Kylie's Literary Adventures in 2012

[poppyshake]

Have you read Plath's diaries too? If so, are Virginia's diaries as, well, difficult to read? Maybe difficult isn't the right word, but I needed to concentrate a lot on Plath's diaries.

I've read the 'Ted edited' version and loved it but yes, I agree .. lots of concentration needed. Virginia's too though I'd say hers were the easier of the two, plenty of stuff like the following in Ginny's ...

 

Saturday 17 November 1934 (talking about her book The Years)

 

A note: despair at the badness of the book: can't think how I ever could write such stuff - and with such excitement: that's yesterday; today I think it good again. A note, by way of advising other Virginias with other books that this is the way of the thing: up down, up down - and Lord knows the truth.

[Kylie]

Thanks Laura and Sofia. I am having a nice time (yes, I couldn't help but check the forum).

 

I got off to a late start and then got caught in bad traffic close to home, so I ended up breaking my outback rule of not driving in the dark and got to destination about 3 hours than I intended.

 

They are closely related to Anobium punctatum; they eat wood and paper and are especially fond of books.

 

You're telling me that now, when I'm halfway across the state from my books and can't protect them?

 

I actually have a plush toy of an Anobium punctatum. I found it in an academic bookstore. A company called Giant Microbes sells all sorts of adorable-looking microbes. Here's my bookworm (top right). He sits in my library (I like to pretend he's there to guard my books rather than eat them ). Ooh, look, you can buy a petri dish with 3 mini bookworms. That's even more adorable!

 

A note: despair at the badness of the book: can't think how I ever could write such stuff - and with such excitement: that's yesterday; today I think it good again. A note, by way of advising other Virginias with other books that this is the way of the thing: up down, up down - and Lord knows the truth.

 

Haha. I think I'll have to bump her diaries up my TBR pile. I found a great set of 8 old hardbacks of Woolf's diaries for sale online recently. They worked out quite cheaply but I still dithered over buying them...and I dithered so long that somebody else snapped them up.

 

I bought three books yesterday; I'll list 'em when I get back home because I can't remember them all. Today I bought Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London.

[Raven]

Ooh, look, you can buy a petri dish with 3 mini bookworms. That's even more adorable tragic.

 

Fixed!

Edited August 24, 2012 by Raven

[Kylie]

Nice try, Raven. I bet you're tempted to order one or more of the cuties yourself.

 

I had an eventful day today. I saw lots of wildlife, including baby goats and lambs, and plenty of emus. I spent some time admiring the fact that I hadn't seen any roadkill emus (compared to the number of roos...eek). I figured they were more intelligent and knew to run away from approaching cars instead of towards them. That theory was turned on its head a bit later when I saw an emu strolling across the road towards my lane. I started braking fast and swerving to the left a little, thinking it would turn tail and run, but it started running straight at me! I don't know how I managed to both miss the emu and stay on the road, but I did and we both survived. I reckon the emu was so close it could have pecked at me through my open window.

 

At the next town, I pulled over to have a small lunch. The town's shops were closed already and there was one or two cars on the streets but no people. It was dead. Just as I was getting ready to leave, the fuzz pulled up behind me. Of course I immediately freaked out and started wondering what I could possibly have done wrong to upset the local constabulary. Turns out they just wanted to give me an RBT. I think they must have been very bored.

 

The rest of the drive was uneventful. I booked into a hotel and went out to get some dinner, but all the shops were closed (curse these country towns! I've hardly found an open shop in two and a half days!) and there was one restaurant that didn't look very lively, so I went back to my room to toast a Pop Tart I had brought along. I popped it in and promptly forgot about it...until the smoke alarm went off. Crikey those things are loud. Of course I hadn't checked the toaster's setting, and it was turned up all the way. My room now smells like a mixture of burnt Pop Tart and the deodorant I used to (unsuccessfully) mask the burnt Pop Tart smell.

 

I have done absolutely no reading since I've been away because my friend sent me some editing work and I have another job to do that I didn't get to finish before I left. Oh dear! I've managed to listen to 3-4 chapters of Stephen Fry reading the first Harry Potter book, though.

