Book Hauls!

[Rodders]

The Peripheral by William Gibson was a pound on Amazon this afternoon, so i bought it based on Vince's review of the TV Series.

 

[Vince W]

The Peripheral by William Gibson was a pound on Amazon this afternoon, so i bought it based on Vince's review of the TV Series.

I hope you enjoy it.

 

[JunkMonkey]

A while back, I did some research for an article on the magazine appearance of the novella version of this novel, and found out that this first edition cover art was recycled from an earlier book. You can see that it has been reversed also.

View attachment 94300

I knew I'd seen that cover somewhere else.

 

[Extollager]

The Wonders of Creation: Learning Stewardship from Narnia and Middle-earth by Kristen Page. Bill McKibben: “For anyone who grew up mentally wandering the forests of Narnia or Middle-earth, this book will be a joy and a revelation — you’ll be reminded just how deep those images went into your heart.”

 

[Rodders]

I just ordered the Crusade Encyclopaedia from B5 books.


I have the Babylon 5 books, so it would be remiss of me not to have the pair. Besides, Crusade was a bit of an underrated show, IMO.

 

[dask]

 

[Rodders]

That looks very interesting, dask.

 

[Extollager]

Gifts from a friend in yesterday’s mail. The small book with decorative design is a 1910 Tauchnitz edition of G. K. Chesterton’s What’s Wrong with the World.

 

[Extollager]

Martha with what’s regarded as one of the 20th century’s greatest books. I got these from overseas, postage included, for the price of a couple of trade paperbacks.

 

[dask]

What is Rebecca West’s best novel and did she write short stories?

 

[Extollager]

I'll be a beginner with Rebecca West -- Black Lamb and Grey Falcon will be my first book by her. The second might also be nonfiction, The New Meaning of Treason. I know very little about her, although I might still have somewhere a home-made off-the-air audio cassette tape recording of an interview with her by Dick Cavett on his old public TV program, back maybe in the late 1970s.

 

[Rodders]

Judge Dredd: Eclipse by James Swallow



Judge Dredd: Kingdom of the Blind by David Bishop

 

[dask]

Library freebies with positive front and back cover blurbs from Anthony Boucher.

 

[dask]

Two library books, the Larson a $3 sale book in near mint condition, the Spy Novel collection a coverless hardback with the look and feel of a book club edition:

 

[Randy M.]

Probably not an exact comparison, but Howard Haycroft may have been to mystery/crime fiction what Groff Conklin was to s.f. I don't think Haycroft was as prolific an anthologist, but if you come across his anthologies, they are usually composed of good, professional stories and likely to be quite entertaining. That one looks like fun.

 

[Extollager]

Kimble was intrigued by the ribbon marker in the new Tolkien book that arrived today.

 

[Extollager]

The Fall of Númenor is an arrangement of already published material by Tolkien that relates to the Second Age, so the primary value of the book will be the convenience of having these texts brought together in one place, from The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and The History of Middle-earth. I'm a bit surprised by inadequate proofreading, which is not a problem one encountered with the books edited by Christopher Tolkien. For example, we have "council" when "counsel" is meant, "if" for "of," and "his" for "him" in the first 50 pages. Comma usage is erratic in the early editorial pages.

The book has pictures by Alan Lee. I'm not a huge fan of Lee's work although I prefer it to that of other realistic-representational Tolkien artists such as John Howe or Darrell Sweet, or the wax figure-like art of the Hildebrandts. Pauline Baynes (†2008) had a very agreeable way of suggesting a Tolkienian atmosphere with art that was attractive but not overly "literal."

 

[Extollager]

Lee's picture of Elves forging a ring puzzled me. There are three foreground figures, two of them male, one of the male Elves operating a bellows and the other apparently holding tongs. But the third figure is an Elf-woman, which in itself seemed out of place since Tolkien refers to the Elf-smiths as a "brotherhood" and never refers to Elf-women being involved in such crafts, certainly not in the production of rings. Also, if she is supposed to be a smith, she isn't dressed as one but rather in a flowing robe. Then also I wondered what Lee thought she was doing, her right hand extended over the glowing coals in which lies... a very large ring indeed, so that (if the irreverence is pardonable) it looks like she is perhaps sprinkling a pinch of salt on a jumbo bagel.

There's a fourth figure, also female, who, apart from context, might be thought to be grating a clove of garlic or the like.

So as I say it's a puzzling picture.

 

[Extollager]

 

[Extollager]

As I mentioned, the Tolkien material in The Fall of Númenor has been published already. If you have The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, you've got by far the most of the text here. That is, you'll have the Akallabêth and the tale of Aldarion and Erendis ("The Mariner's Wife"), the Description of Númenor, & the list of kings ("Line of Elros"). You'll no doubt have LotR, which contributes to The Fall here and there.

Tolkien's Letters, with his 1951 long outline of his work written for Milton Waldman, supplies perhaps a few paragraphs.

The Fall is physically well made, with pages in sewn signatures. But if you read the items listed above, especially the Akallabêth and "Aldarion and Erendis" (Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales), you'll have the most interesting material under your hat. The Aldarion and Erendis story (Unfinished Tales) is a study of an unhappy marriage, a story unusually grief-stricken for Tolkien.

"...they lavished wealth and an on tombs and memorials" (sic, p. 172).