Book Hauls!

[GOLLUM]

I recently acquired....

Aeropagitica and Other Writings - John Milton
Blurb: John Milton is renowned for his poetry, yet during most of his lifetime he was best known as a writer of prose, both celebrated and denounced for his fiery polemics in an era of religious and political controversy, radical pamphleteering and civil war. This annotated edition of his major English prose writings includes Milton's tractates in favour of divorce, on progressive education, in defence of the execution of Charles I and the new Republican state, and Areopagitica, his famous attack on censorship and call for a free press. Rhetorical, powerful, heterodox, these are monuments to the ideals of liberty and free speech from a master of English prose.

A Stranger In Olondria - Sofia Samatar *2014 World Fantasy Award Winner - Best Novel.
Blurb: Jevick, the pepper merchant's son, has been raised on stories of Olondria, a distant land where books are as common as they are rare in his home. When his father dies and Jevick takes his place on the yearly selling trip to Olondria, Jevick's life is as close to perfect as he can imagine. But just as he revels in Olondria's Rabelaisian Feast of Birds, he is pulled drastically off course and becomes haunted by the ghost of an illiterate young girl. In desperation, Jevick seeks the aid of Olondrian priests and quickly becomes a pawn in the struggle between the empire's two most powerful cults. Yet even as the country shimmers on the cusp of war, he must face his ghost and learn her story before he has any chance of becoming free by setting her free: an ordeal that challenges his understanding of art and life, home and exile, and the limits of that seductive necromancy, reading. A Stranger in Olondria is a skillful and immersive debut fantasy novel that pulls the reader in deeper and deeper with twists and turns reminiscent of George R. R. Martin and Joe Hill.

 

[GOLLUM]

I got.....

Art in History - Martin Kemp
Blurb: When we look at a painting by Raphael, Rembrandt, or Rubens it speaks to us directly, but it's also an historical document, part of a living world. Martin Kemp takes the reader on an extraordinary trip through art, from devotional works to the revolutionary techniques of the Renaissance, from the courtly Masters of the seventeenth century through to the daring avant-garde of the twentieth century and beyond. Art In History is an indispensable, accessible and richly detailed guide to our culture, our history, our heritage, and our art.

Last words From Montmarte - Qiu Miaojin
Blurb: When the pioneering Taiwanese novelist Qiu Miaojin committed suicide in 1995 at age twenty-six, she left behind her unpublished masterpiece, Last Words from Montmartre. Unfolding through a series of letters written by an unnamed narrator, Last Words tells the story of a passionate relationship between two young women—their sexual awakening, their gradual breakup, and the devastating aftermath of their broken love. In a style that veers between extremes, from self-deprecation to pathos, compulsive repetition to rhapsodic musings, reticence to vulnerability, Qiu’s genre-bending novel is at once a psychological thriller, a sublime romance, and the author’s own suicide note. The letters (which, Qiu tells us, can be read in any order) leap between Paris, Taipei, and Tokyo. They display wrenching insights into what it means to live between cultures, languages, and genders—until the genderless character Zoë appears, and the narrator’s spiritual and physical identity is transformed. As powerfully raw and transcendent as Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask, Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Theresa Cha’s Dictée, to name but a few, Last Words from Montmartre proves Qiu Miaojin to be one of the finest experimentalists and modernist Chinese-language writers of our generation.

Chu's First Day at School - Neil Gaiman
Blurb: A brand-new picture book adventure about the New York Times bestselling panda named Chu from Newbery Medal-winning author Neil Gaiman and acclaimed illustrator Adam Rex!Chu, the adorable panda with a great big sneeze, is heading off for his first day of school, and he's nervous. He hopes the other boys and girls will be nice. Will they like him? What will happen at school? And will Chu do what he does best? Chu's First Day of School is a perfect read-aloud story about the universal experience of starting school.

 

[Extollager]

And you're telling me you can't afford An Experiment in Criticism? Hmf.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Went to the local library sale and got some cheap stuff. Of SFF interest are Old Twentieth by Joe Haldeman and a couple of 2006 issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

 

[GOLLUM]

And you're telling me you can't afford An Experiment in Criticism? Hmf.

Yeh but those were on special or second hand....speaking of which check out what I bumped into today at a second hand bookshop for a song!

