June 2010 Book Acquisitions

Yes, I skipped a couple months worth of acquisitions, but I'm not going to go back and recreate those lists. Here's what I picked up this month:

• The first two volumes of the Complete Jack Vance (originally titled the Compact Vance Integral Edition). For a decade or so I have been kicking myself for not purchasing a copy of the original Vance Integral Edition, but now I'll have every work of fiction Vance -- one of my favorite authors -- has ever written. Woo hoo! This one is a real triumph for me, and I'm very happy to have these in my collection. I can't wait for the remaining four volumes to become available. Expensive, but oh so worth it.
• I bought two books from Amazon (had a gift certificate to cover some of the cost): Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction (a reference work about a subset of the men's adventure genre; expensive, but a must for my collection given my interest in the genre) and The Girl Who Played with Fire, the sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I enjoyed the first one so much that I had to pick this one up. That's unusual because I typically don't like blockbusters, but the first in this trilogy really surprised me with how enjoyable it was.
• I purchased an autographed Polish edition of Glen Cook's The Black Company. No, I'll never, ever be able to read it but hey, for a couple bucks, why not? I've always found it interesting that Cook has such a following in Eastern Europe (of course, I can see that the bleak settings in his works would appeal to Eastern Europeans).

So that's it. I acquired 5 new books and read 20, with a net reduction in my "to be read" list of 15books. Not bad. I'm trying to have a new austerity program with my book purchases (wish me luck with that), though I am going to visit a new nearby used bookstore tomorrow. We'll see what they have. They're located in a dreary mall and I've heard that they're a tad expensive, so I don't have high hopes. But it should be fun, and I'm going to eat some damn fine Chinese food while I'm at the mall. Yum.

Recent Acquisitions

I have a bunch of new books (what is the proper collective noun for books?) to report on, so here goes. I picked up a few at a flea market, and a few more from a library book sale, and a few more arrived in the mail. As usual, in no particular order, with a bit of commentary:

Science fiction:

• The Lost by Dan Abnett (The third Gaunt's Ghosts omnibus, set in the Warhammer 40k universe. Man, I love Abnett's writing and characters. Been waiting for this one to come out for a long time.)
• Communion by Whitley Streiber. I enjoy his fiction, and consider this one to be fictional too. I don't believe in UFO abductions personally, but I'm willing to believe that Streiber does.

Fantasy:

• The Anubis Gates by Time Powers. This one, along with the next bullet, were picked up my my friend -- nom de plume of bookstothesky -- at a book show in L.A.
• Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly. Also autographed, courtesy of bookstothesky. For generosity and going above and beyond the call of duty, I hereby award him the Silver Tome medal, with distinction. He inadvertently selected literally my two favorite books by these two authors. Sheer happenstance, but it's really, really awesome.
• Changes by Jim Butcher. The latest Harry Dresden book. They're nothing great, but they're fun, light reads, and I always pick them up as soon as they come out. This one was a $10 special from Amazon, possibly because of the ongoing ebook wars. Bring on more of the same, baby!

Sherlockiana:

• A really neat manuscript package of all the "primary source" documents and clues associated with The Sign of Four. Hard to describe, and I didn't know it even existed, but it looks damn fun. I'm going to use it in conjunction with the actual text when I reread it.
• The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes by various. Should be interesting reading about other Victorian detectives.
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes by Loren D. Estleman. I already owned this one. Oops.

Crime/mystery:

• Expiration Date by Duane Swierczynski. This one showed up randomly in the mail yesterday. And it's autographed. Yes, this is insane. No idea why it was shipped here from the publisher, but I plan to read and review it soon.
• The Big Knockover by Dashiell Hammett. A bunch of short stories and novellas. Should be awesome.

Military fiction:

• War of the Rats by David L. Robbins. Fiction about Stalingrad. I'll save this one for when I need some light-hearted reading to pick me up.
• Emergency Deep by Michael DiMercurio. He was a submariner, so this should be a good sub thriller.

Chess:

• The three little chess books that came in my boxed set from Dover, packaged with a neat little traveling chess set. No, I'm not very good at chess, but I've always been fascinated by the game.

RPGs:

• All three of the Journal of the Traveller Aid Society (JTAS) reprints for the Traveller RPG. They were only $10 apiece on sale, when they're usually $30 each, so I couldn't pass them up. If you're not a gamer, this won't make any sense.

Non-fiction:

• Two memoirs by former CDC virus-hunter-type-dudes. I always enjoy reading this kind of stuff.
• Woodward's fourth book on Bush and Iraq. Unfortunately the copy I picked up has some underlining, etc., in it, but for a $1 hardback, it's hard to pass up.
• The West's Last Chance by Tony Blankley.
• Webster's American Military Biographies. Old and a bit out-dated, but again, great for $1.

So there we have it. Quite a haul since I last updated.

Recent Acquisitions

These are (hopefully) the last two new books I'll acquire for a while. On my wife's last full day in town, we hit a new/used bookstore in town and I couldn't help but pick these up.

