what books did you just buy?

I love that too, it's such a score if a random book that I don't know anything about turns out to be amazing! I hope you like it as much as I do. Any time I see a copy of that used, I grab it so I can give it to another friend.

I have 'Columbine' in my Amazon cart and I need one more book for free shipping...but I think I'm going to go to a bookstore and pick it up because I really want to read it right away. Both Pete and Dennis loved it and recommend it highly.

You can add Raw Shark Text to your cart. You admitted last week that you're curious about it and that you wanted to read it.

Too late, I went to Spectator Books by my house and ordered it for pick up on Tuesday. I went with three books in mind and ended up with three others because they didn't have what I was looking for. They carry mostly used books, but will order anything new.

So I got:

'Miss Smillia's Feeling for Snow' by Peter Høeg. ( I googled his name so I could grab the o with a slash in it)I haven't read anything by him, but I think someone mentioned him here. Imke?

'How We Decide' by Johah Lehrer

'Smokehouse Ham, Spoonbread & Scuppernong Wine: The Folklore and Art of Southern Appalachian Cooking' by Joseph E. Dabney

Cool - I've been meaning to buy How We Decide for a while now, but always forget about it.

I forgot that you like books like that too. Nice!

I haven't read 'Proust was a Neuroscientist' yet. Have you?

If you haven't ALREADY, you might enjoy 'Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life' by Winefred Gallagher.

Check it out: http://www.amazon.com/Rapt-Attention-Focused-Winifred-Gallagher/dp/01431...

Both of those have been added to my amazon wishlist.

I haven't read either one yet. Thanks for the recs.

Which two? There are three books, two by Lehrer and one by Gallagher.

How We Decide has been on my Amazon Wishlist forever now. haha

So I was talking about the other two.

Ah, okay. I like the way Lehrer writes, it's very clear and informative without being dry or overly simple. I think you'll enjoy it.

Went on a little bit of a book-buying rampage:

-Imperial Bedrooms
-World War Z
-The Delivery Man
-Beat the Reaper
-Kiss Me, Judas
-Major Inversions
-Jennifer Government
-Rust and Bone

Yesterday I picked up:

'Sabbath's Theater by Roth'. Gross-out time! Too much old people sex in the first 40 pages!

'Last Night at the Lobster' by Steward O'Nan. (Stephen Graham Jones mentioned it favorably on a Facebook yesterday so I thought I'd check it out.)

I'm currently reading The Delivery Man. I'm digging the language. It's a little jumpy, but well written. I'll let you know what I think when I'm done.

Beat the Reaper and Kiss Me, Judas are amazing.

I just finished The Fighter by Craig Davidson. I loved it. His writing style is really good. The day I finished it, I put Rust and Bone in my amazon wishlist.

Jennifer Government seems to be the most popular Barry for some reason. My favorite is still Company.

I just bought American Tabloid and The Wasp FActory

Just ordered the following books:

Operation Shylock, Patrimony and Everyman by Philip Roth.

Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann

The Passage - Justin Cronin ( I need a new vampire book and this one looks good.)

I rarely post the cookbooks I buy, but I should because I usually read them like a novel from cover to cover!

 Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor - Peter Reinhart

What about the other TWO? Are they not wonderful??

Mirka! That was the first time in a few posts here that you didn't post something I recommended to you. I'm oddly sad about this...

Yesterday I bought Imperial Bedrooms. I think it's funny that the font they use for the title is maybe a 16. It's barely noticeable. At the bottom it says - by the author of Less Than Zero, which is written in the same size font. And then Bret Easton Ellis, his name takes up half the cover. What do you think they are using to sell the book?

Just traded in some books and picked up Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters
by J.D.

I'm really digging Roth even when he appals me. I ordered those last three off a book swap site, but later today I picked up 'Indignation' while I was trying to browse and not buy anything at a local bookstore. I read your review of it and feel forewarned that I will be mad that there is no ending!

I'll charge my phone!

Huzzah! I don't have your digits anymore, though. PM?

I was at the book store yesterday and tortured myself by looking at all these books I want but shouldn't get right now. I felt sad.

I read a lot of books since I posted last on this thread, but I just bought The Passage because I have to see what book gets a $3,750,000 advance for it and two sequels based off an incomplete manuscript.

My woman has banned me from new book purchases, so I hide books the way you would hide porn, switching hardcover jackets with old books the same way one would swap DVD box covers.

I bought that this morning because it was in my Amazon recs thingy and it's about vampires! I had no idea that there was a big advance or sequels involved.

That's hilarious that you hid new books in old dust jackets. I've never thought of that...thanks!

EDIT: Yesterday morning, today is a new morning. Ugh I have insomnia and woke up at 4:00 AM.

Imke wrote:

I was at the book store yesterday and tortured myself by looking at all these books I want but shouldn't get right now. I felt sad.

that's sad. i'm sorry. go to the library right away! get an ILL if your library doesn't have what you want. or go to the goodwill; they have ok books for cheap.

i bought a math textbook from the GW for my kid. that's what we're doing this summer.