The Dore Illustrated Balzac Droll Stories 1874 Edition *Reprinted 1977 Bell Publishing company New York. This is in amazing condition.
Part of the Blurb:...It has been said that after God and Shakespeare there has been no greater creator of human beings than Honore de Balzac (1799-1850). Gustave Dore (1832-1883) was enormously popular in England, America and France. Among the books he illustrated was Dante's Inferno and Cervantes' "Don Quixote". Includes 425 Gustave Dore illustrations, 30 Balzac stories.

The Bookshop, The Gate of Angels, The Blue Flower - Penelope Fitzgerald *Everyman's Library.
Blurb: Penelope Fitzgerald, who died in 2000, emerged late in life as one of the most remarkable English writers of the last century. Now three of her acclaimed novels are gathered here in one volume. The Bookshop is a postwar tragicomedy of manners, set in an isolated seaside town where an enterprising woman opens a bookstore only to find it beset by poltergeists, weather, and hostile townsfolk. The Gate of Angels is an Edwardian romance within a novel of ideas: a young doctor devoted to science and to his all-male Cambridge college finds his life and views disrupted by a nurse named Daisy. The Blue Flower,which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, revitalizes historical drama through the story of Novalis, an eighteenth-century German romantic poet and visionary genius, and his unlikely love affair with a simple child-woman. These three novels all display Fitzgerald’s characteristic wit, intellectual breadth, and narrative brilliance, applied to an array of traditional forms into which she breathed new life.

 

[Extollager]

We have a subforum on Penelope Fitzgerald, everyone --

https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/552375/

 

[dask]

Got a little carried away but I've done worse and survived:

 

[K. Riehl]

I see we have the same taste in Pulps

 

[dask]

Wow, just wow!

 

[GOLLUM]

Recently picked up some further Penguin classics before the prices go up...

The Nobleman and Other romances - Isabelle de Chamere
Blurb: Born Dutch, noble, and free-spirited, Isabelle de Charrière (also known as Belle de Zuylen) was an enlightened woman whose writings-not unlike Jane Austen's-tackled the intricacies of high society, particularly in matters of love. Published when she was only twenty- two, "The Nobleman" is aPersuasion-like tale whose heroine challenges her stodgy father in order to marry a man of unassuming ancestry. But Charrière did not confine herself to simple marriage plots and country courtships. Another story, "Eagonlette and Suggestina," is a thinly veiled critique of Marie Antoinette, cleverly disguised as a fairy tale. The Nobleman and Other Romances will delight fans of Jane Austen and Enlightenment-era French literature.

On War - Von Clauswitz
Blurb: War...is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will' Writing at the time of Napoleon's greatest campaigns, Prussian soldier and writer Carl von Clausewitz created this landmark treatise on the art of warfare, which presented war as part of a coherent system of political though. In line with Napoleon's military actions, Clausewitz illustrated the need to annihilate the enemy and to make a strong display of one's power in an 'absolute war' without compromise. But he was also careful to distinguish between war and politics, arguing that war could only be justified when debate was no longer adequate, and that if undertaken, its aim should ultimately be to improve the well-being of the nation. Combining military theory and practice, On War has had a profound influence on subsequent thin king on warfare. This edition contains a detailed introduction examining Von Clausewitz's skill and reputation as a writer, philosopher and political thinker, as well as a bibliography, notes and a glossary.

Botchan - Natsume Soseki
Blurb: A hilarious tale about a young man's rebellion against "the system" in a country school, Natsume Soseki's Botchan has enjoyed a timeless popularity in Japan. The setting is Japan's deep south, where the author himself spent some time teaching English in a boys' school. Into this conservative world, with its social proprieties and established pecking order, breezes Botchan, down from the big city and with scant respect for either his elders or his noisy young charges. The result is a light, funny, fast-paced novel.

 

[K. Riehl]

Picked up a signed first of The Strayed Sheep of Charun by John Maddox Roberts and a proof copy of an interior illustration of Gateway by Kelly Freas. I can't afford the original artwork as it is many thousands of $.