[poppyshake]

I think I'll have to bump her diaries up my TBR pile. I found a great set of 8 old hardbacks of Woolf's diaries for sale online recently. They worked out quite cheaply but I still dithered over buying them...and I dithered so long that somebody else snapped them up.

Today I bought Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London.

You won't regret it .. I'm absolutely positive

 

Your trip is sounding amazingly like one of Bill's trips I'm just listening to Stephen reading the second installment of his own auto biog .. somehow I just didn't fancy reading it (mainly I think because there are swathes of people who say that it's not as good as Moab) .. anyway it's a pleasure to listen to him reading anything so I'm enjoying it.

 

Your bookworm freaks me out a bit

[Raven]

We're going to have to start calling you Pop Tart now!

[vodkafan]

What's an RBT Kylie?

[pontalba]

What's an RBT Kylie?

 

 

I wondered the same!

 

Congratulations on missing the wildlife too!

[frankie]

Regarding re-added books list:

Muriel Barbery: The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Hehe!

Poppy Z Brite: Exquisite Corpse - Very happy about this!

Poppy Z Brite: Lost Souls - ^

Augusten Burroughs: Magical Thinking - Extremely happy about this!

Augusten Burroughs: Sellevision - ^

Matt Haig: The Last Family in England - ^

 

I read your post on the neighbors, man they are awful! I can't believe the man attacked you verbally like that. And I can't believe the woman thinks it's okay for her kid to come over to the window and keep staring. I would hate that, that's a total invasion of privacy. I mean the kid probably doesn't understand what he's doing, but the parents should take care of it.

 

At the next town, I pulled over to have a small lunch. The town's shops were closed already and there was one or two cars on the streets but no people. It was dead. Just as I was getting ready to leave, the fuzz pulled up behind me. Of course I immediately freaked out and started wondering what I could possibly have done wrong to upset the local constabulary. Turns out they just wanted to give me an RBT. I think they must have been very bored.

 

 

Raunchy buttocks treatment?

 

A very eventful day indeed. I'm just real happy that you are safe. I'm expecting daily reports from now on, because you keep getting into trouble, woman!

 

Oh, btw, regarding the Chronicles of Avonlea: I googled them and it turns out they are to do with Anne of the Green Gables characters. Not the people from the Road to Avonlea -show

[Kylie]

Your trip is sounding amazingly like one of Bill's trips

 

Hehe. Today has been rather dull by comparison; only a couple of slightly close encounters with crows (and I think eagles) as I disrupted their all-day snacking on roadkill. The birds are kind of handy: when you see a couple of dozen circling overhead in the distance, you know there's going to be roadkill to drive around.

 

I encountered several very nice road train drivers today; I don't know if you have those - road trains are very, very long trucks that transport goods in remote areas. When one drives past in the opposite direction, your car gets buffeted a bit, and it can take a little while to overtake one, even when you're going much faster than they are. Overtaking is a little scary for two reasons: one is that, because of their size, they take up quite a bit of road and their backsides can wobble around a little, so you worry about side-swiping them as you pass (only a mild concern though). Second, it's difficult to see around the bloomin' thing to see if it's safe to overtake in the oncoming lane. This is where the friendly road train drivers come in. When they see my impatient little car poking its nose around the road train's backside to try to see if the road is clear, they put their blinker on to let me know there are no cars coming and that it's safe for me to overtake. Aww.

 

Your bookworm freaks me out a bit

 

Oh, but it's so cute and fluffy!

 

We're going to have to start calling you Pop Tart now!

 

Just you try it, Raven! Coincidentally, in the town I'm staying in tonight, every single street is named after a bird. Yes, there's a Raven street. I'm half tempted to go and cause some mischief.

 

What's an RBT Kylie?

 

Sorry. It's a Random Breath Test (to test for alcohol). I felt like asking whether they actually catch anyone driving around drunk at 2 in the afternoon, but I think that kind of thing probably is a problem in some country areas, so I kept my mouth shut.

