology (yes, I've discovered a new hobby). A book about the Romans at the Rhine and Main, for research purposes. Several Terry Pratchett novels, Robert Low's Oathsworn series (they're obviously something like 'Abercrombie meets dragon ships'), and DVDs of Lohengrin and Parsifal.
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