The books crawl in, the books crawl out...
Monday, March 24, 2014
As I write this, I'm conscious of the four bulging canvas carrier bags filled with books going to the happy hunting ground (that is, the giant British Heart Foundation bin that's near our local library). We had a cull of unread books in early February, with a particular emphasis on getting rid of stuff we were never going to read. Now, almost two months later, we're getting rid of the survivors. Our pile of 'will definitely reads' is completely untouched, and has, in fact, been superceded by an entirely new pile. Oops.
[Excised: a lengthy and particular narcissistic piece about my reading behaviour when I'm busy. TLDR. Short answer: random stolen reading moments + comfort reads + ebooks.]
Anyway, despite all of the above, new stuff keeps somehow coming in (looks around guiltily) - recent acquisitions below, and, below those, some reading:
Jen Williams' The Copper Promise and Den Patrick's The Boy with the Porcelain Blade are, of course, signed first editions from the Blackwell's event. Not just reminders of a lovely evening, but also collectible copies of books I really enjoyed.
Ben Aaronovitch's The Also People and John Connolly's The Underbury Witches - because I'm stockpiling for our next Kitschies event. I'm in pretty good shape for Aaronovitch, although I'm looking forward to getting my Broken Homes signed as well. With Connolly, who I've never met before, I'm trying to narrow it down to stack of (almost) reasonable size.
A.E.'s The Avatar suckered me. A 'philosophical' (e.g. rambling, slightly pretentious) 'futurist fantasy', I saw the cryptic author name, the date (1933) and the inscription (to Yeats) and thought it was by Arther Edward Waite. It isn't - instead, this is the pseudonym of George W. Russell, who was also interesting (and in the same literary 'gang'). I'll keep it, but I thought I had a bigger find than I did. Still, serves me right, and it has an enigmatic contemporary inscription on it, so I get to do some research. Yay!
Vintage paperbacks galore - Gordon D. Shirreffs' Last Train from Gun Hill, Louis L'Amour's Sitka, Richard S. Prather's Kill the Clown, Ernest Haycox's Return of a Fighter and Long Storm.
Sara Gran's Dope, Joshua Gaylord's Hummingbirds, Margaret Millar's The Devil Loves Me and Norman Mailer's Advertisements for Myself - all hardcovers of authors I'm quite enjoying at the moment.
John D. MacDonald's The Green Ripper - yay! A new McGee! This is the UK first, a hardcover from Robert Hale. I think this is the first of the McGee series where the US first preceded the UK first - I'd have to double-check to be sure. Still, I had the US already, and it is always nice to find a new edition. Especially in hardcover + dust jacket + very nice condition. (Also worth noting, this is the most boring cover ever.) This would almost be the find of the month, except for...
Algernon Blackwood's Tales of the Uncanny and Supernatural - definitely the find of the month. This is a first edition, published 1949 by Peter Nevill. It also comes with a lengthy inscription at the front from the publisher, Neville Armstrong, explaining how he met Blackwood and how Blackwood was an influence upon him. Amazing.
Later today, some actual reviews. I know! I'm shocked too.