My booklust cannot be sated!

[muckefuck]

In the course of the past week, I've hit Howard's Books, Armadillo's Pillow, and Amaranth Books (twice!). So when I found myself at a tea party in Wicker Park today, it was only natural that I should plan a side trip to Myopic Books. It was the best choice to finish with--titles I sought in vain at the other three stores just fell into my hands there. Between the four of them, I've definitely hit my $100 limit--not to mention stockpiled enough literature to last me into next year. Here's the combined haul:

Poetry/Short stories

1. Irish folk tales. Edited by Henry Glassie. Some real gems in this one, most in that painfully literal "from te Oirish" diction that's like conversing with a leprechaun.
2. O'Connor, Frank. Collected stories.
3. Soueif, Ahdaf. Sandpiper. An impulse purchase for the next time I'm in the mood for some Arab fiction. If it works out, I may return for some of her novels.
4. Stein, Kurt M. Die allerschönste Lengevitch. A sequel of sorts to Die schönste Lengevitch, one of the jewels of my collection. Have no fear: watch this space and you will see excerpts!
5. Welty, Eudora. The collected stories of Eudora Welty. Turned out I didn't have this at the other place--or if it's there, it's unfindable, which amounts to pretty much the same thing.

Novels

1. Gadda, Carlo Emilia. Quell merdé hurrible de Via Merulana (Catalan translation of Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana by Josep Julià.) Every trip, you find a book so bizarre that you simply must buy it. Since I picked this one up, I was able to leave the anthropological study of Punjabi immigrants in Mexico on the shelf.
2. Khoury, Elias. Yalo. His previous novel, set in the hospital of a Palestinian refugee camp, was just a bit too sunny for me, so I picked up this one about a prisoner being interrogated in an Israeli military prison. I'm sure it'll be a gas.
3. Mistry, Rohinton. A fine balance. I haven't read the 300-page novel I have from him, so naturally I went out and bought another twice as long.
4. Moore, Brian. The emperor of ice cream. Seen this for outrageous prices on Amazon; snapped it up for $2.95 from Myopic. Life is great--particularly when your hometown isn't under foreign occupation.
5. O'Faolain, Julia. The Irish signorina. As with O'Connor, I was sufficiently impressed by her contribution to my Penguin anthology to give this a whirl. At least it's short and will probably read quickly.
6. Undset, Sigrid. Kristin Lavransdatter III: The cross. Please, Gods, let this be the volume my set at home is lacking!
7. Vanderhaeghe, Guy. The Englishman's boy. Stumbled across this on a Wikipedia browse and was sufficiently intrigued to hunt it down. If it blows, blame Bob Hoskins.

Nonfiction

1. Jacobs, Jane. The death and life of great American cities. She comes very highly recommended and it's about time I learned more about the places where I've spent nearly my entire life.
2. Kelly, Sean and Rogers, Rosemary. Saints Preserve Us! A highly enjoyable tour of Catholic hagiography. I've been looking for my own copy ever since bunj schnagged one for himself.
3. Matthews, James. Voices: a life of Frank O'Connor. At only $5, another impulse purchase. Hopefully it's not as shite a biography as the introduction to the Collected stories.
4. O'Connor, Frank. An only child. Best summed up by your man's famous line, "To have grown up in an Irish provincial town in the first quarter of the twentieth century was to have known the nineteenth century novel as a contemporary art form."
5. Twain, Mark. The autobiography of Mark Twain. Only days ago, I'd been saying that I should like to read more Twain. If this is half as entertaining as it has any right to be, it'll be twice as enjoyable as any other book I'll read this year.

Comments

[hanskramladen.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Frank O'Connor is one of my favourites - when I was in my early twenties, I read everything by him I could get, all of it in German translation. By the way, with "An Only Child" you got only the first part of his autobiography, describing his childhood; the later years are covered in "My Father's Son".

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

There's a touch of irony to that, given that I've just gotten to the part where he "deduce[s] that German is the real language of culture and that the greatest of cultured persons was Goethe" and so reads all the Goethe he can find in English while beginning to teach himself German.

[hanskramladen.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

With hindsight, it is strange that I never read Frank O'Connor in the original - at that time, I was already reading other authors in English without problems. Perhaps it was an ambition to collect all of the Diogenes editions of his work that kept me from looking for original editions of his books.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I take it no attempt was made by his German translators to preserve any of the flavour of his Hiberno-English diction? (Not that I necessarily think they should've; I'm simply curious how different translations deal with this feature.)

[hanskramladen.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

It's a while since I last read one of his stories, but I don't remember anything like that. What I do remember is that he is very good at plots and at surprising turns, things that work well independent of the language one writes in. This is something I really like in a short story.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

Please let me know how it goes with the Jacobs. I've read bits by her before and have not been enchanted, but her fans are so vocal that I also really feel I should give her another go.

[wiped.livejournal.com]

I was able to leave the anthropological study of Punjabi immigrants in Mexico on the shelf.

was that "making ethnic choices: california's punjabi mexican americans" or another title? i was as surprised when i learned of punjabi-mexicans in southern california as when i started reading about shia muslim tibetans in northern pakistan. desis seem to pop up in the most unexpected places.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Must be; I can't imagine there are two books on the subject.

I knew that Punjabis had settled in the Central Valley and as far north as southern BC, but I'm abashed to say it had never occurred to me that they would've gone south into Mexico as well.

Is there any country so small it has no Indians or Chinamen in it?

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

Vatican City?

Actually, probably not.

[luckymarty.livejournal.com]

Not Vatican City. Andorra? Liechtenstein? St. Kitts/Nevis?