Wednesday, 19 May 2010

Thanks for the trees, Swedes!

I've received more books. I bought loads at the weekend (more J. G. Farrell, a cultural history of the depression, an 1899 beautiful copy of the Icelandic Laxdaela Saga and biographies of A. J. Cook and James Maxton), and now another spruce appears covered in words. Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, which I'm ashamed to say I haven't read before, Corder's Lionboy, a graphic novel (i.e. a comic) called To Teach by William Ayers (bought because he's a real 60s radical and the right tried to use him to bash Obama), and four more Penguin Great Thinkers books, with the beautiful designs: Ruskin's On Art and Life, de Montaigne's On Solitude, Locke's Of the Abuse of Words and Hazlitt's The Pleasure of Hating (you can tell I've been marking). They're lovely slim volumes of great ideas which I heartily recommend - some of these links are to the full texts).

I'll find time to read them when I'm made redundant.

3 comments:

Benjamin Judge said...

More J.G. Farrell eh? Good call, I'm reading Troubles at the moment. He is good stuff.

The Plashing Vole said...

Troubles is great, as is The Siege of Krishnapur. Dying young didn't do much for his career, but he's back in a big way.

The Plashing Vole said...

Farrell's just won the 'Lost Booker' Prize.
http://tinyurl.com/lostbooker