Thursday, March 16, 2017

Bringing Home the Books: Strand Bookstore & A Library Book Sale

This week has been a great one for acquiring books - not only did my local library hold its quarterly book sale, but my order from The Strand Bookstore in NYC arrived!  In total, I added 10 new books to my shelves. I'm certainly excited to read them, but I'm also excited to share them with you -

  • Faber & Faber 1984 edition of T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
  • The Martian by Andy Weir
  • Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
  • Book of the Month Club edition of Jade Chang's The Wangs vs the World
  • Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson
  • The David Foster Wallace Reader (including selections from many of his works)
  • Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

From The Strand, I placed an order for three books
  • Frances Spalding's 1984 biography of Virginia Woolf's sister, and artistic phenom, Vanessa Bell
  • Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • Seeing Power, by Nato Thompson

I first heard about the Vanessa Bell biography on a Persephone Books blog post from February 1, 2017 , and knew I needed to find it...luckily at a very reasonable price.  I don't know how clear it is in the photo above, but this book has seen some life and love - the cover is quite badly ripped, but the text inside is in great condition.  I had pre-ordered Chimamanda's book, a long-form essay about raising children to be inclusive and rooted in equality, because she was doing an event at The Strand, and my book would be autographed.  Also autographed is Nato Thompson's cultural criticism of what it means to make meaningful art in the consumer-capitalist era.

Have you bought or acquired any new books recently?  Anything you're particularly excited to start reading?



Librorum annis