Book Hauls!

[GOLLUM]

And after recent posts about the great Stefan Zweig I got....

The World of Yesterday (Memoirs of a European) - Stefan Zweig.
Blurb: TheWorld of Yesterday, Zweig's memoir, was completed shortly before his suicide. It charts the history of Europe from nineteenth-century splendour, decadence and complacency, through the devastation of the First World War, to the resultant brutality and depravity of the Nazi regime. The World of Yesterday is a heartfelt tribute to an age of humanity and enlightenment that Zweig feared was lost for ever. An incomparable record of a lost era, this is also essential reading for those who have already fallen in love with Zweig's fiction.

And...

Classical Literature - Richard Jenkyns *Pelican (Penguin) books. A handy companion summary to classical Greek and Roman literature.
Blurb: What makes Greek and Roman literature great? How has classical literature influenced Western culture? What did Greek and Roman authors learn from each other? Richard Jenkyns is emeritus Professor of the Classical Tradition and the Public Orator at the University of Oxford.

 

[Extollager]

OK, Gollum; but you need that Experiment in Criticism by CSL too... : )

 

[GOLLUM]

OK, Gollum; but you need that Experiment in Criticism by CSL too... : )

Dream on... Actually it's quite expensive here in the shops so I may need to order a copy online. I'l let you know how I go.

 

[Extollager]

I like the new Classic Literature zone (domain? subdomain?). Could the old Orange-Spine Penguin Books thread be moved there? Also the recent threads on Everyman's Library, Penguin Classics, etc. Those all deal with classic literature. Also someone tried to get a discussion going on Herodotus a while back, but the name was misspelled, as I recall, so that might be harder to find.

 

[GOLLUM]

I like the new Classic Literature zone (domain? subdomain?). Could the old Orange-Spine Penguin Books thread be moved there? Also the recent threads on Everyman's Library, Penguin Classics, etc. Those all deal with classic literature. Also someone tried to get a discussion going on Herodotus a while back, but the name was misspelled, as I recall, so that might be harder to find.

We are currently discussing things like this. I did actually send you a conversation heads up BUT please send me a new conversation/message if you like for further discussion.

 

[J-Sun]

I like the new Classic Literature zone (domain? subdomain?). Could the old Orange-Spine Penguin Books thread be moved there? Also the recent threads on Everyman's Library, Penguin Classics, etc. Those all deal with classic literature. Also someone tried to get a discussion going on Herodotus a while back, but the name was misspelled, as I recall, so that might be harder to find.

I call 'em "subforums". Definitely needs something added because it looks like the "Extollager and GOLLUM Dickens" subforum right now. BTW, to the mods, "Golden Age" doesn't sound right for a forum that goes right through the New Wave into the 70s and it probably ought to cover up to the 80s by now, anyway. What was wrong with "Classic SF&F" (or whatever it was - or just "SF&F: Beginning-1979" or something like) and calling the new one "Classic Non-SF&F" or something? Although "Classic Lit" is separation enough as long as it doesn't seem implicitly disparaging to SFF.

I know what Herodotus you're talking about - it was misspelled Herodetus.

http://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/33912/

 

[Extollager]

"Classic Non-SF&F" wouldn't sound to me like what I was looking for, if I were looking for a Classic literature subforum.

The E. T. A. Hoffmann thread should go there too.

 

[Extollager]

Having "General Book Discussion" and "General Literature" as subforums is likely to be confusing; at any rate it is not very elegant. "Classic Literature" was better.

 

[Bick]

Having "General Book Discussion" and "General Literature" as subforums is likely to be confusing; at any rate it is not very elegant. "Classic Literature" was better.

Completely agree. and maybe restrict it to genuine classics. My Wodehouse thread doesn't belong there really.

 

[J-Sun]

I'm happy with it now but I do see what you guys are saying. Maybe GBD becomes "General SFF Book Discussion"? Though, given the name of the site, that seems redundant. The problem is "Classic" and "General" both conflict with existing forums. How about just "Pre-20th Century Book Discussion"? Or, if it's not truly restricted to "classics" and a negative (like Non-SFF) isn't favored, then take the bull by the horns and call it "Mainstream Book Discussion" despite the problems with that term.

Really, the problem is that there are too many threads and fewer but bigger non-SFF threads could cover it and there might not be a need for such a subforum. If such a subforum does exist, it should logically go in "Other Discussion" rather than Books and Literature (except that it's called Book and Literature) because the premise seems to be that everything not in General or Discussion is SFFH by default and all non-SFF goes in those two. But now it would seem like a "Non-genre Classic Film" forum is called for in the video portion and so on if there's going to be one for books. But the video thing has always (or at least long) been pretty thoroughly mixed.

Anyway - like I say, I'm okay with it now.

And sorry for the OT. Um. I got Nebula Award Stories 17 today for a book haul. I've already read almost everything in it but Haldeman's intro was interesting and Budrys' article was slambang fantastic. Haven't read Searles' yet.

There. On-topic.

 

[GOLLUM]

Getting back to Book Hauls today I got......

