September 30, 2008

A Tower of Books

Courtesy of the Victoria College Book Sale Half-Price Monday, I come home with Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier, According to Mark by Penelope Lively, Flowers for Mrs. Harris by Paul Gallico (original hardcover!), Glass Houses by Penelope Farmer, Best Way You Know How by Christine Pountney, Oleander, Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived by Penelope Lively, Rainforest by Jenny Diski, Gates of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerland, Diaries of Jane Somers by Doris Lessing, 84 Charing Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff, Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee, Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard, Liar by Lynn Crosbie, Child in Time by Ian McEwan, Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner, Regards: Essays by John Gregory Dunne, Between Friends: A Year in Letters by Helen Levine and Oonagh Berry, The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing, and Cleopatra’s Sister by Penelope Lively. Indeed, 25% written by various Penelopes, which is something, no?

October 1, 2007

So many Penguins

Well, my fears were unwarranted. The Victoria College Books Sale had more than enough books for me and the WOTS crew. And there’s still more, and you can fill a box tomorrow morning for a tenner if you’re interested. But I am finished. From the top left: Forever by Judy Blume, so my future-children can have naughty books around the house appropriate to their age group; Volume Two of Woolf’s Diaries, as I’ve only read the last one so far; Penelope’s Way by Blanche Howard, who I’ve wanted to read since her letters were published last Spring; Larry’s Party by Carol Shields, which, though I can’t believe it, I’ve never read; The Tree of Life by Fredelle Bruser Maynard; Rose Macaulay’s The World my Wilderness; Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat; another Penelope Lively– Cleopatra’s Sister; The Penguin Encyclopedia of Places from 1965, purchased for charm and not currency; At Home in the World by Joyce Maynard, whose sister has already demonstrated that Maynards write good books; Woolf’s last novel Between the Acts; Look at Me by Anita Brookner; Dominick Dunne’s Another City, Not My Own, as we love his books at our house; Lessing’s The Golden Notebook even though Joan Didion doesn’t like it; Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis; two Graham Greenes– The Heart of the Matter, which I’ve read, and Brighton Rock, which I haven’t; Perfect Happiness by Penelope Lively; The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion; Beach Music by Pat Conroy, which my mom, sister and I love together, and my previous copy I left in Japan.

I am now, quite officially, overbooked.

October 2, 2006

At the Vic Book Sale

I went mad at Half-Price Monday and acquired the following:
Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson, because I love the other books by her I’ve read; Survival by Margaret Atwood just because; Atwood’s The Journals of Susannah Moodie for my ghost course; Babel Tower by AS Byatt because sometimes I really like her; FINDS OF THE DAY Goodbye Without Leaving, Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object, Another Marvelous Thing and A Big Storm Knocked it Over ie almost everything by Laurie Colwin; Crocodile Soup by Julia Darling, because I liked her Guardian Poetry workshop way back when; An American Childhood by Annie Dillard, because I used to own it and left it in Japan; Mavis Gallant’s Paris Notebooks, because I read it years ago and loved it; The Remains of the Day because I’ve never read it and Kim Dean said I should; Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri because Kim Dean picked it up and said “Read this” just as Amy Tan said she would on the book’s back cover; Heat Wave and Spiderweb by Penelope Lively because I LOVE her; Martin Sloane because it was a dollar; Moo because I’m in the mood for campus fiction; Park and Ride by Miranda Sawyer because I’ve read it and liked it, and I’m up for “adventures in suburbia”; and The Queen and I by Sue Townsend, which also used to belong to me but I had to leave it behind in England. All this for $27. Oh yes, it had been a fine fine day. It’s nice that I like authors that are so unfashionable I can pick them up in droves for pennies.

October 3, 2005

I've been shopping

First, I can’t stop listening to “Helpless” by Buffy Sainte-Marie. You can find it here.

Second, the following books were exuberantly purchased from the Vic Book Sale.

1) Passing On by Penelope Lively
2) The Fourth Hand by John Irving (for Stu)
3) Judgement Day by Penelope Lively
4) A Change of Climate by Hilary Mantel
5) Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
6) Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel
7) A Fine Old Conflict by Jessica Mitford.

Heads are gonna roll.