Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Recent Acquisitions

I've been on a bit of a book buying binge these past few weeks. Here's what I've bought:

Honoré de Balzac, The Unknown Masterpiece;
Ted Berrigan, On the Level Everyday: selected talks on poetry
     and the art of living
;
Kay Boyle, Words That Must Somehow Be Said: Selected Essays;
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote;
Rick Crilly, The Tablecloth Trick;
H.D., Kora and Ka;
Sean Dixon, The Girls Who Saw Everything;
Nikolai Gogol, The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol;
Gwendolyn MacEwen, Mermaids and Ikons: A Greek Summer;
Kirsten Miller, Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City;
George Murray, the rush to here; and,
Stuart Ross, I Cut My Finger.

Each purchase was prompted by one or more of the following reasons:

a) My interest was piqued when I saw the author read from it;
b) I've been meaning to read it for ages;
c) I'd long planned to buy a copy and suddenly spied one amongst
     the wares of a second-hand bookseller;
d) I’m a long-time fan of the author’s work;
e) I can’t resist anything published in the NYRB Classics series;
     and/or,
f) It was recommended by a fellow blogger.

Feel free to make a game of it and guess which book matches up with which reason(s) for purchase. Bonus points if you guess correctly that I bought a book on a blogger’s recommendation and you can also name the blogger in question...

8 comments:

Imani said...

I'll have a go! The Balzac is obviously from the NYRB classics series, and I can personally add my own recommendation. There's some of the best descriptions of artistic creation within those pages. Really wonderful.

Don Quixote is reason (b) plus some enterprising bloggers with whom you may be familiar have started a reading blog for it. :)

Maybe you heard Berrigan read some of his work? That's about all I can guess.

bhadd said...

George Murray: Bookninja. Don Quixote: So Many Boooks.

The Hood Company

Sean Dixon - said...

What about g) the title shared a word with mine?

Melwyk said...

I'd guess that Stuart Ross is a) saw the author read from it -- anything else I couldn't guess, though there are a few classics that might fall under b) been meaning to read for ages. In any case, a nice binge of upcoming reading.

Kagemusha said...

Is that book "Kiki Strikes" based on Kiki of Montparnasse? I would love to read it if that is the case.

LK said...

I love NYRB too. I actually submitted an out-of-print book suggestion to them.


Always wanted to read more Gogol. Want to read Dead Souls.

darkorpheus said...

I'll take a shot too:

Honoré de Balzac, The Unknown Masterpiece - for e) & f)

H.D., Kora and Ka;
- d) I’m a long-time fan of the author’s work

Stuart Ross, I Cut My Finger
- a) My interest was piqued when I saw the author read from it;

Anonymous said...

I bought that Balzac not long ago - we'll have to compare notes! If your interest was piqued because you saw Balzac reading from it, I clearly need to get myself to Canada!