The Tunnel - Ernesto Sabato *Penguin edition. Sabato appears to have been revered as much as Borges but not won the same level of international acclaim. Of course Borges was pretty prolific. Sabato I know next to nothing about.
Blurb: One of the great short novels of the twentieth century—in an edition marking the 100th anniversary of the author's birth. An unforgettable psychological novel of obsessive love, The Tunnel was championed by Albert Camus, Thomas Mann, and Graham Greene upon its publication in 1948 and went on to become an international bestseller. At its center is an artist named Juan Pablo Castel, who recounts from his prison cell his murder of a woman named María Iribarne. Obsessed from the moment he sees her examining one of his paintings, Castel fantasizes for months about how they might meet again. When he happens upon her one day, a relationship develops that convinces him of their mutual love. But Castel's growing paranoia leads him to destroy the one thing he truly cares about.

 

[K. Riehl]

Picked up a replacement for a lost in the mail copy of Astounding March 1930. Got my 1st ed. of Bullard of the Space Patrol by Malcom Jameson and received my uncorrected proof of The Slaves of heaven by Edmond Cooper. A good week!

 

[Extollager]

A copy of P. L. Fermor's A Time to Keep Silence...

 

[GOLLUM]

Today I picked up......

Early Greek Philosophy *Penguin,
Blurb: The works collected in this volume form the true foundation of Western philosophy - the base upon which Plato and Aristotle and their successors would eventually build. Yet the importance of the Pre-Socratics thinkers lies less in their influence - great though that was - than in their astonishing intellectual ambition and imaginative reach. Zeno's dizzying 'proofs' that motion is impossible; the extraordinary atomic theories of Democritus; the haunting and enigmatic epigrams of Heraclitus; and the maxims of Alcmaeon: fragmentary as they often are, the thoughts of these philosophers seem strikingly modern in their concern to forge a truly scientific vocabulary and way of reasoning.

The Oxford Book of historical Fiction.
Blurb: Historical fiction has long produced many of our best-loved works, from War and Peace to Gone with the Wind. Here Michael Cox and Jack Adrian have collected fifty years worth of historical short stories, offering entertainment and illumination for general readers and devoted fans. The Oxford Book of Historical Fiction ranges far and wide, bringing together the work of a diverse array of writers. Here Aldous Huxley rubs shoulders with Arthur Conan Doyle, Rafael Sabatini with William Faulkner, and Thomas Hardy with John Buchan. Here are tales of adventure, studied chronicles of lives of the past, tightly plotted stories, and well-informed illustrations of the experience of life in ages long gone. The settings range from Alexander the Great's empire to the American South during the Civil War, from Napoleonic France to Cromwell's England. For serious short story readers or those with a taste for history, The Oxford Book of Historical Stories is a marvellous collection.

The Nature of Things - Lucretius *Penguin.
Blurb:Lucretius' poem On the Nature of Things combines a scientific and philosophical treatise with some of the greatest poetry ever written. With intense moral fervour he demonstrates to humanity that in death there is nothing to fear since the soul is mortal, and the world and everything in it is governed by the mechanical laws of nature and not by gods; and that by believing this men can live in peace of mind and happiness. He bases this on the atomic theory expounded by the Greek philosopher Epicurus, and continues with an examination of sensation, sex, cosmology, meteorology, and geology, all of these subjects made more attractive by the poetry with which he illustrates them.

Notes on a Cuff and other stories - Mikhail Bulgakov. 2014 edition.
Blurb: Begun in 1920 while Bulgakov was employed in a hospital in the remote Caucasian outpost of Vladikavkaz, and continued when he started working for a government literary department in Moscow, Notes on a Cuff is a series of journalistic sketches which show the young doctor trying to embark on a literary career among the chaos of war, disease, politics and bureaucracy. Stylistically brilliant and brimming with humour and literary allusion, Notes on a Cuff is presented here in a new translation, along with a collection of other short pieces by Bulgakov, many of them – such as ‘The Cockroach’ and ‘A Dissolute Man’ – published for the first time in the English language.

 

[dask]

With this I finally have both parts to Edmond Hamilton's Cities In The Air.


With this I find I only have the first part to Wood Jackson's The Bat-Men Of Mars. If ever a story cried out to be read for title alone this has got to be it!

And of course the back cover has merit all its own:

 

[J-Sun]

Early Greek Philosophy *Penguin,
...
The Nature of Things - Lucretius *Penguin.

That EGP made me reply - it's a great one - very interesting, lots of fun, well-presented, hard-to-find-otherwise. I don't know the Penguin Lucretius, but that's another neat book if the edition is any good at all.

With this I finally have both parts to Edmond Hamilton's Cities In The Air.

That and the others look like a fantastic haul. Even more fun than the ancient philosophy.

 

[GOLLUM]

That EGP made me reply - it's a great one - very interesting, lots of fun, well-presented, hard-to-find-otherwise. I don't know the Penguin Lucretius, but that's another neat book if the edition is any good at all.

Sounds good. I know almost nothing about these early philosophers and I'm also interested to see how they influenced their more famous successors. By all accounts the Lucretius is a pretty good 'version'. I've read about Lucretius before and how significant this poem is regarded by classical scholars so I thought I would have a look at it myself...

 

[dask]

Whither Mankind: A Panorama of Modern Civilization edited by Charles Beard.
Found a 1928 first edition at the Salvation Army. Could have gotten a newer edition at Amazon for less but the SA does a lot of good and had no real qualms forking over more money I'm normally accustomed to. A promising collection of essays by an assortment of big names of the day.

 

[dask]

This came with the Gernsback stuff above, just forgot to post it while absorbed trying to get the Amazing back cover just right (could have been better though):

 

[K. Riehl]

Having a good month on Ebay. Picked up The last Spaceship by Murray Leinster as well as another Fantasy Fiction Magazine with the great Hannes Bok cover.