Crime Time
I’m rummaging through storage boxes in anticipation of moving in the Spring. Some of the old paperbacks are gonna get donated because together they weigh a ton. I’ve pulled some out to reread and wanted to mention a few: I have all of JP Donleavy’s novels. A SINGULAR MAN is my favorite. These will move. The books are wild and outdated, Irish and weird.
Tacitus, Polybius and George Pelecanos. These dudes rock. One of them wrote SHAME THE DEVIL. Guess correctly and win! Win! Sorry, no prize.
Best Laura Lippman: THE SUGAR HOUSE. Best Livy: THE WAR WITH HANNIBAL. SJ Rozan: WINTER AND NIGHT. Robert Ferrigno’s HORSE LATTITUDE. I can’t give these away so we’ll move on. Same goes for my William Lashner pbs. You can see the logistical problem developing here.
Here’s an old Ian Rankin TOOTH AND NAIL. We’ll put Ian on the side with Ken Bruen, Jason Starr and the German poets. My edition of FAUST PART TWO looks as though I loaned it to Godzilla. Can’t give that away either. I think I’ll make an intermediate pile called to be determined. TBD. Oh man, here’s MADAME BOVARY. Did you know that Flaubert was influenced by Elmore Leonard?
January 6th, 2007 at 2:02 am
Moving in the spring?
I occasionally do so myself, when I emerge from my winter lair. But your comments hint at something larger than a four-legged amble in search of roots and berries. Are you planning on relocating your residence? Didn’t you just do that?
We’ve occasionally tried to sort through books and diminish our holdings. This has enabled us–after screaming fights–to get rid of a history of Venezuela written in 1961 (and discarded by a college library), several computer manuals for computers that are no longer manufactured, and two disintegrating paperback novels by John Gardner which we already own in hardback. Overall, sorting through books just isn’t worth the pain. It’s easier to to build a bigger house. (Though I might feel differently if publishers were mailing me cartons of books for review.)
See the excellent “So Many Books” by Gabriel Zaid, from Paul Dry Books (a division of someone much larger). No, I’m not kidding, Zaid’s book is brilliant and actually says some things which ought to be obvious but instead are new: http://www.amazon.com/So-Many-Books-Publishing-Abundance/dp/158988003X .
Kind of like the intertemporal influence of Leonard on Flaubert–once it’s pointed out, it’s so obvious. Well, Leonard plus Bukowski, really…
January 6th, 2007 at 10:46 am
When Christopher Columbus discovered Venezuela he bought a condo immediately. Captain Vancouver had the same idea. Current abode scheduled to be bulldozed unless lifted off its foundations in a windstorm.