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My Book Haul
Mar. 19th, 2006 03:20 pm
So here are the books I got this week. It's a nice little haul, actually, but I got quite a few of them for only a buck or two and one I even got for free!
Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence by Nick Bantock. This artist begins to receive really odd postcards from a woman he's never met, describing artwork that he's never shown to anyone. What follows is an interesting story told in letters, but more impressive than that the 'book' is really a collection of envelopes and postcards that you can open and flip to read. It's ultimately voyeurist and gives the whole story a rooted, private feel that's really awesome. First in a trilogy, apparently.
Frankie! by Wilanne Schneider Belden. If it were anything over a buck, I would not pay for a book that has an exclamation point in its title; this is just an advertisement of its unspeakable lameness. Even still, the cover features a pink girl in a neon pink dress riding a gryphon wearing a baseball cap. It promised whimsy to the point of surreality, so I picked it up and gave it a go. What it *delivered* was...whimsy, gryphons who grow whenever they feel like it and a story that was essentially Harry Potter-lite. Not bad for $1.00.
How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom. I came for the section on how to read poetry (I really need to figure out how 'academic' poets say whatever it is they try to say), I stayed for, you know, everything else. Bloom puts forth that readers should read for the express purpose of 'discovering and augmenting the self,' and I agree emphatically. So, if this book helps with that, why not?
The Survivors by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Paul Edwin Zimmer. Way back when I was in middle school, I read this little pulp sci-fi novel called Hunters of the Red Moon, which featured all the sci-fi/fantasy action a little black kid could ever hope for...and a ten-foot reptilian monk named Aratak who could kick unspeakable amounts of ass but was more interested in contemplating the secrets of the Divine Egg. As such, he was one of my very first significant macrophile heroes and I've been looking for the book ever since...to no avail, strangely. Ah well, this is the sequel I never knew existed, so I'll have to make do. :)
A Cook's Tour by Anthony Bourdain. This guy has been called the Hemingway or Hunter S. Thompson of high cuisine, and his writing is often described by giddy reviewers as "snappy" and "open-throated." I didn't like him for the longest time because, you know...hype. Then I read the introduction and was *thoroughly* engaged. He writes with joy and passion, and I'm particularly impressed with the fact that he can talk about Vietnamese moonshine and the development of French cuisine in one page without missing a beat. Oh, and any fellow who has a disclaimer about the nature of 'selling out' is OK in my book.
Kindred by Octavia Butler. I really don't know how I could have missed a gay black sci-fi writer who was highly reguarded by her peers, but somehow I did until she died. In penance, I went to find any books we might have by her. This one looks like a great starting point. Dana, a modern black woman, is sucked back in time repeatedly by a fellow named Rufus, a plantation owner who is a key figure to Dana's ancestry line. Only the trips grow longer and more dangerous with each one, until Dana's not sure she'll be alive to see her ancestors being born. The premise could be ludicrous in less capable hands, but judging by the foreword and commentary, Butler just nails it. I'm really excited to read this one.
The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and Religion and Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor by Joseph Campbell. Joseph. Campbell. That's all I need to say. :)
Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho. This guy wrote The Alchemist which is just...an excellent, cleanly written parable. While seeing if we had that book for another customer, I ran across this. Basically, Veronika decides to kill herself one day after deciding that there's something missing in her otherwise successful life. So she takes sleeping pills, and wakes up in a mental institution where she is told she has days to live. There seems to be this new brand of modern fiction, where improbable, amost whimsical events are catalysts for intense soul-searching and personal growth. It's like someone read a bunch of Hesse, turned a poet's eye to him, and threw in a particularly intriguing dream-story. I like the trend, personally.
Lasker's Manual of Chess by Emanuel Lasker. A mutual friend of mine and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stickypawz came in and recommended this as *the* chess book to own, so now I do. :) When I finally get serious about getting better at chess, I'll have this ready.
Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa. It seems like a bunch of factors have lead up to this book; renewed interest in totemic duties and shamanic beliefs, exploring the idea and nature of 'fearless living', and a desire to get away from, for lack of a better term, 'capitalist American Buddhism'. You know, books full of advice on how to let go of anger and but nothing on how to live passionately and well. This book takes a lot of Buddhist principles (and American ones) and turns them on their head to present a...secular spirituality, if you will. Which means that it can creep its influence into any gaps there might be in a paradigm or two. Just more ingredients for the mystical soup, as it were.
