A Book So Good You'd Eat it, You'd Eat It Up!

http://www.library.uiuc.edu/ediblebooks/2008gallery.html

My favorite, though not my favorite book in the lot: The Pelican Beef

Thanks to C-Note for the tip, and also for telling me that the reason why there are so few first editions of Alice in Wonderland is because they've been eaten...

So this post is appropriately, all around well categorized under: Weird.

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Recent Acquisitions

Another day of book buying:

Decadence - Rémy de Gourmont
The Dancing Bear - Peter Dickinson
Cahiers, 1716 - 1755 - Montesquieu
A Severed Head - Iris Murdoch
Young Hearts Crying - Richard Yates
House Mother Normal - B.S. Johnson
Essays on Buddhism - Suzuki
A Little Learning - Evelyn Waugh
The Broom of the System - David Foster Wallace
The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima - Henry Scott-Stokes
Kabuki - Hamamura, Sugawara, Kinoshita, & Minami
Winter's Tales - Isak Dinesen (aka Karin von Blixen)
Abel Sanchez and Other Stories - Miguel de Unamuno
The Japanese - Edwin O. Reischauer
Things Near and Far - Arthur Machen
The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
The Professor of Desire - Philip Roth
The Right Stuff - Tom Wolfe
World Famous Paintings
The Emperor of the Amazon - Marcio Souza
Letters from a Stoic - Seneca
Aucassin & Nicolette and Other Mediaeval Romances and Legends translated from the French
The Life and Death of the Mayor Caterbridge - Thomas Hardy
Galapagos - Kurt Vonnegut
Rodin on Art and Artists - Rodin
Pageant of Japanese Art, 6 Volumes
Mathematics and the Imagination - Kasner and Newman

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It's Oh So Quiet...

I have been writing. In fact, in the new book I've pretty much gotten around to chapter deux. Chapter un was sombre, tragic, someone dies...maybe. I like death in the first chapter. I recommended a book for writers called Hooked about how to get that first chapter to grab a reader. I read the book and somehow since all my first chapters entail either: 1) death, 2)an orgy, 3) sexy bathing, or 4) birth. I often feel this urge to read books and analyse how fucked up the writers were, but I refrain mostly because well, I don't want anyone to analyse me.

Otherwise I've been reading, book hunting, watching films, and other things that generally inspire me. But nothing seems to be working because the Parisian weather is quite crap, and I'm usually so cold I've got the same consistency as a popsicle. If only my laptop had a fireplace, then maybe I'd write more...

For those of you who think about quitting your job to become a writer, there is one very important question you should ask yourself.

Do you mind doing something that can't always be done and as a result frustrates the complete crap out of you?

If you answer is no, make sure you get laid off so you can collect unemployment and get to writing immediately. Also, don't buy too many pairs of shoes because you will probably never make any real money as a writer. Do it because you have to.

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The Thinker's Library

Today at Shakespeare and Co. I found the first of 140 books published between 1929 and 1951 by Watts and Co. London in the "Thinker's Library", "First and Last Things", by HG Wells.

I was amazed to find out this was a bit of collector's object, since it was just lying about not doing much of anything. I was complimented on my choice at the register, but who knew?

You can find oodles of The Thinker's Library books on www.abebooks.co.uk including one I'd really like to get my hands on by Darwin.

For the full list visit your good friend and mine, Wiki at:

I myself am going to see if they come to me. We shall see if I have the patience because usually let's face it, I don't.

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Recent Acquisitions

First and Last Things - HG Wells

Spring Snow - Yukio Mishima

Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer - Kenneth Patchen

The Iron Heel - Jack London

Baltasar & Blimunda - Jose Saramago

Rilke, A Life - Wolfgang Leppmann

and the ever important work, Indiana Jones and the Cult of the Mummy's Crypt "Find Your Fate #7

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