 

Congratulations on missing the wildlife too!

 

Thanks Pontalba! I do feel like it's quite an achievement given the number of dead'ens I've seen. The front of my car is covered in squished bugs though. Ew! I'm definitely getting someone else to clean my car when I get home.

[Kylie]

Regarding re-added books list:

Muriel Barbery: The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Hehe!

Poppy Z Brite: Exquisite Corpse - Very happy about this!

Poppy Z Brite: Lost Souls - ^

Augusten Burroughs: Magical Thinking - Extremely happy about this!

Augusten Burroughs: Sellevision - ^

Matt Haig: The Last Family in England - ^

 

I knew you'd be happy about all of these. When I was sorting through the books, I got a little absorbed in the stories in Magical Thinking (the chapter headings were very intriguing).

 

Raunchy buttocks treatment?

 

Darn, I forgot to look as he walked away. He was pretty young.

 

A very eventful day indeed. I'm just real happy that you are safe. I'm expecting daily reports from now on, because you keep getting into trouble, woman!

 

I can't help it! Trouble keeps finding me!

 

Oh, btw, regarding the Chronicles of Avonlea: I googled them and it turns out they are to do with Anne of the Green Gables characters. Not the people from the Road to Avonlea -show

 

Oh, so they're not related at all? Is the Road to Avonlea about Prince Edward Island and the area where Anne lived? Or is it totally unrelated in any way to the books?

[Kylie]

I got back from my holiday this afternoon. I had a great time but 'there's no place like home'. Unfortunately, even though I took so many books away, I didn't read a single page. I was driving all day and sometimes into the night and was too exhausted to do anything much at the end of each day. I travelled 4,000+ kilometres in 8 days (or less, not counting the couple of days I spent with my friend).

 

Here's my list of recent acquisitions.

 

(Bought before holiday)

EF Benson Mapp and Lucia

Stella Gibbons Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm

Percy Bysshe Shelley Selected Poems

 

(Arrived while I was away)

Russell Ash & Brian Lake Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities

Judy Parkinson I Before E (Except After C)

Terry Pratchett Discworld #14: Lords and Ladies (I think I finally have the complete set - woohoo!)

 

(Bought while I was away)

Ben Aaronovitch Rivers of London

Ellen Bosworth Shelley Peters and the Bushfire Mystery

Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury Tales (new copy to replace my old one)

Janet Evanovich & Charlotte Hughes Full Blast (for Mum, but I might read it first)

Michel Faber The Courage Consort

Morris Gleitzman Two Weeks with the Queen

David Malouf Ransom

Groucho Marx Memoirs of a Mangy Lover

Harpo Marx & Rowland Barber Harpo Speaks!

 

Even better news: the Canberra bookfair is on a couple of weeks and I plan on going.

[chesilbeach]

Shame you didn't have any reading time, but at least you had a good holiday!

 

EF Benson Mapp and Lucia Yay! I love this series (although it isn't the first one)

Stella Gibbons Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm Love Stella Gibbons - I plan on reading more of her books in the future.

Ben Aaronovitch Rivers of London Very close to the top of my wishlist at this moment in time!

Michel Faber The Courage Consort Another great writer. I enjoyed this a lot

[vodkafan]

Glad you had a nice holiday Kylie. Wow that was some road trip . You have plenty of reading matter to catch up on I see

[chaliepud]

Welcome home Kylie

[Kylie]

I don't often browse online bookshops - I tend to know what I want to search for and go straight to it. But today I decided to have a little browse, and lo and behold, the Book Depository has a whole section dedicated to 'Diaries, Letters & Journals'! There were too many to go through so I narrowed it down to upcoming releases and added the following to my wish list. I've included the synopsis given on the BD's website. They're rather long but very interesting and informative.

