Haha Americans, I laugh at your puny currency!

[liv]

I've been planning for ages to take advantage of the weak dollar and top up my dwindling book supply with a shopping spree on Amazon. The postage makes it marginal whether it's cheaper to buy books that way rather than in local shops, but the selection of English language books is obviously much greater in Amazon's catalogue than a typical Swedish bookshop. Then hatam_soferet was generous enough to offer to bring my purchases with her when she next visits England, meaning that I can use the free shipping and not even have to pay postage at all.

I got round to putting this plan into action last night. I'd saved up the part of my budget that I consider pocket money for a week, and I was willing to go a bit over that for a one-off purchase. But between the dollar being practically worthless and books being generally cheaper in America and some handy discounts going on at Amazon, I managed to get everything that I wanted that is available to buy, and added in some random CDs while I was at it... and still spent less than half my not terribly generous weekly friv allowance. Wo0t! Having a kind friend who is willing to carry the books for me means it is actually cheaper to buy brand new books from Amazon than second hand books here or even in the UK.

• Matt Ruff: Set This House in Order
  Tiptree winner a couple of years ago that got a lot of good press, and I read excerpts online which looked interesting.
  
  
• Salman Rushdie: The Ground Beneath Her Feet
  Replacement for the copy I managed to lose, because this is one of my favourite books so I have to own it.
  
  
• Geoff Ryman: Air
  coalescent brought this to my attention, and I've liked some of Ryman's other stuff, so...
  
  
• Elizabeth Moon: The speed of dark
  I think I first heard of this from wychwood but it's been on my to-read list forever.
  
  
• Steven Brust: The Book of Taltos
  The next couple of the Dragaera set, since I enjoyed the first three.
  
  
• Dan Simmons: Hyperion
  Lots of people keep recommending me to read Simmons, so I thought I'd give it a try.
  
  
• Kim Stanley Robinson: The Years of Rice and Salt
  lethargic_man raves about this in a way that makes it sound like my kind of book.
  
  
• Ted Chiang: Stories of Your Life and Others
  Again, coalescent brought this one to my attention, but when I mentioned I was thinking of reading it, lots of other people got very excited and told me that I absolutely must. I enjoyed the title story when I read it in another anthology, so even though I'm not a big reader of short stories this seemed worth a try.
  
  
• Robert Charles Wilson: Spin
  There has been lots of buzz about this recently, including among people I know with good taste such as rysmiel and papersky.
  
  
• Susan Palwick: The Necessary Beggar
  papersky has raved about this so much that I wanted it.
  
  
• Melanie Rawn: Spellbinder
  I like Melanie Rawn, not unreservedly, but for all her flaws she does characterization very well. And while she isn't getting on with writing the third in her Exiles trilogy, I might as well look at her recent standalone.
  
  
• Ian McDonald: River of gods
  I like Ian McDonald, and I like the idea of this book, not to mention that it seems to be getting a positive consensus on my flist.
  
  
• Pamela Dean: Tam Lin
  I enjoyed Dean's Secret Country books, and I am very drawn by the idea of a retelling of the fairy tale set in a university.
  
  
• AS Byatt: A whistling woman
  I've been looking for the fourth in the quartet for ages, and I decided I might as well buy it new, especially since I love book three, Babel Tower, so much
  
  
• Linley Erin Hall: Who's Afraid of Marie Curie?
  linley's book on women in science; I'm interested in the topic (obviously!) as well as knowing the author, and darcydodo reminded me that this book is actually available now.
  
  
• Hanne Blank: Virgin: The Untouched History
  I was reading misia's journal while she was writing this, and this convinced me that I absolutely have to read it.

Music, which I just grabbed because it was there and cheap rather than being systematic about it:

• John Dowland: English madrigals
  
• Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas
  I like Scarlatti, and I think it's very unfortunate he was such a close contemporary with Bach, because in any other generation he would have been a shining star. Really, I like playing Scarlatti, but since I have forgotten what small piano skills I once had, listening is the next best bet.
  
• Yo-Yo Ma playing Dvořák's cello music
  Yay Dvořák. Another composer that I consider to be really underrated.
  
• Glenn Gould: Bach's Art of Fugue
  This feels like one of the discs that every civilized person should own, and I didn't until now.
  
• Tallis: Spem in alium
  A random recording, but j4's enthusiasm convinced me I have to get to know this piece better.
  
