Library Loot: June 22nd to June 28th
Vlog (those in feed readers, be sure to click through!):
Books Mentioned:
The Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe
Dying for Heaven by Ariel Glucklich
Meeting Faith by Faith Adiele
The Allegory of Love by C.S. Lewis
The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country by Louise Erdrich
Bone China by Roma Tearne
Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen
Conditions of Love by John Armstrong
Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous
Crude by Sonia Shah
The Master of Go by Yasunari Kawabata
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Overcoming Speechlessness by Alice Walker
A Bed in Heaven by Tessa de Loo
The Calculus Diaries by Jennifer Ouellette
The Earth Moved by Amy Stewart
Beating Back the Devil by Maryn McKenna
I’ve been wanting to read a couple of Roma Tearne’s books. They’re waiting patiently on my Amazon wish list since, once again, my library doesn’t have any of her titles.
Overcoming Speechlessness is good. And I just read most of The New Jim Crow as it was a source for a paper I wrote.
Nice loot as always!
Poor you and your library (although, I’ve been to Memphis a couple times and it’s a lovely city, so I imagine there are consolations)! Have you had much luck w Bookmooch or Paperback Swap?
I’m so excited that you have the Achebe collection, can’t wait to hear your thoughts! Also, I picked up Crude and The New Jim Crow this week as well to read :) And I also have Sen’s book on my tbr pile. As always, great collection and can’t wait to hear your thoughts.
Oh fun! We seem to be lapping each other in nonfic lately, lol.
Othello (or Reversi) isn’t Go but it does have some similarities; both being about strategy but Go is a lot more complex.
Overcoming Speechlessness
The Hare with Amber Eyes
The New Jim Crow
sound good
Thnx for letting me know about Go and Othello! I was just going off the cover of the book. ;)
Who’s a good dog?!? I haven’t done a video with Dakota in a long time. Maybe that could be a summer project for us.
Do! Dakota’s so fun. :) And yep, Thistle is such a good dog! She doesn’t exhibit any desire to munch on books, which is good since my library books live in a couple piles on the floor. ;)
There’s the Achebe and the Tearne, Crude and The Master of Go. Oh, I can’t wait to see what you think of The Hare With Amber Eyes!
Lots of great titles heres! I know everyone else seems to have loved The Hare with Amber Eyes but I must admit to being scared off by all the art. History I love, family histories even more, but anything to do with art collections usually sends me running in the opposite direction. I read de Loos’ The Twins years ago and liked (but not loved) it. The film is quite good too. I’m intrigued to hear what you think of Conditions of Love and The Calculus Diaries! Enjoy!
I’ve enjoyed most of the art history books I’ve read, so the art aspect sounds quite interesting to me!
A very promising collection of books. I eagerly await your reviews of them all. Last year I read Amara Lakhous’s Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator and rather enjoyed it. Here is a link to my review in case you wanna read it:
http://maphead.wordpress.com/2010/08/22/clash-of-civilizations-italian-style/
Thanks for the link! Glad to see it was a good book for you. :)
As always I really enjoyed hearing all about your library loot. I’m not sure if you have already done a post about this in the past but I am curious what your strategy is when you go to the library? How long do you spend browsing? Do you have a list of books you already know you want when you get there or do you also just wander around to see what you might like. Just curious!
Oh, good question Kathleen! I haven’t done a post on it, but I’ll add the info to next week’s Library Loot. :)
oh hare with amber eyes is a beautiful book ,I so loved it they way his family had touched so much history ,all the best stu
There seems to be a Go channel on Korean TV — every time I flip through the channels, there’s a match underway. It’s called Baduk here. I’d like to learn how to play, just because the stones’ colors and shapes and texture have aesthetic appeal. To get some conversation going about games one day, I asked my students to explain how Baduk is played. They winced and said it was too difficult.
Re your fiction and nonfiction piles…I tend to lean forward more interestedly when you’re going over the nonfiction.
The book that jumped out at me this week was the Chabon book (Shay-Bon).
LOL @ your students. I’ve noticed sometimes that certain members of East Asian cultures seem to think much of their stuff is too complicated for Westerners to understand. ;)
Thanks for the pointer on pronouncing Chabon. I’m now into the second disc, and it’s *great*, both as a novel and an audiobook! Such a fun, inventive alt history. So if you see a copy, get it!
So many fantastic books, Eva! I want to read the de Waal as well and lots of the other one, too :)
Natsume SÅseki wrote Kokoro :)
You’re so right! Whoops. The only Kawabata I’ve read is The Snow Country, which I didn’t get along with too well. Let’s hope my second go with one comes off better!
I loved The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, it’s the only Chabon I’ve read but I definitely intend to read more of his work.
I’m in the middle of it and in love too!
If you’re interested in learning more about Go (without reading an actual how-to-play thing) there’s a Japanese manga series that’s basically all about Go and growing up and also ghosts. It’s called Hikaru no Go! There’s also an anime which was really good (maybe even better). Anyway, basically I think how it works is that you try to trap your opponent’s stones inside a “castle” (or something like a castle) of your stones.
And yay! I hope you like Finding Faith. :D
Thnx for the rec! :)
I’m interested to hear how you like your second Roma Tearne. I just read her more recent novel, The Swimmer, and I’m afraid I didn’t like it much. It was so thematically abrasive, I felt like I was being beaten over the head with a mallet of meaning every time I opened it.
The Hare with the Amber Eyes is the next book for my museum bookclub after the summer break. We’re going to meet at the art gallery and look at examples of netsuke like those in the book. I’m really looking forward to it. The Guardian, my newspaper of choice over here, has raved about de Waal incessantly since the book this released. Did you know he was also the potter who advised AS Byatt on ceramic art for The Children’s Book? I remember spotting his name in the acknowledgements.
>>It was so thematically abrasive, I felt like I was being beaten over the head with a mallet of meaning every time I opened it.
Best. Sentence. Ever.
I already told you how envious I am of your museum bookclub, but my envy just tripled! I didn’t know he was Byatt’s advisor, but that makes me like him already. ;)
Lots of good looking books there! I have to go through your last couple vlogs and see if my library has any of the ones that sound good…
Good luck! Your library needs a stern talking to. ;)
Library loot indeed! lol I have the Edmund de Waal on my to-get list. Louise Erdrich’s looks interesting too. have fun reading them all!! I love your vlogs too :-)