 

John Lennon The John Lennon Letters

*squeals with excitement* I had no idea this was in the works! It comes out in a month and is 400 pages long. OMG, I CAN'T WAIT!! (I hate using OMG, but that's how excited I am!) Thanks Yoko! Michelle and other Beatles fans: will you buy this? Here's the synopsis:

 

John Lennon was a writer as well as a musician. It was entirely natural for him to put pen to paper whenever he had an idea, a thought, a reaction or a desire to communicate. He lived - and died - in an age before emails and texts. Pen and ink was what he turned to. John wrote letters and postcards all of his life; to his friends, family, strangers, newspapers, organisations, lawyers and the laundry - most of which were funny, informative, campaigning, wise, mad, poetic, anguished and sometimes heartbreaking. For the first time, John's widow, Yoko Ono, has given permission to publish a collection of his letters. The Editor is the Beatles' official biographer, Hunter Davies, who knew John well. John's letters are in a way something of a mystery - where are they all? Over the years many have come up at auction, then sold to dealers and collectors. Or they have been kept by the recipients, locked up safely. It has been a wonderful piece of detective work tracing many of these 250 letters, postcards and notes, which are arranged in chronological order, so that a narrative builds up, reflecting John's life. It will be visual - in a sense that many of the letters are reproduced as they were, in his handwriting or typing, plus the odd cartoon or doodle. THE JOHN LENNON LETTERS is fundamentally a book to read and study, providing a unique insight into the mind of one of the great figures of our times.

 

LM Montgomery The Complete Journals of LM Montgomery

This sounds fascinating. Apparently only selected journals have been published in the past, and the editors were told to take out any pessimistic stuff and just make it all happy. These journals, being complete, will obviously show a different side. The synopsis is great:

 

The first edition of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery was published in the 1980s, with fifty percent of the material removed to save space, as well as to reflect a quaint, marketable vision of small-town Canada. The editors were instructed to excise anything that was not upbeat or did not "move the story along." The resulting account of Montgomery's youthful life in Prince Edward Island depicts a fun-loving, simple country girl. The unabridged journal, however, reveals something quite different. We now know that Montgomery was anything but simple. She was often anxious, bitter, dark, and political, although always able to see herself and her surroundings with a deep ironic - and often comical - twist. The unabridged version shows her using writing as a means of managing her own mood swings, as well as her increasing dependency on journal keeping, and her ambition as a writer. She was also exceedingly interested in men. We see here a more developed portrait of what she herself described as a "very uncomfortable blend" between "the passionate Montgomery blood and the Puritan Macneill conscience." Full details describe the impassioned events during which she describes becoming a "new creature," "born of sorrow and hopeless longing." In addition, this unedited account is a striking visual record, containing some 226 of her own photographs placed as she placed them in her journals, as well as newspaper clippings, postcards, and professional portraits, all with her own original captions. New notes and a new introduction give key context to the history, the people, and the culture in the text. A new preface by Michael Bliss draws some unexpected connections. The full PEI journals tells a fascinating tale of a young woman coming of age in a bygone rural Canada, a tale far thornier and far more compelling than the first selected edition could disclose.

 

Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut: Letters

These should provide a great insight into Vonnegut. Synopsis:

 

This extraordinary collection of personal correspondence has all the hallmarks of Kurt Vonnegut's fiction. Written over a sixty-year period, these letters, the vast majority of them never before published, are funny, moving, and full of the same uncanny wisdom that has endeared his work to readers worldwide. Included in this comprehensive volume: the letter a twenty-two-year-old Vonnegut wrote home immediately upon being freed from a German POW camp, recounting the ghastly firebombing of Dresden that would be the subject of his masterpiece "Slaughterhouse-Five;" wry dispatches from Vonnegut's years as a struggling writer slowly finding an audience and then dealing with sudden international fame in middle age; righteously angry letters of protest to local school boards that tried to ban his work; intimate remembrances penned to high school classmates, fellow veterans, friends, and family; and letters of commiseration and encouragement to such contemporaries as Gail Godwin, Gunter Grass, and Bernard Malamud. Vonnegut's unmediated observations on science, art, and commerce prove to be just as inventive as any found in his novels--from a crackpot scheme for manufacturing "atomic" bow ties to a tongue-in-cheek proposal that publishers be allowed to trade authors like baseball players. ("Knopf, for example, might give John Updike's contract to Simon and Schuster, and receive Joan Didion's contract in return.") Taken together, these letters add considerable depth to our understanding of this one-of-a-kind literary icon, in both his public and private lives. Each letter brims with the mordant humor and openhearted humanism upon which he built his legend. And virtually every page contains a quotable nugget that will make its way into the permanent Vonnegut lexicon. - On a job he had as a young man: "Hell is running an elevator throughout eternity in a building with only six floors." - To a relative who calls him a "great literary figure" "I am an American fad--of a slightly higher order than the hula hoop." - To his daughter Nanny: "Most letters from a parent contain a parent's own lost dreams disguised as good advice." - To Norman Mailer: "I am cuter than you are." Sometimes biting and ironical, sometimes achingly sweet, and always alive with the unique point of view that made him the true cultural heir to Mark Twain, these letters comprise the autobiography Kurt Vonnegut never wrote.

