Book Hauls!

[JunkMonkey]

Grrrrrrrr! I am frustrated. Today I was going to drive to my favourite book hauling place - a house clearance type business in the middle of nowhere with books stacked in piles. A couple of times a year I take the day off from the family and go and move the entire pile a couple of feet to the left and fill a box with goodies. Last time I was there I bought 70 books. Today I wake up to find snow and winds, trees down and cars and lorries off the sides of the road. Not the sort of weather to be driving down single track roads in the middle of nowhere - unless you want the discovery of your frozen body to appear on the newspapers.

Part of the last load I got there:

SWAG3 by the_junk_monkey, on Flickr

 

[dask]

Some great looking British covers.

 

[Christopher Lee]

Over the past month I've purchased a collection of all of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. I bought two new Elmore Leonard Novels. Oh, and I have an audio verson of Stephen King's A Memoir of The Craft on the way in them mail.

 

[Southern Geologist]

"I'm so excited", as The Pointer Sisters once sang. I just ordered the Library of America 1950's Science fiction collection of 9 novels. The amazing thing is, that I've not read any of these specific books. It's an uncanny and beautiful thing.

I have this set and it is excellent--the presentation, at least, I've only read the first volume so I can't speak to the quality of the novels in the second--and I'm sure that you'll love it. Beautifully done dust covers, LOA quality binding and the books are the perfect size for a hardcover, in my opinion. Large enough to fit the hand well, but not so large as to be ridiculously heavy.

 

[Mangara]

+

£1.50!

Good old Library sale!

 

[Southern Geologist]

In the mail:

Nigel Suckling - Alien Horizons: The Fantastic Art of Bob Eggleton

On Kindle:

Walt Whitman - Complete Works of Walt Whitman

 

[Extollager]

Received today -- a used copy of Vol. 1 of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Marginalia, in the definitive Bollingen Collected Coleridge series.

Coleridge is the founder of modern fantasy (although that is only one of his claims to fame).

Lots of fantasists -- Lovecraft and others -- go through a Dunsany Phase. Coleridge invented Dunsany -- in the sense that the whole of Dunsany's most characteristic imaginary world fantasy is, I think, largely indebted, directly or indirectly, to STC's "Kubla Khan." Read again that poem -- especially, read it with STC's prose introduction -- and then read again some Dunsanian "dreamer's tales." I rest my case.

Coleridge writes a definitive weird fantasy in his "Christabel." And as for the "Ancient Mariner" -- ! One could easily compile a dozen elements therein that have become basic properties for fantasy writers. I will mention the first one to strike one's eye, the layout of the poem as an old manuscript with later, but still old, marginal glosses -- expressing the appeal of the rediscovered manuscript that reveals lost and wondrous history. Of course the story itself seems to stand at the headwaters of a whole stream of stories ranging from Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea (believe me, the parallels work) even to non-fantasies such as O'Brian's Far Side of the World, if I can judge by the movie. (I haven't read the book yet, though I have read three in the series.)

Art by Mervyn Peake

This Marginalia volume includes Coleridge's notes on the Bible, Sir Thomas Browne, and Jacob Boehme, the "Teutonick philosopher" -- who apparently influenced German Romanticism and then those influenced by it, and Blake too.

 

[Extollager]

Here's a picture not in the Coleridge Marginalia volume, by which someone tried to represent something of Boehme's thought.

 

[K. Riehl]

Picked up two ARC's. Eight Skilled Gentlemen by Hughart and Limits of Power by Elizabeth Moon.

 

[Southern Geologist]

Coleridge is the founder of modern fantasy (although that is only one of his claims to fame).

Lots of fantasists -- Lovecraft and others -- go through a Dunsany Phase. Coleridge invented Dunsany -- in the sense that the whole of Dunsany's most characteristic imaginary world fantasy is, I think, largely indebted, directly or indirectly, to STC's "Kubla Khan." Read again that poem -- especially, read it with STC's prose introduction -- and then read again some Dunsanian "dreamer's tales." I rest my case.

On Kindle:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Lord Dunsany - A Dreamer's Tales; Dunsany's Wonder Tales

You owe me $3.50 Seriously, thanks for the history.

 

[Extollager]

On Kindle:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Lord Dunsany - A Dreamer's Tales; Dunsany's Wonder Tales

You owe me $3.50 Seriously, thanks for the history.

There should be a reward for outstanding fantasy, the Coleridge Award. Even if he had never inspired one writer, he inspired some of the greatest fantasy art -- to mention two: Doré's and Peake's art for the "Ancient Mariner."

Doré's scene above of the Mariner's ship heading away from us into a numinous space reminds me of the beginning of Bowman's journey through the star gate in Kubrick's 2001.

Peake's rendering of the Ancient Mariner:

Here's Joseph Noel Paton:

Here is Julia Cameron's niece as Coleridge's Christabel:

Speaking of art, that Boehme diagram was invented by Dionysius Freher, not Fischer.

 

[Southern Geologist]

I posted a books and other cool stuff haul here.

 

[Extollager]

A friend in Philadelphia sent a box of library discards etc. -- including Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce, Life on the Mississippi by Twain, N. Chadwick's The Celts, two books by A. J. Liebling, and more, many of which I'll be passing on to others -- two Narnian books, some literary classics, etc.

 

[GOLLUM]

A friend in Philadelphia sent a box of library discards etc. -- including Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce, Life on the Mississippi by Twain, N. Chadwick's The Celts, two books by A. J. Liebling, and more, many of which I'll be passing on to others -- two Narnian books, some literary classics, etc.

That's a good bunch of books you have there to distribute.

I'm a big Dore fan, so I enjoyed seeing those pics. In fact when creating my library I selected some Dore (and other artists) art to 'burn' onto single white ceramic tiles, a process we know here as 'decal art; you may be familiar with this science in your neck of the woods? These tiles currently sit as a kind of gallery on a wood panel as part of the additional furnishings to my private library. I should probably take a photo and post it at some stage (for general interest) or PM you if you like?

 

[AE35Unit]

Free from bookmooch today!

 

[Fried Egg]

For my birthday, two books turned up:

"The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" by William Hope Hidgson
"The Mark of the Beast (and other horror tales)" by Rudyard Kipling - Introduced and edited by S. T. Joshi

 

[Extollager]

That's a good bunch of books you have there to distribute.

Actually, the ones I mentioned are keepers, except for the Celts book! I have about 35 books for Monday night's free book table. My guess is that some of my students have never seen a used book store, let alone been inside one, since there aren't very many book stores (new or used books) in the region. My Philly supplier and I (and a few other contributors) have given away lots of books already, over the past couple of years or so. I hope some of the books will be read! Of particular interest to Chrons folk might be that we've given away things such as Peake Gormenghast books, George MacDonald's seminal fantasy Phantastes, etc.

 

[Extollager]

For my birthday, two books turned up:

"The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" by William Hope Hidgson
"The Mark of the Beast (and other horror tales)" by Rudyard Kipling - Introduced and edited by S. T. Joshi

Happy birthday -- and enjoy your Kipling especially! I think he is too often overlooked. Does the collection include "The Wish House"? That is not really a horror tale, but it is an exceptionally interesting story of the mysterious and supernatural.

 

[dask]

Sorry I missed it, Happy Birthday from me too. Wrong place to post it but couldn't locate the thread after a quick search.

 

[AE35Unit]

Happy Birthday Simon!