Over at the RD forums I always enjoyed reading what people had recently purchased - especially when they made some good finds in a used book shop! So, I want to restart that thread here! What books have you recently acquired?

I just got back from a used bookshop and my finds:

The Mating Season by P. G. Wodehouse
Jeeves in the Morning by P. G. Wodehouse
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. le Guin
Searoad - Chronicles of Klatsand by Ursula K. le Guin
Tales of the Unexpected by Roald Dahl
Black Boy by Richard Wright
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings Edgar Allen Poe
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham - I know this has a few votes from some of you!
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
And some yoga book for a friend of mine

All for 15 bucks!

Eric, that's a fine haul you've got yourself there!

The Mating Season by P. G. Wodehouse
Jeeves in the Morning by P. G. Wodehouse*
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. le Guin
Searoad - Chronicles of Klatsand by Ursula K. le Guin
Tales of the Unexpected by Roald Dahl*
Black Boy by Richard Wright
On the Road by Jack Kerouac*
The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle*
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings Edgar Allen Poe*
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham - I know this has a few votes from some of you!*
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig*

The ones I've marked with a * are ones I own. I hope you enjoy Of Human Bondage as much as I do - I've read and re-read it many times over the years and I think it's one of the greatest novels of all time. A masterpiece, frankly. Possibly the sort of thing that makes the greatest impression if you read it as a young man, since it's all about a young man's coming-of-age and growth into maturity. Maugham described himself as a first rate second rate writer: I think he was being too hard on himself because he wrote some truly amazing novels. If you enjoy OHB, I can't urge you strongly enough to go on to his other great novels, The Moon and Sixpence (a thinly-fictionalised account of the life of Paul Gauguin) and Cakes and Ale (assumed, though Maugham denied it up hill and down dale, to be about Thomas Hardy). There's a lifetime's sheer reading joy for you right there.

This week I got:

The Third God by Ricardo Pinto (drool! slobber!)
[For clarity, I'm salivating over the book there, not the author. ]
Tek War by William Shatner
Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan
A nice edition of Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling; useful evolutionary study.
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
The Time Traveller's Guide To Medieval England by Ian Mortimer, which looks faaaascinating.

Whoopsy, forgot the whole point of the thread This week I'm waiting to take possession of: The Essays of George Orwell, Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander, News from Nowhere and other writings by William Morris and Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man, about which I've heard unanimously good things.

Shaker wrote:Eric, that's a fine haul you've got yourself there!

The ones I've marked with a * are ones I own. I hope you enjoy Of Human Bondage as much as I do - I've read and re-read it many times over the years and I think it's one of the greatest novels of all time. A masterpiece, frankly. Possibly the sort of thing that makes the greatest impression if you read it as a young man, since it's all about a young man's coming-of-age and growth into maturity. Maugham described himself as a first rate second rate writer: I think he was being too hard on himself because he wrote some truly amazing novels. If you enjoy OHB, I can't urge you strongly enough to go on to his other great novels, The Moon and Sixpence (a thinly-fictionalised account of the life of Paul Gauguin) and Cakes and Ale (assumed, though Maugham denied it up hill and down dale, to be about Thomas Hardy). There's a lifetime's sheer reading joy for you right there.

I realized tonight that I unintentionally purchased an abridged version of Of Human Bondage which is a shame because I was exited to read it. I'll go back out and pick up the complete version soon.

j.mills wrote:This week I got:

The Third God by Ricardo Pinto (drool! slobber!)
[For clarity, I'm salivating over the book there, not the author. ]

I take it this is a good fantasy series? I'll have to look them up. I consistently see you recommend the George R. R. Martin series. I need to get on that one, too. I see the fifth book will be coming out soon. And I read that HBO confirmed "The Game of Thrones" series for television!