• Rachmaninoff: Vespers, sung by King's College Choir under Stephen Cleobury
  Like the Tallis, a piece which sounds pretty but which I find musically difficult to understand. Hence, I want a copy so I can listen to it enough times to get my head round it. Plus I have a soft spot for Cleobury's stuff; I knew his daughter slightly at school, and he was very much a big noise in the classical music world when I was at an impressionable age.

Things I wanted but which weren't available:

• Jo Walton: Tooth and claw
  
• Walter Jon Williams: Aristoi (I've read it, but I want my own copy and I don't think it's in print, annoyingly.)
  
• Anything at all by Suzette Hayden Elgin (ozarque)
  
• Theodora Goss: In the forest of forgetting (another that papersky raves about, and it seems to be available only in hardback and costs more than I'm willing to spend on something unknown except for one good review.)
  
• Peter Watts: Blindsight (again, only available in expensive hardback.)

Anyway, since I usually read about 3 or 4 books a month, this lot should keep me going until Passover time, when I might well go to Cambridge for a few days and raid charity shops for more. I am so looking forward to getting these; it will be like a fabulous birthday present to myself!

Comments

[wychwood]

Unless you have an allergy to reading books online (as I know many people do), you can read Blindsight here; Watts has several of his books CC-licensed on his website.

And I look forward to your feelings on "Air", "Years of Rice and Salt" and "Speed of Dark" *g*.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Unless you have an allergy to reading books online (as I know many people do), you can read Blindsight here

And if you do, I'll bring my copy to lend to you to Limmud. (I'm also glad to see this list does not include the book I've just got you for your birrrrrdie. :o))

Kim Stanley Robinson: The Years of Rice and Salt
lethargic_man raves about this in a way that makes it sound like my kind of book.

I wouldn't have said I rave about it...

Tallis: Spem in alium
A random recording, but j4's enthusiasm convinced me I have to get to know this piece better.

Mmm. It just so happens I recently introduced myself to this piece. Having recently watched (at bluepork's behest) the film Touching the Void, I was reading about it probably on Wikipedia, and it mentioned that the Spem in Alium was used as the theme tune. Suffering as I do from Wikipedia syndrome, I then followed the link and was intrigued enough by what I learned to go off and listen to a recording on YouTube...

...And was not, I hate to say, particularly whelmed. I think I would probably need help to appreciate this piece of music; either someone to point out features to me, or the score to follow (and preferably study by myself first at a piano Music 4000 keyboard).

Touching the Void

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Oh, btw, I'll recommend this film whilst I'm at it. It's a docu-drama about two British mountaineers who set off to climb a never-climbed face of an Andean peak, Alpine-style, which means in a single push to the top, without establishing a series of camps on the way up.

Having successfully done so, they're still 20,000 feet up when one of them, Joe, breaks his leg. The other one, Simon, then sets about performing an unprecedented one-man mountain rescue, and gets Joe down to just above the glacier at the base of the mountain when a second disaster strikes, and Simon is forced to cut the rope holding Joe. Joe plummets eighty feet and falls into a ravine in the glacier, and Simon reluctantly abandons him for dead.

The film (and the book it's based on) is Joe's incredible survival story (described by Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touching_The_Void) as "amongst the most amazing pieces of mountaineering lore in history") of how, broken leg notwithstanding, he managed to get himself out of the ravine and the rest of the way down the mountain by himself, and down to base camp before Simon and the friend they had left there departed.

[ploni-bat-ploni.livejournal.com]

I *love* the Kim Stanley Robinson Mars series and I would still like to read '... Rice and Salt'. I shall look forward to your review!

Enjoy your new toys :-)

[nameandnature]

I enjoyed Blindsight, having found it on the author's website. I wrote a small review of it a while back.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

air and Speed of Dark, excellent stuff!

[catwithclaws.livejournal.com]

I drool in envy. Enjoy the haul!

[darcydodo]

I was less pleased with Spellbinder than with Rawn's other stuff — one of the fantastic things she does is create remarkably in-depth worlds, and this is set in our world and was, I think, lacking for it. But it was still a good read.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a great haul. Just about everything there I have read is something I think highly of, though I gave up on Melanie Rawn years ago; surprised to see no Jack Womack though. Looking forward to reviews in due course.

books to give away

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

anything at all by ozarque? i have nonfiction that i'd be happy to send you if you like (it must go because i am reducing my library, slowly but surely, in prep for the boat). also aristoi.