Bat Brandeis ha Shenit

[muckefuck]

Any of you who were out and about in Chicago yesterday know that it wasn't a day to spend two minutes in huge tent outside, let alone more than two hours, but somehow we managed, for such is the lure of cheap books. For less than $60, I ended up with nearly twenty books. Disregarding a couple of novelty choices (how could we not pick up a Thomas Kinkade album for monshu?), they're solid books. But judge for yourself:

1. Teach yourself Danish (Koefoed, H.A. London, 1958) Mmm...stød. Nothing fancy, just a good old-fashioned TY volume from back when they weren't afraid of IPA. As if there wasn't enough grammar in the lessons, there's a 50-page reference grammar tacked on at the end.
2. Die Judenbuche (Drost-Hülshoff, A. von. Stuttgart, 1975.) A cheap Reclam edition. Don't know a thing about this except that she's one of those writers I always vaguely feel I should've read more from than just excerpts.
3. Pole Poppenspäler (Storm, T. Boston, 1904.) See above. If I actually finish this, it will be the first time I've ever read an entire literary work in Fraktur. Der deutsche Schäferhund calls it his "favourite" Storm novella and the preface refers to it as "his masterpiece", so if it sucks on their heads be it.
4. Sto wierszy polskich (Dececius, K., comp. Kraków, 1982.) Judging by availability, Croatian is the Slavic language I should be studying. Of the three Polish titles available, this looked the most likely to actually see some use; I think life is too short for me to attempt Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz even with a facing translation.
5. Lietuvių papročiai ir tradicijos iševijoje = Lithuanian customs and traditions (Bindokienė, D.B. Chicago, 1998) e. has so many virtues I can easily overlook the sad fact that appreciating a bilingual book of Lithuanian popular ethnography is not one of them. Kudos to bunj for finding this.
6. Paula (Allende, I. New York, 1995.) And closing out the foreign language section, Isabel Allende's other autobiography which with any luck I will enjoy as much as I did the other one.
7. 100 wild little weird tales (New York, 1994) That anthology whore Greenberg was one of the editors and it looks like he found some good stuff for this one. Just the thing to keep on the nightstand for a quick four a.m. read.
8. Troubles (Farrel, J.G. New York, 2002) Because I don't have enough historical novels of Ireland yet. No prizes for guessing when this one is set.
9. Rough crossing (Schama, S. London, 2006) Looks like good historiography to me, but then I'm just a man who plays with funny words. Hopefully richardthinks and princeofcairo are not rolling their eyes right now.
10. The ambassadors (James, H. Köln, 1996.) Herr Hund confessed he hadn't been able to make it through this one, which is ominous, but I'm banking on being in exactly the right mood for it someday. If not, it should hold its resale value.
11. Beautiful swimmers (Warner, W.W. New York, 1977) I actually own a copy of this masterful study of Chesapeake blue crabs and the men who make their living catching them, but I wanted to give my dad a chance to have his own.
12. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (Leskov, N. New York, 1987) I read some short stories from Leskov several years ago and really enjoyed them, didn't I? I guess I'll find out.
13. Giants (Teale, S. New York, 1979) Another book bought to give away. I almost picked up a copy I saw for sale last December, but I thought the text too dense for my young nephews. But bunj pointed out they could look at the pictures now and only start reading it in a couple years when they're ready. Fair enough.
14. Ethnic Chicago (Holli, M.G. & Jones, P.d'A., editors. Grand Rapids, 1995) At 648 pages, a comprehensive introduction to the history of Chicago's ethnic communities. Another real find if you ask me.
15. Emma (Austen, J. New York, 2004) No, I do not already own a copy. Yes, that's because I've never read it. So how many points do I win at Humiliation?

To make up for the Kinkade, I schnagged monshu the catalogs for the last two major exhibitions of Imperial Chinese art at the Field Museum. That's $18 right there and worth every damn penny. Also a cookbook that e. recommended--nay, put in my hands to purchase--and that we've already begun mining for recipes. (Don't worry, I paid her back with John McPhee book about Alaska.)