Book Hauls!

[Extollager]

Some freebies showed up in today's mail, from a Seattle-area friend.

 

[dask]

Thank you for finally and definitively answering that age old question "how do you know who your real friends are."

 

[Matteo]

I have that Galactic Derelict - a fun read.

 

[Extollager]

Yeah -- I don't think I will keep all of these (already have a copy of City, for one thing), but that Norton looks like a keeper.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Picked up a couple of volumes by Patricia Highsmith at a used book store.

The Blunderer (1954) -- Psychological suspense novel.

Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes (1987) -- Collection of what seem to be darkly satiric fables.

Should be an interesting look at the very early and very late stages of her career.

 

[Randy M.]

Victoria, FYI, Sarah Weinman, who appears to be leading the charge to bring back the works of 20th century women crime writers, included The Blunderer in her Library of America collection, Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of the 1950s.

I'm a little surprised Highsmith hasn't been given her own volume of collected novels/short stories, but who knows, it may yet happen.

Randy M.

 

[Extollager]

Then another friend, he of Vacaville, also sent freebies:

 

[dask]

Talk about a dream come true.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Victoria, FYI, Sarah Weinman, who appears to be leading the charge to bring back the works of 20th century women crime writers, included The Blunderer in her Library of America collection, Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of the 1950s.

That collection looks like a fine one. (There's also a companion volume for the 1940s.)

Her classic novel The Talented Mr. Ripley is included in the Library of America's Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s. I've read that collection, as well as the companion volume for the 1930s and 1940s.

 

[Matteo]

I want your friends...

 

[dask]

Found these on the last day of the library book sale:

Fifty cents each. The Michener looks unread. The cover's banged up a little from ignorant handling but the pages don't look like they've ever been thumbed.

 

[Extollager]

Vacaville Jeff sent more vintage sf.

 

[Extollager]

There were these:

 

[Anthoney]

I think I was 11 when I read Podkayne of Mars. Not long after that I read Beyond this Horizon but I don't remember it as well as I do Podkayne.

 

[dask]

Remember this?

When Extollager posted this in a recent Book Hauls I knew I had to have it. I know you can't judge a book by its cover but you can use it as a guide to the kind of story you want to read. Few things are greater than when the sense of wonder of a story matches the sense of wonder of a beautifully rendered cover. If this scene exists somewhere in the universe then I want to be the first to go there. Not likely of course, but a vicarious visit will suffice for now. Wish me luck. (And thank goodness for Amazon.)

 

[Rodders]

Just picked up Dan Abnett’s Anarch hardback.

 

[Rodders]

Shadow Captain by Alistair Reynolds.

I adore the Revelation Space books and I'm hoping that this series harks back to that.

 

[dask]

Finally landed a copy. Arrived today:

I've had Seekers Of Tomorrow for decades but this has been most elusive. Until now. It's hauls like this that proves the digital age has promise.

 

[Extollager]

Received the two-volume edition of Prescott's Conquest of Mexico (1843), a book I've been interested in for some time. Rider Haggard acknowledged its importance for one of his best romances, Montezuma's Daughter, & Leo Tolstoy said it made a great impression on him.

 

[Extollager]

This 1922 Chatto & Windus edition is copiously illustrated by the artist who illustrated E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros (a book I mean to reread this year...).