[Kylie]

I also found three already-published books by John Steinbeck that I've added to my wish list.

 

Working Days

A journal he wrote while he wrote one of my favourite books!

 

Synopsis: The journal John Steinback kept between June and October of 1938 when he wrote The Grapes of Wrath. It is a tale of determination and inspiration; it also chronicles his self-doubt and personal difficulties. With a fascinating cast of characters, Working Days records in intimate detail the conception and genesis of an American masterpiece.

 

Steinbeck: A Life in Letters

Synopsis: For John Steinbeck, who hated the telephone, letter-writing was a preparation for work and a natural way for him to communicate his thoughts on people he liked and hated; on marriage, women, and children; on the condition of the world; and on his progress in learning his craft. Opening with letters written during Steinbeck's early years in California, and closing with a 1968 note written in Sag Herbor, New York, Steinbeck: A Life in Letters reveals the inner thoughts and rough character of this American author as nothing else has and as nothing else ever will.

 

Journal of a Novel: The 'East of Eden' Letters

I'll keep this on my wish list until I read East of Eden.

 

Synopsis: Each working day from January 29 to November 1, 1951, John Steinbeck warmed up to the work of writing East of Eden with a letter to the late Pascal Covici, his friend and editor at The Viking Press. It was his way, he said, of "getting my mental arm in shape to pitch a good game."Steinbeck's letters were written on the left-hand pages of a notebook in which the facing pages would be filled with the text of East of Eden. They touched on many subjects--story arguments, trial flights of worknamship, concern for his sons.Part autobiography, part writer's workshop, these letters offer an illuminating perspective on Steinbeck's creative process, and a fascinating glimpse of Steinbeck, the private man.

[vodkafan]

I am going to have to buy the Kurt Vonnegut letters for sure thanks for the heads up

[Kylie]

I went to the Canberra bookfair on Friday and Saturday. I'm afraid I wasn't very restrained; I came back with one of my biggest hauls ever! Here are my fiction books:

 

Brian Aldiss (ed) A Science Fiction Omnibus

Kinglsey Amis One Fat Englishman

Kate Atkinson Behind the Scenes at the Museum

Kate Atkinson Started Early, Took My Dog

Jane Austen & Charlotte Bronte The Juvenilia of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte

