Friday, October 28, 2011

Recent Book Buys and Recent Reads

Recent Book Buys and Recent Reads


Despite my self-imposed ban, I bought again: evidence that I would have failed as a Spartan.

Readers may think I'm suffering from a multiple personality disorder when looking at the variety here.

After enjoying The Last Werewolf, I bought three Glen Duncan novels: I Lucifer from New Edition



A Day and a Night and a Day and Love Remains also from Oxford Books



The embarrassing cover below couldn't prevent me from buying Swords and Dark Magic (an anthology edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders) from a bookstore in Shafto Lane soon to be called 'Stephen's Books'. I loved Strahan's The Locus Awards and this collection seems like it's fun as well as having a celebrity list of authors: Gene Wolfe, C.J Cherryh, Michael Moorcock, Robert Silverberg and Joe Abercombie to name but a few. More importantly, they are all juicy 'long' short stories rather than flash fiction.


And my final buy was recommended by Jasmine in New Edition: Four Novels by Marguerite Duras. Which are really four novellas: The Square; Moderato Cantabile; 10:30 on a Summer Night; and The Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas.


On the reading front, I have just finished The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe and I am currently reading The Quantity Theory of Insanity by Will Self; an author I find refreshing. Self is satirical, cynical, witty and loves showing it. He is a stimulating change from both understated prose and also the more poetic narratives. I am glad that there's a writer like Self around. He occasionally misses the mark and some of his psycho-babble stories infuriate me but when on-song, his ostentatious vocabulary combined with his misfit worlds, captivate in a way that not many other writers are capable of.




As always, I'm interested in your thoughts on any of the above books or authors.






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