Loot!

[osprey_archer]

I popped over to the library today to pick up a hold - Musicophilia, by Oliver Sacks, and at some point I need to write about his The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which I read earlier this week.

And it turned out they were having a book sale! So I nabbed copies of Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle (a classic in the genre of "memoirs about bizarre and terrible childhoods") and Dorothy Sayers' Strong Poison, which, if I am not mistaken, is the first of the Peter Wimsey mysteries to feature Harriet Vane.

Don't get too excited. Given my general pattern with boughten books, it will probably lie on my shelves for six months before I get to it. I still haven't read Eva Ibbotson's The Star of Kazan, which I bought at a Goodwill before I even moved away from Bloomington, which was - my God - nearly a year ago now.

You know, it's been a while since I've read an Ibbotson. Maybe I should read this one once I've finished The Gulag Archipelago. I think it will be a nice antidote.

Comments

[lycoris.livejournal.com]

Ah booksales, a friendish and wicked way to steal money and to make beautiful patterns in ones house! :) I have too many books like that ... may or may not catch up some day ...!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

It was to raise money for the library! Which therefore absolves it of all wickedness. Perhaps it even makes buying books I may or may not get around to virtuous?

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

Don't get too excited.

It's too late for that! I love Strong Poison! (as you have already noticed). It's really a muddle as a detective story, but has my favorite Straw Bohemians and other entertaining cul-de-sacs. (it also helped me overcome my inability to make omelettes, though that is beside the point). Well, you might like it or not -- I look forward to reading your thoughts if you do read it.

We just got in a copy of The Glass Castle at the bookstore, and yes, bizarre and terrible sounds accurate.

eta: you're not mistaken; Strong Poison is where Harriet first shows up, though she is not a POV character the way she is in other books.

Enjoy your books! I hope whatever you read next is a good antidote to all those gulags.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

A muddled mystery will not necessarily undermine my pleasure in a detective story. I tend to think of the actual mystery part as a Macguffin, sort of; obviously I'd like it to be well done and interesting in its own right, but if it's mostly a delivery device for the characters, as long as the characters are interesting then I'm good with it.

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

"A delivery device for the characters" is a good way to describe how most mystery plots register to me. I was really impressed when Agatha Christie was able to force me to see and appreciate a plot in its own right in Murder on the Orient Express, because I'd already sort of settled into the idea that I didn't care about plots.

[ghosted.livejournal.com]

I still haven't read any Ibbotson, but a dude I went to school with has been designing covers for some re-releases, so I feel like I should buy one out of some pseudo-family obligations.

Musicophilia is my favourite by Oliver Sacks that I've read. He's a remarkable guy.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Which Oliver Sacks' books have you read? What did you think of them? I'm trying to decide which to read, and there seem to be a number of them.