Literary retail therapy

[muckefuck]

Now that I've no longer got my front desk shift, there's a big hole in my Friday afternoons. These already seem to stretch on interminably as it is, so I figured I might be in need of some distraction to get through. Usually that would mean a leisurely lunch, but I'd already stowed away something in anticipation and I thought it might be manky by Monday. So I ate it at the usual time and went out afterwards for a book-buying spree, hitting all three used booksellers within a reasonable radius.

1. COBS, Rubén. A dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish--Woohoo! Indigenous language varieties FTW!
2. DAZAI, Osamu. The setting sun [Trans. of 斜陽 by Donald Keene.]--I found a book of Dazai's tales when I was looking for something else and realised I knew nothing about him. According to Wikipedia, his No longer human (人間失格) is the second-best selling Japanese novel of all time after Natsume Sōseki's Kokoro. I didn't find that, but I did find another from the same period which is also considered a masterwork.
3. Abolqasem FERDOWSI. Shahnameh (Trans. of شاهنامه by Dick DAVIS.)--A Penguin "Deluxe Edition" in like-new condition for the bargain price of $10.50 plus tax. The find of the day!
4. IWASAKI, Mineko (with Rande BROWN). Geisha, a life--Reportedly one of the sources which Golding ripped offdrew inspiration from when composing Memories of a geisha.
5. WOODRELL, Daniel. The maid's version--FINALLY. How many years have I been combing the W section of the fiction shelves in these place in source of Woodrell's novels only to turn up a lot of Tom Wolfe and Herman Wouk? Only published this month; this is an advance reading copy with the publicity director's e-mail address pasted on the front cover.

Total cost: $29.04.

If it wasn't obvious from the string of Japanese names, I'm on an East Asian kick again. Besides the Dazai, I've just finished a Sōseki novel I've been lugging around for a few years and started in on the book of short stories from burakumin author Nakagami Kenji that monshu gifted me last year.

Comments

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

I'd love to read the Iwasaki. Unfortunately, I have several hundred pages of the Heike left to go before I can take up any new books...

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

It's here for you when you want it!

[come-to-think.livejournal.com]

One can actually italicize Japanese?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Why not? The native convention for book titles, however, is to use brackets, e.g. 『人間失格』.

[come-to-think.livejournal.com]

I have no idea how silly it might or might not look to a Japanese. Once, however, while in the business of designing mathematical fonts, I dealt with a pedantic lady at the American Mathematical Society who had gone to the trouble of designing an italic Fraktur. Even to a person of my small acquaintance with German, it looked bizarre.