A partial glance at my book cart/wishlist

At the end of this week, Lent ends and my Lenten sacrifice of buying or trading no books ends.  This didn't mean that I didn't add titles to my Amazon cart for purchase in the weeks following Easter, so for those few who are curious about which works have struck my fancy, here are the book-related contents of my Amazon cart, plus a few others that I likely will order/buy elsewhere:

Danilo Kiš, Basta, pepeo; Rani jadi : za decu i osetljive 

Claudia Rankine, Don't Let Me Be Lonely:  An American Lyric 

Frederic Morton, Thunder at Twilight:  Vienna 1913/1914 

Milorad Pavić, Hazarski Rečnik 

Max Brooks, The Harlem Hellfighters 

Daša Drndić, Sonnenschein/Trieste 

José de Almada Negreiros, Nombre de Guerra 

Karen Russell, Sleep Donation (e-book)

Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance 
 
Teju Cole, Every Day is for the Thief

David James Poissant, The Heaven of Animals

Dinaw Mengestu, All Our Names

David Grossman, Falling out of Time
 
Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (eds.), The Time Traveler's Almanac

Emma Donoghue, Frog Music

Hilda Hilst, With My Dog Eyes 


It'll probably be a couple of months before I buy them all (having to be more careful with my money this summer, when I'm earning only one paycheck while I take a college course in order to renew my teaching license for another five years), but these should be high priorities for both reading and reviewing in the next few months.
 

Twitter conversations influencing book purchases

Now that I'm out of work for a few months (unless I see a better-paying job before March, which is possible), I've had a lot more time for Twitter than I've had for 16 months.  I usually use it to keep up with certain news items, but occasionally some interesting discussions about literature will take place.  Earlier this morning, I was chatting with two Brazilian writers, Fábio Fernandes and Alex de Souza, about translation issues of stories going to/from Portuguese and English.  The talk shifted to certain poets.

Luís Vaz de Camões.

Antero Tarquinio de Quental.

Francesco Petrarca (surprisingly not available in Portuguese translation).

I was reminded that I needed to read more José Maria Eça de Queirós by reading their comments on certain Portuguese writers.

Then the topic shifted to how Camões was like the Portuguese Milton.  I noted that he was actually very popular in Elizabethan England and that Shakespeare (among others) almost certainly read him.  Then the topic shifted to other epic poets:

Torquato Tasso.

Lodovico Ariosto.

Matteo Maria Boiardo.

Lope de Vega (already owned an edition of his Spanish epic poetry)

And although I already owned some of these in translation, I ended up buying (most for free, some for $0.99, one for $4.99) nine of these in Portuguese or Italian editions.  Now I get to read (or in a few cases, re-read) these works and possibly review some, if not all of them, sometime next year.

Yes, Twitter can be a perilous place for reviewers/lovers of Renaissance epic poetry to visit and converse.  But at least I'm assured of several great reads in the weeks and months to come, all now stored on my Kindle for iPad app.