Book Hauls!

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Got a package the other day from a business called Periodyssey which usually sells old bound magazines. This was a huge pile of collections of political cartoons, from the 1960's to the early 2000's. Something like forty books.

 

[vanye]

I know my goal was to not make any new purchases this year, but no one truly believed that did they?

A couple of Wodehouse came in:

Ex-library books with bonus plastic covers. Lovely right? Then I opened Right Ho, Jeeves.

Torn cover pages!
I think I'll go and have a little lie down now...

As long as there's nothing missing from the story, what harm?

 

[Randy M.]

Hoo, boy. I swore to myself I'd pull back on book spending but the university bookstore just had a 40% off sale on it's general books (non-text books, that is) and I ended up buying,

Paperback:
A Blink of the Screen by Terry Pratchett
A Slip of the Keyboard by Terry Pratchett

Hardcover:
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
Drawing Conclusions by Donna Leon
The Girl Next Door by Ruth Rendall

I kind of hate that I can't resist temptation, but on the other hand I left a few behind I'd probably have bought at another time.


Randy M.

 

[Grimward]

Annual Used Book Sale to benefit my daughter's high school. Better luck than last year, and how can you really go wrong anyway for $1-2/book? They also let you fill a box on the final day (today) for $15, and are very generous on the box size limitations, but I have the feeling Ms. Grim would send me to Extollager's Book Buyers Anonymous program if I attempted that. They also accept all donations, so as long as more is going out than coming in I have a leg to stand on....?

Anyway, this year's haul was modest, but I did snag one I've been expecting to see there for a while:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick (believe it or not, I've not read this yet, and Intro is by Roger Zelazny!)
Mid-Flinx Alan Dean Foster
To the Vanishing Point Alan Dean Foster

Also was pleasantly surprised to see a Special Newsweek Edition right up my alley in the Grocery store. J.R.R. Tolkien The Mind of a Genius looked like it was going to cave to the movies, but while there were a few pages toward the back entitled "Celebrating Middle Earth" about Peter Jackson's interpretations, most of the magazine was devoted to Tolkien himself, and I actually learned a thing or two. Those of you among us who are serious Tolkien scholars will probably not have quite the same revelations, but all in all a passable offering as such mags go.

Finally, they have a 1966 hardback of The Hobbit. I really had to restrain myself on that one.

 

[K. Riehl]

Found this on Ebay

 

[Extollager]

Susanna Clarke (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell) supplies the blurb: "It is difficult to suppose that there could be a more imaginative or incisive reading of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; this is a visionary interpretation of a visionary poem" -- Malcolm Guite's Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

I'll begin this immediately.

 

[dask]

The poem is a great Halloween mood inducer. This looks really good.

 

[Extollager]

Got a copy of Phyllis Paul's Twice Lost -- now I won't have to ask for it yet again on interlibrary loan. Also a copy of Grevel Lincop's biography of Charles Williams, The Third Inkling.

 

[Vince W]

These arrived today:

More Rumpole is on the way.

 

[Extollager]

An interlibrary loan copy of Phyllis Paul's Rox Hall Illuminated arrived, from the Library of Congress. In-library use only. I thought about it for a moment and decided to photocopy the book. $14. Given my experience of rereading Twice Lost and reading The Lion of Cooling Bay and A Little Treachery this year, I expect the photocopies will be worth their cost.

A summary of Rox Hall Illuminated will probably show up here

Phyllis Paul: Twice Lost, Pulled Down, Invisible Darkness, A Little Treachery, more

before too long.

 

[Vince W]

The arrival of more Rumpole.

 

[K. Riehl]

I am collecting the Armed Services Editions of Science Fiction and Fantasy plus some of the classics, 20 more to go.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Went to one of the local library's book sale and got some miscellaneous stuff. Those of SFF interest are No Blade of Grass (US title for British novel The Death of Grass by John Christopher, 1956); Slippage (collection by Harlan Ellison, 1997); and Farewell Summer (novel by Ray Bradbury, 2006, sequel to Dandelion Wine.)

 

[dask]

Found these at Value Village yesterday:

Always thought Blackstone was a magician from Ray Bradbury's childhood. Here he's touted as a sort of James Bond of the Victorian Era. Richard Falkirk is actually novelist Derek Lambert. Anyone ever heard of him? Is he any good?

Doomsday Morning needs no introduction. Cover looks like the author's byline is giving chase to Lewis Padgett.

 

[pambaddeley]

Never read Derek Lambert but had heard of him. He was a foreign correspondent who wrote thrillers - Derek Lambert - and also a series of Blackstone stories about a Bow Street Runner.

 

[hopewrites]

I picked up a copy of NOFX's book, put out a few years back.

Thoroughly enjoying this insight into Punk Rock culture. Feeling less like an outsider for preferring the Ska-yer Punk, as it makes more sense given my life, and outlook on it.


Recommend it for the non-squeamish music enthusiast who's sense of property is skewed.

 

[Extollager]

I'm going to cheat here -- I know that Book Hauls is for books that have passed into our ownership, not for books we have checked out from the library. But I'm mightily pleased by my interlibrary loan haul today -- of another hard-to-get-hold-of novel by Phyllis Paul (this one is called A Cage for the Nightingale); two thick, beautifully-made volumes in the Collected Coleridge, of Shorter Works; and M. K. Joseph's little-known sf novel, The Hole in the Zero.

 

[Extollager]

Well, I don't suppose this will happen again, but today I had my hands on two rare novels by the elusive Phyllis Paul, and photocopied both of 'em.

To Chrons people in Britain: If you have a few idle moments, would you be willing to check to see if you local public library or regional libraries have any novels by Phyllis Paul? I search using Worldcat, but this reaches only libraries in OCLC, and I suppose lots of public libraries do not belong (if "belong" is the word).

From what I have read, her books could loosely be described as Gothic mystery novels. Titles include We Are Spoiled, The Children Triumphant, Camilla, Constancy, Twice Lost, Rox Hall Illuminated, An Invisible Darkness, The Lion of Cooling Bay, Pulled Down, Rox Hall Illuminated, A Cage for the Nightingale, and A Little Treachery. Paul was killed in 1973 at about age 70 and very little is known about her. There's a place on Chrons for information about her and her books:

Phyllis Paul: Twice Lost, Pulled Down, Invisible Darkness, A Little Treachery, more

 

[Paul_C]

Nothing in Northampton libraries.

I did find this though - Phyllis Paul

 

[Extollager]

Thanks for looking, Paul.

I think that edition of Cage is out of print (already!).