Friday, December 11, 2009

Friday Finds - Early Holiday Presents for Me!






































A big book week for me.
From the Harvard Book Store's warehouse sale I got:
Classics for Pleasure, by critic Michael Dirda. I saw Dirda speak at ReaderCon last July; this is a book of his picks of classic literature new and old, and why he thinks you should read them.
Dirda also wrote the really excellent introduction to Vladimir Nabokov's The Real Life of Sebastian Knight.

The Welsh Girl, by Peter Ho Davies and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, is about the World War 2 experience of North Wales, and has been on my radar for a long time.

The Princess Bride, by Willian Goldman, is just one I've always wanted to read.

The Messengers of Death is another in the Commissaire Laviolette series by the very funny French mystery writer Pierre Magnan. I reviewed his Death in the Truffle Wood last year.

The Rat-Killer, by Alexander Terekhov, looked like a good entry in my contemporary-Russian-literature collection, and

It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken is a graphic novel by Seth that I've wanted to read for awhile. I saw him speak in Cambridge a while ago and have been intrigued by his work ever since.

Other finds:
Sicilian Tragedee by Ottavio Cappellani came from LibraryThing as an Early Reviewer win.

I got Ruby's Spoon, by Anna Lawrence Pietroni, in a gift bag from the Harvard Book Store at their holiday Wine-Down; it's coming out in February.

I picked up Rashi's Daughters III: Rachel, by Maggie Anton, and A Pigeon and A Boy, by Meir Shalev, at the book fair at work, and the anthology Israeli Stories from the used-book table, and

Australian writer Elizabeth Jolley's trilogy-in-one-volume came unsolicitied from the publisher.

They all look great; it's so hard to know where to start. I have a feeling The Princess Bride might make its way to my nightstand sooner rather than later but they all look fantastic.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like you got some good books--I am not familiar with any of them!

gautami tripathy said...

You found really good books. I am gonna check those out.

Here is my Friday Find: The Music Room by William Fiennes

bermudaonion said...

You're in for some good reading!

Serena said...

You got a lot of great books at the sale! Congrats. The Welsh Girl is on my TBR list in good reads. can't wait to see what you think about it.

Florinda said...

I know it's heresy, but I actually like The Princess Bride more as a movie :-). I LOVE the movie - but I do like the book a lot. Enjoy it!

claire said...

I do hope you enjoy The Princess Bride. I've read it more than a few times, an absolute joy. Although it has been awhile.

It's a Good Life if you Don't Weaken is a nice one, too.