JG Ballard The Disaster Area

JG Ballard Hello America

Julian Barnes A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters

John Birmingham Popeland

David Blair (ed) Gothic Short Stories

Richard Brautigan So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away

Anthony Burgess The Long Day Wanes

Anthony Burgess The Malayan Trilogy

Nick Cave And the Ass Saw the Angel

Erskine Childers The Riddle of the Sands

Agatha Christie The 13 Problems

Agatha Christie After the Funeral

Agatha Christie The Body in the Library

Agatha Christie Cards on the Table

Agatha Christie Dead Man's Folly

Agatha Christie Death in the Clouds

Agatha Christie Elephants Can Remember

Agatha Christie The Moving Finger

Agatha Christie The Murder on the Links

Agatha Christie Peril at End House

Agatha Christie The Seven Dials Mystery

Joseph Conrad The Secret Agent

Simone de Beauvoir The Woman Destroyed

Michel Faber The Fahrenheit Twins

William Faulkner As I Lay Dying

William Faulkner Light in August

Gustave Flaubert Three Tales

Graham Greene The Man Within

Jerome K Jerome Evergreens

Arthur Koestler Arrival and Departure

DH Lawrence Kangaroo

CS Lewis Voyage to Venus

W Somerset Maugham Christmas Holiday

William Maxwell So Long, See You Tomorrow

Shaun Micallef Smithereens

Jessica Mitford The Making of a Mudraker

Haruki Murakami The Elephant Vanishes

Iris Murdoch The Black Prince

Chuck Palahniuk Diary

Frederick Pohl Jem

Dan Rhodes This is Life

Muriel Spark The Go-Away Bird and Other Stories

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

John Steinbeck Once There was a War

Amy Tan The Bonesetter's Daughter

Amy Tan Saving Fish from Drowning

Alice Walker The Color Purple

Robert Penn Warren All the King's Men

Jeanette Winterson Gut Symmetries

Jeanette Winterson Lighthousekeeping

Jeanette Winterson Sexing the Cherry

Virginia Woolf A Haunted House: The Complete Shorter Fiction

 

[Kylie]

Here is my non-fiction haul, separated roughly into genres:

 

Autobiographies and Biographies

Martin Amis Experience

Alan Bennett A Life Like Other People's

Pattie Boyd Wonderful Tonight

Anthony Burgess You've Had Your Time

Humphrey Carpenter The Inklings

Charlotte Chandler Hello, I Must Be Going: Groucho and His Friends

Bob Dylan Chronicles: Volume One

Rebecca Fraser Charlotte Bronte

Helene Hanff Q's Legacy

Jean-Paul Sartre Words

Gertrude Stein Paris France

George Woodstock The Crystal Spirit: A Study of George Orwell

Julia Briggs Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life

 

Letters, Diaries and Essays

Martin Amis The War Against Cliche

Truman Capote A Capote Reader

Richard Harwell (ed) Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind Letters, 1936-1949

William Hazlitt On the Pleasure of Hating

Nick Hornby 31 Songs

Aldous Huxley Music at Night

CS Lewis Literature, Philosophy and Short Stories

HL Mencken Selected Prejudices

Regina Marler Selected Letters of Vanessa Bell

Jon Ronson Them: Adventures with Extremists

Frederic Spotts Letters of Leonard Woolf

Tom Wolfe The New Journalism

Tom Wolfe The Purple Decades

Virginia Woolf The Diary of Virginia Woolf Volume 3 1925-1930

Virginia Woolf The Diary of Virginia Woolf Volume 4 1931-1935

Virginia Woolf Women and Writing

 

Books About Books

Harold Bloom How to Read and Why

Carmen Callil & Colm Toibin The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English Since 1950

Umberto Eco Misreadings

Neal T Jones (ed) A Book of Days for the Literary Year

Finlay Lloyd When Books Die: 15 Essays

 

Travelogues

Aldous Huxley Jesting Pilate

Ernest Hemingway Death in the Afternoon

Mark Twain The Innocents Abroad

Nicholas Rankin Dead Man's Chest: Travels After Robert Louis Stevenson

 

Humour

Jane Austen The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen

Andrea Barham The Pedant's Revolt

Robert E Drennan (ed) The Algonquin Wits

Mardy Grothe Oxymoronica

Gideon Haigh (ed) Peter the Lord's Cat and Other Unexpected Obituaries from Wisden

Richard Lederer More Anguished English

Roger Lewis Seasonal Suicide Notes

Spike Milligan The Essential Spike Milligan

A Parody: A Sh!te History of Nearly Everything

Maggie Pinkney The Devil's Collection: A Cynic's Dictionary

Ben Pobjie Superchef Australia

 

Language/Editing Textbooks

Eric Partridge You Have a Point There: A Guide to Punctuation and Its Allies

The Penguin Complete English Reference Collection (8 books)

Mark Tredennick The Little Red Writing Book

 

Other

Nerida Campbell (ed) Femme Fatale

Joseph de Maistre The Executioner

Steven Jay Schneider 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

 

I put up my second new bookcase today. I have loads of work ahead of me now to catalogue and shelve my new books. Happy times!

