Major Book Shopping Haul!

Boy did I ever sleep in this morning!  And it's no wonder after a full day out.  The Book Depot was pretty awesome.  They only had 2 of my challenge books that I wanted to get but I was pleasantly, overwhelmingly surprised by the availability of so many books on my must-read list.  I ended up with an overstuffed box of....57!

Here are the photos I snapped of them all & their titles.  Sorry if the glare of the flash obscures some parts.

LEFT COLUMN:
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold- John le Carré
Moonlight Mile- Dennis Lehane
By Myself & Then Some- Lauren Bacall
The First Wives Club- Olivia Goldsmith
Infinite Jest- David Foster Wallace
Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography- Andrew Morton
A Lotus Grows in the Mud- Goldie Hawn
The Age of Innocence- Edith Wharton
Brideshead Revisited- Evelyn Waugh
Love and Other Impossible Pursuits- Ayelet Waldman
Living History- Hillary Rodham Clinton
U2 by U2- Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullens
Great Expectations- Charles Dickens
Reservation Road- John Burnham Schwartz
Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte
Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself- Alan Alda
Patchwork Planet- Anne Tyler

RIGHT COLUMN:
Blessings- Anna Quindlen
All the King's Men- Robert Penn Warren
Middlemarch- George Eliot
The Evening Star- Larry McMurtry
The Poseidon Adventure- Paul Gallico
Frankenstein- Mary Shelley
American on Purpose- Craig Ferguson
The Birthing House- Christopher Ransom
Kate Remembered- A. Scott Berg
Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn- William J. Mann
Gulliver's Travels- Jonathan Swift
L.A. Confidential- James Ellroy
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood- Rebecca Wells
The Stone Diaries- Carol Shields

VERY BOTTOM:
The Bluest Eye- Toni Morrison

LEFT COLUMN (from left to right, top to bottom):
Angela's Ashes- Frank McCourt
The Awakening- Kate Chopin
My Antonia- Willa Cather
Vanity Fair- William Makepeace Thackeray
If I Only Knew Then- Charles Grodin
Profiles in Courage- John F. Kennedy

RIGHT COLUMN:
Film Flam- Larry McMurtry
Our Town- Thornton Wilder
Sense and Sensibility- Jane Austen
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland- Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking Glass- Lewis Carroll
The Scarlet Letter- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Far From the Madding Crowd- Thomas Hardy
Shameless Explotation in Pursuit of the Common Good- Paul Newman & A.E. Hotchner
Tess of the D'Urbervilles- Thomas Hardy
We Were the Mulvaneys- Joyce Carol Oates
Get Shorty- Elmore Leonard
Terms of Endearment- Larry McMurtry
The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde
Mutiny on the Bounty-
A Tale of Two Cities- Charles Dickens
Their Eyes Were Watching God- Zora Neale Hurston
Cry, the Beloved Country- Alan Paton
Native Son- Richard Wright
Hannibal- Thomas Harris


But, the adventure didn't end there!  I thought to myself that I should venture forth and get the challenge books I was seeking in the first place...and a couple of others the Book Depot didn't have ;)  So, I ended up getting 10 more books at Chapters:

Pet Sematary- Stephen King
Night Shift- Stephen King
Misery- Stephen King
The Cider House Rules- John Irving
On the Road- Jack Kerouac
Back When We Were Grownups- Anne Tyler
The Reader- Bernhard Schlink
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter- Carson McCullers
Night- Elie Wiesel
A Short History of Nearly Everything- Bill Bryson

So, the grand total from my book haul is 67 books.  I was lucky to squeeze some on my shelves and get all the others in one box for the closet.  Space is dwindling with every book buying trip...you know how it is :)  All in all, I'd say my TBR shelf is pretty full for now!

On a challenge-related note, I cannot seem to find Cujo by Stephen King for the Stephen King Challenge, so I'll be swapping in Pet Sematary instead.

Have you been on any book-buying sprees lately?

Book Buying Trip

This was a background my friend used in her wedding slideshow.
Tried to find a photo of "early autumn" :o)
Courtesy of 3D Digital Wallpapers

Today was beautiful in so many ways.  It's early in the school year, so I haven't worked very much yet (only a 1/2 day so far & have another this Friday), and that has given me free time that I am filling with reading, blogging, watching movies, and sneaking in some Nintendo-playing (yes, I'm still a kid at heart!).  After breakfast, I read the morning paper and a column caught my eye that literally "dared" me to say yes to opportunity.  After reading some Mailbox Monday blog posts and looking out the window at the gorgeous weather, it was clear that I needed to get outside and

After lunch today, I bussed out about 15-20 minutes to a "half-price" bookstore that is fairly new, but I hadn't noticed (!) before.  I wasn't sure what to expect--is it a used bookstore or an overstock warehouse?  It was double the size I guessed (the building is 2-in-1, seemingly invisible from the outside) and turns out they were brand new books at half-price.  Woo hoo!  Not as much selection and not as well organized as the Book Depot (random stacks on tables labeled "Fiction"), but not a wasted trip by far.

