The Fell Gard Codices

Another Book Sale

November 25th, 2012

Today and yesterday the Friends of the Westmount Library held their twice-yearly used book sale. The sale raises money for the Library’s collection, and is generally a pretty interesting event — it’s been growing steadily over the last few years, selling more books and raising more money. I swung by today and yesterday. I didn’t find as much as I might have expected, but picked up some interesting titles. A list follows.

Aghayan, Ghazaros (Agop J. Hacikyan, trans) / Tork Angegh

A verse story about an Armenian folk-hero. Seemed interesting.

Carter, Angela / Wise Children

I’ve read all Carter’s short fiction, which I found uneven but occasionally brilliant. So I’ve wanted to look at her novels for a while now.

Chesterton, G.K. / The Defendant

Always interested in Chesterton. This one’s to be a collection of his essays.

De Lint, Charles / The Dreaming Place

I was tremendously affected as a young teen by reading De Lint’s Moonheart — the first fantasy novel I’d ever read set in Canada. I’d always wanted to read more of his work, so I grabbed this thin novel.

Edgerton, Teresa / Goblin Moon

I mentioned my interest in 80s fantasy a couple of days ago; this was published in 1991, but shows signs of being the kind of overlooked thing I had in mind.

Ellison, Harlan / Spider Kiss

A book by Ellison about early rock and roll. I have little interest in baby boomers romanticising the tepid music of their youth — but Ellison’s usually angry and bitter enough that I have some hope something might come out of it.

Faust, Minister / The Alchemists of Kush

I really enjoyed Faust’s first novel. Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad (now, I see, retitled Coyote Kings, Book One: Space-Age Bachelor Pad). I’ve yet to get far into his second book, From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain (now Shrinking the Heroes), but I’ve been very curious about this one.

Gaddis, William / The Recognitions

I read and enjoyed Carpenter’s Gothic — and I should qualify that ‘enjoyed,’ as the technique of the book was somewhat off-putting. Intelligent, but possibly overwrought. Still, interesting enough that I wanted to explore one of Gaddis’ longer works at some point. So here we are.

Henderson, Zenna / The Anything Box

A collection of short stories by an early sf writer. I know fairly little about Henderson; this should change that.

Jacobson, Mark / Gojiro

I know little about this book, but it looked interesting; a sort of retelling of Godzilla. Here’s Wikipedia’s take.

Kidd, Paul / Queen of the Demonweb Pits

I have a soft spot for the classic AD&D modules, and have a peculiar enjoyment in reading through the novelizations that came out a few years ago. Here’s Black Gate’s John O’Neill on this book: “Based on the 1980 adventure written by David Sutherland (with notes and direction by Gary Gygax) which featured the climactic showdown with the demon Queen Lloth, god of the Drow, Kidd’s final book in the series is widely considered the best of the lot, a rousing mix of action and humor.”

Lear, Edward / The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear

I’ve heard a lot about Lear’s nonsense-writing, but haven’t really read any before. So this will fix that.

Le Guin, Ursula / Lavinia

I read this book through the Westmount Library; it’s quite brilliant, and I wanted to own a copy myself.

Oates, Joyce Carol / The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares

I read a fair bit of Oates’ work over the past little while, for the series on her genre novels that I put up at Black Gate. So when I saw this collection of short horror stories, it seemed logical to grab it.

Pears, Iain / Stone’s Fall

It’s been a long time since I read An Instance of the Fingerpost, but that was an excellent book. I’ve got Scipio’s Dream around, and I look forward to at some point sitting down with both books.

Rosenbaum, Thane / The Golems of Gotham

A book about which I know nothing, but which looked interesting.

Tartt, Donna / The Secret History

I’ve been reading Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, and that’s got me curious about another university novel with a sinister Classics department. I remember this book causing something of a sensation when it came out in 1992. Tartt’s second novel, The Little Friend, was published in 2003; that might mean she’s about due for a new one.

 

Not a bad collection of books, I think. Add in a number of gifts for my my nieces, and I’m well pleased.

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