• War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History 1500 to Today by Max Boot [good popular military historian]
• King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman [mix of autobiography and history of the international chess scene; hopefully a lot more on the latter than the former]

Recent Acquisitions

Bought a number of new books while out booking with my wife. A couple new ones (because I had a gift certificate and coupon from Borders) and a bunch of used ones from Edward McKay's in Raleigh. Here we go:

Mystery/Crime:

• The Beekeeper's Apprentice and A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King [been wanting to check this series out for a long time]
• Omnibus: Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula / Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes by Loren D. Estleman [I am a sucker for Holmes pastiches]
• In the House of Secret Enemies by George C. Chesbro [these Chesbros are both hardbacks, though I've already read and own them in paperback]
• An Incident at Bloodtide by George C. Chesbro

Science Fiction:

• The Electric Church and The Digital Plague by Jeff Somers [these have sounded intriguing for a while now]
• In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker [the author just died and I've recently heard about the series]
• Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds [been wanting to investigate this series for a long time now]
• War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches ed. Kevin J. Anderson [love the original, plus I'm really curious to see what they say Teddy Roosevelt's reaction to the Martian invasion is]

Fantasy:

• Death's Master by Tanith Lee [I have been wanting to read this series for probably 20 years; I'm probably old enough to appreciate it now]
• Doc Sidhe by Aaron Allston [read it years ago and gave away my copy, but I think I may appreciate it more now]

Men's Adventure:

• Casca: The Barbarian (#5) by Barry Sadler [one of the few Cascas I don't already own]

Horror/Thriller:

• John Dies at the End by David Wong [been hearing great things about this one]

Non-Fiction:

• Poplorica by Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger [I love throwing historical trivia at my students, so this may supply me with some new material]
• Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile [been wanting to check this out for a long time, though I suspect that it seriously overestimates Wilson's importance; also curious what it says about Mike Vickers since I know and have worked with him]

Recent Acquisitions

I try to cut back on the number of new book purchases, I really do. This is especially important because I have a four-digit number of books in my library I intend to read or reread. But sometimes I just can't help myself from buying additional ones.

Here's what I've picked up lately:

• A really neat hardback, illustrated omnibus edition (from B&N) of the first three John Carter of Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Love these books, and while I already own them all (the Del Rey editions are my favorites because of the awesome cover art), this is the first illustrated edition. Sadly, the entire series is not yet in the public domain (thanks Disney and Sonny Bono; say, Sonny, how're the slopes today?)
• A bunch of Fletch mystery novels by Gregory McDonald (and one of the Flynn mysteries too). Picked these up as a lot on eBay. I've always heard great things about them, and I loved the first Fletch movie. While I don't have the entire series yet, a couple folks on LibraryThing assure me it's ok to read them in any order.

Recent Book Acquisitions

Had a fun book-hunting expedition with a friend yesterday.  We hit four used book stores and the local comic/RPG shop.

Here's what I bought (all yesterday with the exception of the first item):

• Passport to Peril by Robert B. Parker (this month's Hard Case Crimes book, which I subscribe to).
• Three Perry Rhodan books [#2, 6, 9] (I have been curious about this long-running series for a long time, but haven't read any of them yet; still don't have #1 yet, darn it, but I'm guessing that it doesn't matter much).
• Three of Alan Burt Akers' Dray Prescott series [#6, 7, 20] (a planetary romance series I have been interested in for a long time; still missing #5, among others; once I get that, I have a long continuous run of the books an can start reading them).
• Lin Carter's The Immortal of World's End (still missing a couple from the series, but I've been slowly compiling them).
• James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007 by John Pearson (I am skeptical of this one, and didn't even know that it existed, but for $1.50, I couldn't pass it up).
• John P. Marquand's Your Turn, Mr. Moto (first of the Mr. Moto series; I have heard these are very good, and much darker than the old movies).
• Dorothy Gilman's The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (first of the Mrs. Pollifax series, a "cozy espionage" series -- are there any more series like this? -- about an old lady who joins CIA).
• Matthew Woodring Stover's Heroes Die (new-ish SF novel that sounds like it has an interesting premise, reminiscent of Dream Park).
• Taylor Anderson's Into the Storm (fist of the alt history Destroyermen series, which sounds interesting, though the premise of John Birmingham's Axis of Time series and William Forstchen's Lost Regiment series).
• Katherine Neville's The Eight (an interesting re-release of an older book that's being heavily pushed by it's publisher; historical chess-related mystery/thriller; I suck at chess, but have always been fascinated by it).
• E.C. Tubb's Melome, #28 in the Dumarest of Terra series (none of which I've read yet, though I have a bunch of them).
• Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Oakdale Affair (this was probably the only real treasure in the bunch, as I had almost given up hope of finding it; just a handful of additional ERB books and I'll have a copy of everything he ever wrote).
• The first Planetes manga (a little bit of anime usually goes a long way with me, but this one has always looked interesting to me).
• Some RPG stuff: GURPS Traveller Behind the Claw (error-ridden, but it's one of the few GURPS Trav books I didn't already own); Jovian Chronicles main rulebook, the Space Equipment Handbook, and the Europa Incident (I have always been curious about this game and have been on an anime kick of late); and Fully Strapped, Always Packed gear book for Mayfair's old Underground RPG.

Nothing truly outstanding, but some good stuff overall.  A nice day, despite pulling a muscle in my lower back yesterday morning.