I got these for around $5-8 each.

The 64 Sonnets- John Keats- One of my favourite poets.  I lack poetry on my bookshelf!

The God Delusion- Richard Dawkins- Heard about this & have never read anything on religion.  Caused quite a stir and I'd like to read why.

Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte- I saw a bunch of Collins classics stacked together and chose this & the next one.  Have always wanted to read JE.

Oliver Twist- Charles Dickens- To replace my mangled old copy

Girls Like Us- Sheila Weller- A biographical look at women of the 1960s and 1970s with a focus on 3 major musical acts of the time:  Carole King, Joni Mitchell & Carly Simon

Good in Bed- Jennifer Weiner- $10 at the general store.  I liked In Her Shoes (loved the movie more) and heard this was good as well.

I originally went out book shopping with a list of 4 books in mind.  Having not found any of them earlier, I stopped in Coles and got 3/4 from my list:

Under the Dome- Stephen King- I'm a King junkie as you can guess from earlier posts and I've heard from even the mildest of King fans that this is his latest hurrah.  At over 1000 pages, I'm sure this will take time to finish but I'm excited about it!

Freedom- Jonathan Franzen- Not thrilled to pay for a hardcover copy, but I'm anxious to try it.  No, not because it's Oprah's latest book club choice, but because I've heard it's a masterpiece and I want to believe that Franzen can write better characters than The Corrections, which I tried desperately to like but just couldn't relate to, even though I thought his writing style was quite good

Her Fearful Symmetry- Audrey Niffenegger- Like most readers, I was astounded by The Time Traveler's Wife and, even though not everyone thought HFS was the greatest follow-up, consider that writing something better than what many called "the perfect novel" (think also of Harper Lee & To Kill a Mockingbird), how can you not take risks in writing a follow-up novel?  I have high hopes that I will enjoy this, maybe not as much as TTW, but least enough to like it.  That's what I always hope for in reading anything!

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Stieg Larsson- Yes, I broke down and got it.  I was originally going to get Sh*t My Father Says by Justin Halperin, but decided to give this a try instead.  If it's as good a suspense yarn as I hear it is, it'll be worth the switch, and I'll try the next two titles in the series.

So, to wrap up, here's a lovely stack of today's purchases:

Just bee-you-teeful :oD

A Fateful Trip to the Bookstore Brings Austen to Life

It was just supposed to be a trip to the grocery store...But when there is a decent-sized Coles in the mall, a run down to grab a People magazine turns into a desire to nab "maybe just one" book.  I scanned the Margaret Atwood novels, uncertain about which one to try, and racking my brain to remember what the general reviews were for Handmaid's Tale, Oryx & Crake, or Cat's Eye (probably all 5-star), but that was just an excuse to not get carried away with purchases.

Thinking I had mustered the courage to simply pay for the magazine & get back to food shopping, I had to wait for a clerk.  And sitting right by the checkout was a display of classics.  Among them was the one book I've always been ashamed to have never read, English degree and all:  Pride & Prejudice.  *Gasp*  A hush falls over the book blogging community.  I'll wait while you catch your breath and think "My God, how has she lived till now?"

It was a simple paperback edition for only $5.  It was a no-brainer.  The manager of the store, who (whom?  I always mix them up) I've known since I was 8 years old, spotted my choice & asked me to wait a minute.  At first, I wasn't sure if she was talking to me.  Then I pieced together something else she had said: "That's my favourite book."  Bingo.

Hello gorgeous.

She returns to me with a beautiful hardcover Prospero Books edition with the same pricetag.  After I comment on the gorgeous cover picture (a sketch of Elizabeth Bennet & Mr. Darcy that would look amazing in a charcoal print) and regal colours, she clinched the sale by pointing out the matching purple ribbon bookmark that comes from the top of the spine.  That sold it.

Admitting that an English degree holder and teacher has not read P&P was tough to spit out, but I said as much and justified it this way, which I still think is a fine line:

"At least I will get to experience reading it for the first time."

How many people can say that?  Being new to a beloved book is like joining a culture: at first it can be scary, foreign, uncertain, but soon you find yourself immersed in it, savouring it, and believing that you are all the better for experiencing it.  A romantic notion, but one that I fully trust in bringing a worthy, long-wished-for reading experience.

Has anyone else experienced an already much beloved book for the first time with such hope for it?