Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susana Clark
Spirits in the Wires by Charles de Lint
The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton
Dangerous Angels by Francesca Lia Block
I was a Teenage Fairy by Francesca Lia Block

(I love book shopping)

And a few more purchases over the past month or so:

Tim Pratt, Little Gods

F. Brett Cox and Andy Duncan, eds., Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic

Rhys Hughes, The New Universal History of Infamy (excellent take off of Borges)

John Crowley, Little, Big

O. Henry, Stories by O. Henry

Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Zoran Zivkovic, the Book/the Writer

Caitlin Sweet, A Telling of Stars

Karin Lowachee, Warchild

And I preordered Umberto Eco's History of Beauty, due out in early November.

quote:

---

Originally posted by llama=fluffy:

the hounds of the morrigan by pat o'shea

---

Ahh! One of my all-time favorites! I thought no one else knew about this one, but the Encyclopedia of Fantasy says it has a modest following.

Bought The Angle Quickest for Flight by Steven Kotler yesterday. Another one of those read-the-first-page-and-got-hooked deals. Listen!

quote:

---

He came west, traveling in a long pocket of dawn that never strays far from a sallow gray. Behind him a set of mountains reaches high into a wide sky and on certain peaks are footprints and patches of grass pressed flat against the earth where he had made his camp. Behind these places are other camps and other footsteps and a long walk without a good reason and somewhere back there are his parents, alone now, in a house too big for them, wondering where their son has gone.

---

I am Brimming with Book glee.

Our used bookstore is having a Hurricane Sale : Everything 50% off.

Check out my list and be jealous :


Auntie Mame
Electric Bread (full color breadmachine recipes)
The Seventh Sinner by Elizabeth Peters
Maus by Art Spiegelman. {FOR ONLY FIFTY CENTS.}
My Quest for Beauty by Rollo May
The Love Talker by Elizabeth Peters
Soloing : Realizing Your Life's Ambition by Harriet Rubin
Arthur Rimbaud : Complete Works, translated by Paul Schmidt.
Silhouette in Scarlet by Elizabeth Peters.
--and two more titles which will be soon mailed to some boardians, so I'm not gonna ruin the surprise here.)


ALL FOR $10.25.



Good day.

Dark Tower VII By Stephen King
Charnel Prince (Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone) by J. Gregory Keyes
Light by M. John Harrison

Oh man, I haven't been around these boards for a LOOOOOOONG time. Good to be back though.

picked up The Grim Grotto today. It'll be a little while until I'll be able to read it.

Purchased the first book in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events a few days ago.

Yesterday I bought the last Dark Tower book.

Today I got:







I absolutely can't WAIT to start reading the new Wolfe. It's almost as thick as Jonathan Strange. Queenan Country is really enticing, too, and will be a much quicker read. Only one chapter covers Beatles stuff, thankfully.

Got this one with my $15 bonus to the Book House (they have one of these deals where if you spend so much money, you get a $15 card):



Looks quite good.

Woohoo! Two more last night, despite all efforts to save money:



and a neat little book that for some reason doesn't appear on the Barnes & Noble websites. It's one of the nifty little bathroom/gift books they publish. I forget the title, but it's incredibly entertaining.

Ohhh...but Jonathan Strange is soooo worth it. They're releasing a special red cover for the holidays.

Cooooool! I got a black cover, so i'm pretty happy.

What sparked off the actual buying was this: we had to go to Evil WalMart last night so B could do her comp shopping for Target (YAY TARGET!), and on the way home there was an interview with Clarke. We came into it in the middle so we had no idea who it was, and we thought maybe it was J.K. Rowling at first. But it wasn't.

And it was such a lovely interview, and B, who has never read any fantasy really (and i'm doing my damndest to get her to read the really good stuff) turned to me and asked whether i thought she'd like the book. I couldn't pass up such a wonderful opportunity. So we stopped at the bookstore on the way home.

And that's the truth.

Great story. I don't read much fantasy myself. Clarke came to my job to do a signing, and I had a chance to talk with her. She's a very lovely woman. So gracious. We had a nice little chat about York. (You'll see why in the beginning, plus I've been there.) I got the black cover too, I think they stopped printing the white ones, and the red ones are limited edition. It's all a ploy to sell more books! LOL.

The Fiance is always trying to get me to read Salvatore. I just can't do it...yet. He keeps pushing the Cleric Quintet on me because it's got a strong female lead. eh. One day...

BTW, did you read Clarke's Halloween short story? If you go to the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell thread I put a link to it--the NYT printed it for the holiday. It was also on Neil's blog.

I did indeed read the Halloween short story--and really enjoyed it! I have the feeling that Strange will be one of those books i never want to end....

You know, i'm not much these days for old style sword & sorcery fantasy. My favorite fantasist is probably either Italo Calvino or Milorad Pavic, both of whom have always been published as mainstream authors, and neither of whom feels beholden to the alternate world S&S style, and yet they manage (or managed in the case of Calvino, rest his beloved soul) to write these wonderfully fantastic, magical, strange, and wonderful pieces that are wholly grounded in the reality of this world.

Don't get me wrong; i used to love the S&S stuff when i was first reading fantasy. After a while, though, every plot felt the same, every "innovation" felt stifled, and i just became tired of epics and thriller-style non-literary writing (no offense to any epic fantasy writers; just a matter of taste). So, i suppose i'm being an elitist snot here. But i heartily recommend magical realism in place of hardcore S&S fantasy.

I'll have to check out those authors, thanks, Circus. And I think that's why I'm so reluctant to read Salvatore...all the books sound the same!

Lovely lovely trip to the bookstore. I cherish my visits so much more now that I know what my life would be like without bookstores in it (I, for some strange reason, decided to give up reading for Lent last year, and it was the most difficult thing I have ever done...I read like some people smoke)

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenigger
(heard of here on the board, and this book was just fabulous...I've been making everyone I know read it)

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel Susannah Clark
(Yes, I thought it was quite lovely indeed...I think I'll enjoy it much more when I reread it)

and a lovely hardcover, be-ribboned copy of Watership Down by Richard Adams, of which I am a big fan.

Amy, way back in the opening posts of this thread, you mentioned the Book of Splendor...have you read it yet? What did you think? I read it last year, and have wanted someone else's impressions. I thought it was lovely and strange and surprising.

Recent purchases (or gifts..my birthday was just over a month ago)

Robin Hobb

• Ship of Magic
  
• Fool's Fate
  
• Fool's Errand
  

Kelly Armstrong

• Industrial Magic

Also have my eye on several art history books (complete works of Leonardo Da Vinci *drool*) and the Paper back of the Legends II anthology