[frankie]

I bought three books yesterday; I'll list 'em when I get back home because I can't remember them all. Today I bought Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London.

 

Jealous! I've been wanting to read this books for ages

 

I knew you'd be happy about all of these. When I was sorting through the books, I got a little absorbed in the stories in Magical Thinking (the chapter headings were very intriguing).

 

From what little you read, what did you make of the book?

 

Oh, so they're not related at all? Is the Road to Avonlea about Prince Edward Island and the area where Anne lived? Or is it totally unrelated in any way to the books?

 

Well I wouldn't know because I've not read the books, and I don't remember all the characters of the Anne novels too well (I've always preferred Emily to Anne), but I think all the books take place on P.E. Island, but the characters are different from the Story Girl novels. There may be some overlapping with some minor characters, but that's all. I think.

 

Russell Ash & Brian Lake Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities

This should be interesting!

 

Groucho Marx Memoirs of a Mangy Lover

Harpo Marx & Rowland Barber Harpo Speaks!

You already commented on the Harpo book on my thread but I still find it funny that we should've bought the same book on the very same day

 

Kate Atkinson Started Early, Took My Dog

I think this is on my wishlist, although I'm pretty sure it's not really about dogs. It's a murder mystery, is it not?

 

Jane Austen & Charlotte Bronte The Juvenilia of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte

Interesting, what's this about?

 

Richard Brautigan So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away

Haha, hippie Brautigan book!

 

Simone de Beauvoir The Woman Destroyed

Wohoo for Beauvoir! I don't believe I have a copy of this, great find!

 

William Faulkner As I Lay Dying

Jealous!

 

Jessica Mitford The Making of a Mudraker

This must be one of the Mitford sisters?

 

Haruki Murakami The Elephant Vanishes

Yay for finding Murakami. And I can't believe you didn't even think of him until you found a copy, I think one of the books/authors I remember the best from our book fair trip is Murakami, we both found so many of his titles.

 

Dan Rhodes This is Life

I don't think I've even heard of this one

 

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Yay!! I'm the most happy about you purchasing this novel! As I'm sure you probably expected.

 

Amy Tan The Bonesetter's Daughter

Amy Tan Saving Fish from Drowning

Cool! I hope to possibly read some of these together with you, if our reading schedules allow it!

 

Alice Walker The Color Purple

This was a great novel!

 

Robert Penn Warren All the King's Men

This rings a few bells but I can't remember where I've heard the title.

 

Jeanette Winterson Gut Symmetries

Jeanette Winterson Lighthousekeeping

Jeanette Winterson Sexing the Cherry

Oh boy, is poppyshake to be blamed for this?

 

Virginia Woolf A Haunted House: The Complete Shorter Fiction

So cool!

[frankie]

Before I forget: Have you counted how many books you bought in total? Was this your biggest book fair haul to date? It certainly looks like a serious contender!

 

Charlotte Chandler Hello, I Must Be Going: Groucho and His Friends

I see a pattern here...

 

Richard Harwell (ed) Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind Letters, 1936-1949

Gertrude Stein Paris France

Jean-Paul Sartre Words

Jealous! Bloody hell, some amazing finds.

 

Julia Briggs Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life

Rebecca Fraser Charlotte Bronte

George Woodstock The Crystal Spirit: A Study of George Orwell

Excellent choices!

 

Truman Capote A Capote Reader

I'm betting you were really psyched to find this! I'm so happy for you

 

HL Mencken Selected Prejudices

This purchase is the other book besides The Art of Racing in the Rain that I'm so happy and excited about, we are crazy for Mencken

 

Regina Marler Selected Letters of Vanessa Bell

Hmmm, who was Vanessa Bell again?

 

Frederic Spotts Letters of Leonard Woolf

This should be interesting.