Have you started reading The Passage, yet?

Nope, I got free shipping so it's estimated arrival is June 28th. Which is good because I'm too busy to get swallowed up in a book like that! I can't wait, almost 800 pages of well written vampires stuff!

• Rust and Bone by Craig Davidson (I loved The Fighter - And I was hooked on this after reading the first few paragraphs of the first story)
• I, Fatty by Jerry Stahl (I've been meaning to pick this one up for a long time)
• A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion (Joan Didion is one of my favorite writers - I'm surprised she's not mentioned more around here.)
• Democracy by Joan Didion

bought a few crime novels i have been wanting to read for a while:

- Pop. 1280 by Jim Thomson
- Th Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (this one is a great little sleeveless hardcover. all vintage pulp looking)
- The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain

and i also bought:

- The Passage
- 2666 by Roberto Bolano

was going to buy Imperial Bedrooms and thought about getting Tell-All, but it wasn't there, and IB was this big, shitty-sized paperback, so i refrained. i'm not that excited to read it anyway. not after the reviews i've read. sounds really loose.

Ravens by George Dawes Green (was on a list of recommendations by Stephen King)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (I've been meaning to read this forever, but for some reason I always skip it. Drown is one of my favorite books to reread)

yeah, i've been wondering what that book would be like. Drown was beautiful.

Pygmy--loving it so far

The Informers

Underworld and The Falling Man by Don Delillo (wanted to read him after Ellis's quote on the front of Chuck's books)

I got a strip of coupons in the mail from HPB. 40% off for Mon-Tues, 30% off for Wed-Thurs, 20% off for Fri-Sat and then a whopping 50% off for Sunday. So I'm planning on getting books pretty much every day this week.
I got Henry Miller's Nexus today, mostly because it was from the same print run of Sexus and Plexus, same cover and whatnot, you know what I mean. Anyways, they look pretty as hell all lined up together now.
I'm really wanting to get a couple Roth books to check him out. they've got like 4-5 of his books there. I think that Sabbath's Theater will end up being the one I get though.
They also had Crying of Lot 49 and Mason & Dixon from Pynchon. Might go ahead and get CoL49 just to dip my toe in Pynchon as well.
I need to go through all these book threads and print out a list of stuff to look for. I keep forgetting authors names when I'm wandering the aisles.

That book "A Million Little Pieces" and John Grisham's "The Street Lawyer"

just went for a 3am trip to kmart. was originally going to buy season 2 of true blood, but they didn't have it. so i ended up buying a bunch of lollies an Under the Dome because it was only 15 bucks. nice paperback cover too of a little girl. it had really beautiful lighting. there was three or four other covers too; an old man, young man, middle aged woman.

between Under the Dome, 2666, The Passage and House of Leaves, i should be right for a while. can't wait for my two weeks of holidays. i'm just going to read and write and never sleep. ever. never ever.

You have kmart in Australia?

hells yeah! just no wallmart.

EDIT: oh, yeah, and we can't buy guns there.

That's ok, you don't even need guns as long as you have a big mutha-fuckin knife! And a croc skin vest.

Oh and Matt - Under the Dome is the best thing King has written in a while. It's very similar to The Stand, but on a smaller level IMO.

Only complaint - as usually for King - he gets a little wordy when it isn't necessary.

Richard and I just had a big discussion about this a few nights ago. I guess when you're the King, little things like word economy don't matter.

that's why i don't like King. That and the way he makes meaningless shit seem like it matters. he sits on shit for way too long when it doesn't mean anything, or further the plot, or tell us something about a character. although The Dome is around 800 pages long, i keep hearing that i reads fast. and it seems like it's an 800 page story. rather than a novella that has somehow been stretched to epic length.

anyway. i should say too much, because i really haven't read that much King. i haven't read The Stand. but something about both this and The Gunslinger have taen my eye. so i'll give King another chance and try to like him.

a book about dragons , it goes the history and chronological order in which certain serpents, demons arose through history and where. Its great research and inspiration for me for my next project. I had been looking for a book on psychopathy and serial murderers for MONTHS!!!! but I couldn't afford it, horse APPLES!!

yeah but catcher in the rye was in all honesty trying to say something, but naked lunch I ..mean yeah what the fuck?? oh its supposed to be like ground up bugs or something. I meet one dude who said he got it and then he just mentioned some random part of it and said that was "it" that was the entire point . But then again he was a total dick and complete idiot he voted for bush twice and stood behind manifest destiny

Thank you Hopi - each and every one of us are now stupider for having read your post. We will never get those brain cells back...

Tell all
Hocus Pocus- Kurt Vonnegut

I got mein kampf about 6 years ago because I figured it was as important to read the enemies thoughts as those of great men you admire. But i haven't been able to ever start it. It's just so huge and I know it's just going to be rambling and there's so many other great books that I actually want to read that I can't find the time for that I'm not squeezing him in just for the hell of it. Someday though, I suppose.