Bought / received (75)
includes acquisitions on 2nd August in Hay
D. R. Allen, Jim: The life of E.W. Swanton
M. Amis, Koba the Dread
P. Auster, New York Trilogy
M. Beloff, An Historian in the Twentieth Century
M. Bradbury, (ed.), Penguin book of short stories
R. Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
V. Brittain, Testament of Youth
P.F. Browne, Rambling on the road to Rome
A. Burroughs, Sellevision
W. Churchill, Young Winston’s Wars
N. Cowerd, Lyrics
D. Devonshire, Counting my chickens
N. Ferguson, Colossus
F.M. Ford, The Good Soldier
A. Goldsworthy, In the name of Rome
G. Greene, A Burnt out case
G. Haigh, Silent Revolutions
T. Heald, Village Cricket
H. Hesse, The Glass Bead Game
T. Heyerdahl, The Kon-Tiki expedition
Q. Hogg, The Left was never right
S. Howatch, Glittering Images
D. Hughes, The imperial German Dinner Service
R.P. Jhabvala, Esmond in India
J. Kelman, How late it was, how late
R.F. Kennedy, 13 Days
M. Lang and Donald R. Dudley, (ed.), Penguin Companion to Classical, Oriental & African Literature
A. Lebor, City of Oranges
D. Lodge, How far can you Go?
R. Llewellyn, How Green was my valley
V.M. Manfredi, Tyrant
T. Mann, Death in Venice
M. Marquese, War minus the shooting
A. Maupin, Tales of the City
K. Meyer and S. Brysac, Tournament of Shadows
R.T. Moss, Cleopatra's wedding present
J. Osbourne, Luther
M. Rendell, The death of Marco Pantani
G. Riley, Eating Less
H.H. Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero
J. Steinbeck, The Short reign of Peppin IV
C. Stewart, The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society
Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars
G.Vermes, The resurrection
A. van Vogt, Moonbeast
M. Yunus, Banker to the Poor
A. Walker, The Colour Purple
A. Wilson, Late Call
A. Wilson, Hemlock and After
M. Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian
Read (20)
L. Adkins, Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon
A. Brookner, Hotel du Lac
*R. Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
A. Christie, Miss Marple's final cases
R. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
P.K. Dick, The world Jones made
P.K. Dick, Flow my tears, the policeman said
G. Durrell, My Family and other animals
M. Gladwell, The Tipping point
B. Keenan, An evil cradling
*R.F. Kennedy, 13 Days
J. Lovegrove. Provender Gleed
D. Martin, and P. Mullen, No Alternative!
J. Morris, Wales
V. Nabokov, Speak, Memory
M. Proust, Pleasures and Days
*G. Riley, Eating Less
G. Sand, The Black City
S. Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox hunting man
D.L. Sayers, Whose Body?
Oh dear. My promise last month that I would try to restrict buying appears to have foundered spectacularly on the rock of Hay-on-Wye, where most of my acquisitions were got, although it should be said, I had bought 11 beforehand.
However, there is cause of celebration, I have matched my record reading for a month, and many (OK, some) of those of those acquisitions are reference and collecting books. I am never really going to read Cowerd’s Lyrics or Luther. I must confess that I bought the latter for one speech about allegories in sermons.
It's also no real surprise how I managed to reach 20 books this month (and I read 15 in the first fortnight): Lots of Science Fiction and Crime, most of it pretty forgettable, save for Flow my Tears the Policeman said, which I was inspired to reread by this review.
In fact, it wasn't a vintage month with some things disappointing me hugely, particularly Sassoon, which I found unappealing and self-indulgent, though apparently the second volume makes up for this. No Alternative! the collection of essays put together to oppose the ASB in 1980, has dated and there’s not much of interest there now. While I hope Jan Morris may have written better books; her Wales was evocative, but marred by too much affectionate, but sadly inaccurate assertion that jars.
Others were mostly as expected: there is not much I can add to the reams of comment on Kennedy (which I “had” to read for work) or Keenan, though I ‘enjoyed’ both. While Proust was predictably immature though of literary historical interest.
However, there were a number of good books. Hotel du Lac went some way to redeeming fiction, but the standouts were science and memoir. Dawkins’s most famous book is lucid and accessible and Gladwell was interesting and increasingly fashionable. My family and other animals is charming and well done, but Nabokov’s autobiography was excellent, both historically fascinating (his father was a prominent liberal in pre-revolutionary Russia) and evocative of a slightly strange, but endearing childhood. I don’t know how much read it is now, but it should be read more.
After this mammoth acquisition spree, it is time to abstain in August. Not one single book more will I buy until September, maybe.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Impressive indeed, I suggest your August acquisitions be limited to new shelving. I enjoyed Hotel du Lac too, until, that is, I picked up du Maurier's Rebecca next, and realised that Brookner had lifted her entire plot from the first few chapters of that. You'll see for yourself, particularly if, as I suspect, you are working through the same Waterstones list as I have been - 3 purchases and 2 reads therefrom would suggest you might very well be.
Post a Comment