 

Tom Wolfe The New Journalism

Tom Wolfe The Purple Decades

These should be really interesting as well.

 

Virginia Woolf The Diary of Virginia Woolf Volume 3 1925-1930

Virginia Woolf The Diary of Virginia Woolf Volume 4 1931-1935

Virginia Woolf Women and Writing

I see someone's getting into Woolf these days I'm really jealous about the diaries. I can't wait for you to get into them so you can tell me if you like them. Are you thinking about doing the same kind of Woolf challenge poppyshake is doing?

 

Harold Bloom How to Read and Why

Hehe, I have a copy of this!

 

Carmen Callil & Colm Toibin The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English Since 1950

I wonder which books are on the list...

 

Ernest Hemingway Death in the Afternoon

Oh man I'm so jealous!

 

Jane Austen The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen

So cool!

 

Mardy Grothe Oxymoronica

Please tell me more about this when you have the time!

 

Gideon Haigh (ed) Peter the Lord's Cat and Other Unexpected Obituaries from Wisden

What the hell is this?

 

Richard Lederer More Anguished English

Read question above.

 

Roger Lewis Seasonal Suicide Notes

Read question above.

 

Happy times! I wish I was there to give you a hand. Although I'm not sure you'd allow me to touch your precious, precious books Remember how much fun we had when we put up one of your Billy bookcases when I was visiting? And how we talked about how you must remove the library room door off its hinges and get rid of it so you could fit the bookcase next to the others? Haha!

[poppyshake]

Jeanette Winterson Gut Symmetries

Jeanette Winterson Lighthousekeeping

Jeanette Winterson Sexing the Cherry

Oh boy, is poppyshake to be blamed for this?

Oh dear .. I'm in for it now I haven't read these (though voddy has read and loved Lighthousekeeping) .. I've got Sexing the Cherry .. if I read it and it's awful I'll hide.

Virginia Woolf A Haunted House: The Complete Shorter Fiction

So cool!

Ooh I'm wanting this one .. I've borrowed her Selected Shorter Fiction from the library but I'm beginning to think that the person responsible for selecting may have had a warped sense of humour Oh you're getting a lovely Woolf collection Kylie (what is a collection of Woolfs? ) .. they will look so good on your Billy's.

Richard Harwell (ed) Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind Letters, 1936-1949

Gertrude Stein Paris France

Jean-Paul Sartre Words

Jealous! Bloody hell, some amazing finds.

My mouth is watering

Julia Briggs Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life

Rebecca Fraser Charlotte Bronte

George Woodstock The Crystal Spirit: A Study of George Orwell

Excellent choices!

Just marvellous.

Regina Marler Selected Letters of Vanessa Bell

Hmmm, who was Vanessa Bell again?

An artist, a Bloomsbury Group member and Virginia Woolf's sister.

Frederic Spotts Letters of Leonard Woolf

This should be interesting.

I should say .. what a find

Virginia Woolf The Diary of Virginia Woolf Volume 3 1925-1930

Virginia Woolf The Diary of Virginia Woolf Volume 4 1931-1935

Virginia Woolf Women and Writing

I see someone's getting into Woolf these days I'm really jealous about the diaries. I can't wait for you to get into them so you can tell me if you like them. Are you thinking about doing the same kind of Woolf challenge poppyshake is doing?

She's waiting to see if I crack first I am so, so, jealous of those diary volumes Kylie .. I will be snapping up any that I see also.

 

So many great books .. well done you! I am imagining you sitting at home with this pile before you .. cataloguing away .. bliss!!

[poppy]

 

Jeanette Winterson Lighthousekeeping

Jeanette Winterson Sexing the Cherry

 

LOVED Lighthousekeeping, but found Sexing the Cherry a bit too weird.

[vodkafan]

 

 

LOVED Lighthousekeeping, but found Sexing the Cherry a bit too weird.

 

I liked both, but Lighthousekeeping is WAY the better of the two. Did you read my review poppy? I admit it was very short because I did not want to give away anything about the plot.