Anywhere, there you have it. Good, good books. Mmm, how I love thee. :9
Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence by Nick Bantock. This artist begins to receive really odd postcards from a woman he's never met, describing artwork that he's never shown to anyone. What follows is an interesting story told in letters, but more impressive than that the 'book' is really a collection of envelopes and postcards that you can open and flip to read. It's ultimately voyeurist and gives the whole story a rooted, private feel that's really awesome. First in a trilogy, apparently.
Frankie! by Wilanne Schneider Belden. If it were anything over a buck, I would not pay for a book that has an exclamation point in its title; this is just an advertisement of its unspeakable lameness. Even still, the cover features a pink girl in a neon pink dress riding a gryphon wearing a baseball cap. It promised whimsy to the point of surreality, so I picked it up and gave it a go. What it *delivered* was...whimsy, gryphons who grow whenever they feel like it and a story that was essentially Harry Potter-lite. Not bad for $1.00.
How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom. I came for the section on how to read poetry (I really need to figure out how 'academic' poets say whatever it is they try to say), I stayed for, you know, everything else. Bloom puts forth that readers should read for the express purpose of 'discovering and augmenting the self,' and I agree emphatically. So, if this book helps with that, why not?
The Survivors by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Paul Edwin Zimmer. Way back when I was in middle school, I read this little pulp sci-fi novel called Hunters of the Red Moon, which featured all the sci-fi/fantasy action a little black kid could ever hope for...and a ten-foot reptilian monk named Aratak who could kick unspeakable amounts of ass but was more interested in contemplating the secrets of the Divine Egg. As such, he was one of my very first significant macrophile heroes and I've been looking for the book ever since...to no avail, strangely. Ah well, this is the sequel I never knew existed, so I'll have to make do. :)
A Cook's Tour by Anthony Bourdain. This guy has been called the Hemingway or Hunter S. Thompson of high cuisine, and his writing is often described by giddy reviewers as "snappy" and "open-throated." I didn't like him for the longest time because, you know...hype. Then I read the introduction and was *thoroughly* engaged. He writes with joy and passion, and I'm particularly impressed with the fact that he can talk about Vietnamese moonshine and the development of French cuisine in one page without missing a beat. Oh, and any fellow who has a disclaimer about the nature of 'selling out' is OK in my book.
Kindred by Octavia Butler. I really don't know how I could have missed a gay black sci-fi writer who was highly reguarded by her peers, but somehow I did until she died. In penance, I went to find any books we might have by her. This one looks like a great starting point. Dana, a modern black woman, is sucked back in time repeatedly by a fellow named Rufus, a plantation owner who is a key figure to Dana's ancestry line. Only the trips grow longer and more dangerous with each one, until Dana's not sure she'll be alive to see her ancestors being born. The premise could be ludicrous in less capable hands, but judging by the foreword and commentary, Butler just nails it. I'm really excited to read this one.
The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and Religion and Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor by Joseph Campbell. Joseph. Campbell. That's all I need to say. :)
Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho. This guy wrote The Alchemist which is just...an excellent, cleanly written parable. While seeing if we had that book for another customer, I ran across this. Basically, Veronika decides to kill herself one day after deciding that there's something missing in her otherwise successful life. So she takes sleeping pills, and wakes up in a mental institution where she is told she has days to live. There seems to be this new brand of modern fiction, where improbable, amost whimsical events are catalysts for intense soul-searching and personal growth. It's like someone read a bunch of Hesse, turned a poet's eye to him, and threw in a particularly intriguing dream-story. I like the trend, personally.
Lasker's Manual of Chess by Emanuel Lasker. A mutual friend of mine and
stickypawz came in and recommended this as *the* chess book to own, so now I do. :) When I finally get serious about getting better at chess, I'll have this ready.Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa. It seems like a bunch of factors have lead up to this book; renewed interest in totemic duties and shamanic beliefs, exploring the idea and nature of 'fearless living', and a desire to get away from, for lack of a better term, 'capitalist American Buddhism'. You know, books full of advice on how to let go of anger and but nothing on how to live passionately and well. This book takes a lot of Buddhist principles (and American ones) and turns them on their head to present a...secular spirituality, if you will. Which means that it can creep its influence into any gaps there might be in a paradigm or two. Just more ingredients for the mystical soup, as it were.
Anywhere, there you have it. Good, good books. Mmm, how I love thee. :9