Of Mice And Men - John Steinbeck
Grapes Of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The Synoptic Problem - Robert Stein
The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook - Marvin Meyer, Editor
The Jugger - Richard Stark
Doctor Faustus - Thomas Mann
Speak, Memory - Vladimir Nabakov
Quo Vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz
The Iceman Cometh - Eugene O'Neill
Growth Of The Soil - Knut Hamsun
Madeline - Andre Gide
Das Madchen Von Treppi - Paul Heyse
The Good Earth - Pearl Buck
Main Street - Sinclair Lewis
Kim - Rudyard Kipling
Thinking About Thinking (Or, Do I Sincerely Want To Be Right?) - Anthony Flew
Waiting For Godot - Samuel Beckett

God is Not Great, by, well, the Hitch (major), of course.

The Case Against Christianity, Michael Martin.

The Historical Figure of Jesus, E.P. Sanders

History and Origins of the Adversay Trial, John Hostettler

Paradise Lost (Oxford annotated edition), by that seditious Milton chappie

Lustrum, Robert Harris

Man, I need to get back to reading novels!

br0k3nglass wrote:Of Mice And Men - John Steinbeck

Great book, and inspiration for the best bit of outdoor theatre I've seen, in Richmond Park.

Byron wrote:

Man, I need to get back to reading novels!

i've been trying for years without success

My last two order from amazon:

Why am i not a muslim - Ibn Warraq

The ethics of Belief and other esseys - William Kingdon Clifford

The greatest show on earth - you know who....

How Mind Works - Steven Pinker

The Blank Slate - Steven Pinker

Practical Ethics - Peter Stinger

Jesus: Apocalyptic prophet of the new millenium - Bart D. Ehrman

The Atheists guide to christmas - Ariane Sherine (ed)

and the best buy -

Robert Crumb's book of Genesis: All 50 chapters - by Robert Crumb

next 4 books on the wish list are all A.C. Grayling

Most recent ones for me are:
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov; &
Dune by Frank Herbert.

As part of a management course I'm participating in at work Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a major topic, so I've ordered the following:
The New Leaders, Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence all by Daniel Goleman.

The Science of Good and Evil by Michael Shermer
Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins
The Healing of America by T. R. Reid
The Mind of the Market by Michael Shermer
How We Believe by Michael Shermer
The Origin of Humankind by Richard Leakey
The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins
Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
A Devil's Chaplain by Richard Dawkins

NineOneFour wrote:The Science of Good and Evil by Michael Shermer
Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins
The Healing of America by T. R. Reid
The Mind of the Market by Michael Shermer
How We Believe by Michael Shermer
The Origin of Humankind by Richard Leakey
The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins
Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
A Devil's Chaplain by Richard Dawkins

woooo... a nice purchase! I've been meaning to read some Shermer. I hear he's great.

The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin.
I'm a huge fan of his writing [surprisingly enough, I don't care much for his comedy], and thoroughly enjoyed both Shopgirl [the movie was brilliant too, probably because he also wrote the screenplay] and his memoir Born Standing Up. So far that's all he's written in the way of books, and I hope he writes more.

My latest book-buying expedition revolved entirely around books on learning Chinese. I spent $84.00 in California before I left on a Chinese / English dictionary, a book on writing Simplified Chinese, an "Idiots Guide to Useful Chinese Phrases" and what amounts to a beginner's workbook (complete with CD-Rom) on how to speak Mandarin.

I will DEFINITELY miss used bookstores in the United States!
--G

mmmcheezy wrote:...by Steve Martin.
I'm a huge fan of his writing

Shopgirl (the book) surprised me: I hadn't expected such prose finesse and subtlety from the man with two brains... His new album is well worth a listen too, for anyone who can bear a banjo.

j.mills wrote:

mmmcheezy wrote:...by Steve Martin.
I'm a huge fan of his writing

Shopgirl (the book) surprised me: I hadn't expected such prose finesse and subtlety from the man with two brains... His new album is well worth a listen too, for anyone who can bear a banjo.

I was just as surprised. He writes very sensitively...there's something quiet and understated about what he does, and I think it's just beautiful.

Today I bought. Apparently I don't have enough books that I haven't read...
The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward-Bruce Bartlett

The Gunslinger by Stephen King
Stranger than Fiction: True Stories by Chuck Palahniuk
Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan

A lovely leather-bound edition of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.

£20. Down from £50.