 

[j d worthington]

Just received a copy of that odd companion to A Canticle for Leibowitz, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman. I recall reading this one not long after it came out and being (to put it kindly) less than impressed, but have had someone convince me it should be given another try and, as I picked this one up for under a dollar....

Also received a copy of S. T. Joshi's anthology, Searchers After Horror: New Tales of the Weird and Fantastic, which features stories by W. H. Pugmire, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Ramsey Campbell, Brian Stableford, John Shirley, Michael Aranovitz, and Ann K. Schwader, among others....

 

[dask]

Sounds like a good one. Joshi is more than a name, it's a stamp of approval. Love where the title came from. If there's a sequel it should be called Strange, Far Places.

 

[dask]

Picked this up at the annual Spring book sale at the library last week:
Second edition hardback, mint condition, 25¢.

Picked this up Memorial Day:
A bit pricey, 14 bucks with tax. Wouldn't have done it if it were anything less than a Lovecraft/ de Camp collaboration. Not too crazy about it being abridged though, even if de Camp did the cutting. "Most of the cuts have been of repetitions, digressions, and speculative obiter dicta." Still, 13,000 words is a fair chunk of change. Anyone know if it suffers by comparison to the Doubleday cloth-bound edition?

 

[SilentRoamer]

Cool thread.

I started something similar over on The Second Apocalypse forums (dedicated to R. Scott Bakkers The Second Apocalypse series). http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1418.0

Anyway I will just post my purchases for this month:

Iain M. Banks: Look to Windward - One of the Culture novels - HB with DJ in decent condition.
Robert Jordan: The Conan Chronicles - HB with DJ in good condition.
Edited by Stephen Donaldson: Strange Dreams (Works from Greg Bear, Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, C.J. Cherryh, Jack Vance, Walter Jon Williams, M. John Harrison, Orson Scott Card, Franz Kafka.) - Really big SB in decent condition.
3 for £1 at Debra UK charity store.

Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee: Rama Revealed - HB with DJ in great condition.
Tad Williams: The War of the Flowers - Standalone fantasy. SB in good condition.
£2.50 for both at Arthiritis Research UK store.

Michael Moorcock: The Winds of Limbo - Old SB with an outrageous cover and an even more outrageous blurb. Not in great condition - a lot of wear. (1965 print)
Harry Harrison: Lifeboat - SB in a similar condition as above - also an old one. (1977 print)
50p each from a market trader.

Joe Abercrombie: The First Law #3: Last Argument of Kings - SB with the gorgeous cover art. Whoever designed the FL universe covers really hit the nail on the head for me. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6237768-last-argument-of-kings
£9.99 from Waterstones. Been meaning to get this for a while. As a fan of Abercrombie I have decided to buy the complete matching cover set of all of the First Law stuff.

Anne McCaffrey: The Renegades of Pern - HB in good condition.
Robin Hobb: Soldiers Son Trilogy #2: Forest Mage - HB in good condition. 1st/2nd
David Zindell: A Requiem for Homo Sapiens #1: The Broken God - HB in good condition. Really interesting blurb.
3 for £1 from Debra charity.

 

[Elvraie]

Cool thread.

I started something similar over on The Second Apocalypse forums (dedicated to R. Scott Bakkers The Second Apocalypse series). http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1418.0

Anyway I will just post my purchases for this month:

Iain M. Banks: Look to Windward - One of the Culture novels - HB with DJ in decent condition.
Robert Jordan: The Conan Chronicles - HB with DJ in good condition.
Edited by Stephen Donaldson: Strange Dreams (Works from Greg Bear, Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, C.J. Cherryh, Jack Vance, Walter Jon Williams, M. John Harrison, Orson Scott Card, Franz Kafka.) - Really big SB in decent condition.
3 for £1 at Debra UK charity store.

Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee: Rama Revealed - HB with DJ in great condition.
Tad Williams: The War of the Flowers - Standalone fantasy. SB in good condition.
£2.50 for both at Arthiritis Research UK store.

Michael Moorcock: The Winds of Limbo - Old SB with an outrageous cover and an even more outrageous blurb. Not in great condition - a lot of wear. (1965 print)
Harry Harrison: Lifeboat - SB in a similar condition as above - also an old one. (1977 print)
50p each from a market trader.

Joe Abercrombie: The First Law #3: Last Argument of Kings - SB with the gorgeous cover art. Whoever designed the FL universe covers really hit the nail on the head for me. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6237768-last-argument-of-kings
£9.99 from Waterstones. Been meaning to get this for a while. As a fan of Abercrombie I have decided to buy the complete matching cover set of all of the First Law stuff.

Anne McCaffrey: The Renegades of Pern - HB in good condition.
Robin Hobb: Soldiers Son Trilogy #2: Forest Mage - HB in good condition. 1st/2nd
David Zindell: A Requiem for Homo Sapiens #1: The Broken God - HB in good condition. Really interesting blurb.
3 for £1 from Debra charity.

Good hoard from charity shops, SilentRoamer !Where I live, (Oxord) Oxfam has two bookshops and one heart-disease charity got another one. Sometimes, I find gems like a glut of Jack Vance's books or rare Tanith Lee's books. The regular Charity shops are a hit and miss and often I can only find some soapish vampire novel on offer among the 'bestsellers'.

 

[j d worthington]

Anyone know if it suffers by comparison to the Doubleday cloth-bound edition?

I hate to tell you this, Dask, but yes, it does. To make matters worse, I'm seeing a few copies of the Doubleday edition for less than what you paid here... even one or two with the original dj..... This is not to say that de Camp's is the "go to" book; it has a LOT of flaws and outright mistakes, and a huge amount of what he had to say has been superseded since. But it is a readable, rather enjoyable book, and for all its flaws, I have a continuing fondness for the darned thing... perhaps because, at the end of all the quibbling and criticism, he had this to say:

Despite hit oddities, those who knew him loved him and were fascinated by him. He always tried to do the right thing. He kept learning and improving all his life; and that, it seems to me, is the best use to which a mind can be put.

Or perhaps it's just a sentimental fondness based on the fact that this was the first book I read about, rather than by, HPL, at a young and impressionable age (17)....

 

[dask]

I hate to tell you this, Dask, but yes, it does. To make matters worse, I'm seeing a few copies of the Doubleday edition for less than what you paid here... even one or two with the original dj..... This is not to say that de Camp's is the "go to" book; it has a LOT of flaws and outright mistakes, and a huge amount of what he had to say has been superseded since. But it is a readable, rather enjoyable book, and for all its flaws, I have a continuing fondness for the darned thing... perhaps because, at the end of all the quibbling and criticism, he had this to say:


Or perhaps it's just a sentimental fondness based on the fact that this was the first book I read about, rather than by, HPL, at a young and impressionable age (17)....

Thank you for the info J.D. Well, buyer beware I guess. I've had my eye on this for close to a year now and when the opportunity came along I just decided to get it, but I'll keep an eye open for a bargain copy of the Doubleday. Don't mind having two copies of a book if it's important enough. I know Joshi has a bio out, might try to get that someday. Now that I have your attention, what do think is the best biography of Lovecraft on the market?

 

[j d worthington]

Definitely that by Joshi, particularly the revised and restored text (2 volumes) as published by Hippocampus Press -- I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft. I'm currently rereading the second volume of that, and have been at times comparing it to the original Necronomicon Press version, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life... itself quite a substantial tome. I hadn't quite realized just how much had been cut in order to make that original publication. I knew the basic amount (roughly one quarter of the original ms.), but not the sorts of things which were missing. For example, a substantial discussion of "The Whisperer in Darkness" (following the synopsis of the story) was reduced from a few pages to a few paragraphs in the original edition; the restored discussion throws some interesting light on the tale in various aspects.

While this one is also a bit pricey compared to your usual outlay, I'm finding some quite reasonable offers nevertheless, especially considering that it originally went for $100 for the set. (HP has released a 2-volume tpb edition for $50, should you be willing to go that far.) I don't think his biography is likely to be outdone in our time....

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

cry Horror(Avon Books)*
R E Howard Almuric(Ace,Gaughan cover)
ditto:conan the barbarian(lancer)

all for free
go ahead,JD,be jealous
*not really a lovecraft fan as regards the longer works,but his short stories are gems
Does anyone have The House on the Borderland lying around?
Any clark Ashton Smith?

edit:elation slightly less
contains a LOT of stories already in
tLF(delrey Books)