Monday, October 31, 2011

Books Bought Oct 28th

13) Seven for a Secret - Elizabeth Bear (hb, used)
Where? Better World Books
Why? I made it to pay day without maxing out my credit card so as a reward I allowed myself to go looking for the second and third of Bear's (limited and hard to come by for reasonable prices) New Amsterdam series (it has a vampire solving crimes, c'mon).

The Damage: €17.78 (inc shipping). This was the cheapest I could find it

Review

14) The White City - Elizabeth Bear (hb, new)
Where? The Book Depository
Why? ibid

The Damage €13.89 (free shipping, enjoy it while it lasts kids, Book Depository's takeover by Amazon has been approved).

Review

15) ad eternum - Elizabeth Bear (Limited Edition)
Where? Subrerranean Press
Why? And while I'm ay it why not preorder the 4th book in the series. I can't even pretend I considered going for the $20 cheaper trade edition.
Limited ed comes with a chapbook with an extra story. Chapbook. Extra story.
The Damage €44.76 (A lot of that is shipping)


Total Spend €213.77


Books Bought Oct 20th

11) The Mists of Avalon - Marrion Zimmer Bradley (pb, used)
Where? Chapters, Parnell St
Why? I like Authurian legends. I am a feminist. So why haven't I read Mists of Avalon. It's ridiculous.

The Damage: €3.59. was €3.99 but I got a 10% discount because I was waiting so long for the floor staff to find me a copy of...

Review

12) Blood Rites - Barbara Ehrenreich (pb, new)
Where? Chapters, Parnell St
Why? Peadar Ó Guilín mentioned this at an Octocon panel and I thought Ehrenreich's ideas might be a useful theoretical beckground to have in a novel I might write some day, or if not them make good conversation down the pub. Anyway after it took the staff about 20 minutes to find it it would have been embarassing not to buy it.

The Damage €10.80

Total Spend €137.34

Books Bought Oct 13th



10) The Cold Commands - Richard (K?)* Morgan (hb)
Where? Chapters, Parnell St
Why? Had this on pre-order, which I don't usually do, but yer man in Chapters told be they'd be getting the large format paperbacks on the release date instead of the hardbacks. Large format paperbacks are rubbish, all the portability problems of a hardback but without the sturdiness. It was only sensible to get them to order in the hardback for me.


Review


The Damage: €18.75

*I really can't get a handle on when he uses the initial and when he doesn't.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Books Bought Oct 11th


8) Elizabeth and Essex - Giles Lytton Strachey (hb)
Where? Oxfam Books
Why? Flu continues. I attempted to go to work on Tuesday but left at lunch to see a doctor. After blowing an outrageous amount of cash on getting said doctor to write me a sick note and a prescription I rewarded myself with this book which had caught my eye over the weekend.
I generally try to avoid buying old battered books just because they are pleasingly old and battered. But I am quite interested in Elizabethan politics so there're even odds I'll actually read this.
Also, it's Oxfam books. Charitable donation, not a real purchase

The Damage? €4.00

9) Snuff - Terry Pratchett (hb)
Where? Redacted
Why? Still sick mind you and now at home in my pjs I got a tip on twitter about a local bookshop selling Snuff two days ahead of its release date.
New Discworld book don't really need justification for purchase


The Damage? €19.99

Review


Total Spend: €104.20

This is already fairly illuminating. I spent over €100 on books in less than two weeks. No wonder I never have any freaking money.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Books Bought Oct 10th


Where? Oxfam Books
Why? I'm still sick. And still dropping into bookshops on my way to replenish my sick room supplies.
This book caught my eye because I recognized the name of the author. I recognized the author's name because I'd stared at in puzzlement for sometime before deleting it from my phone's memo folder because I could no longer remember what or why I was supposed to remember about it. Seeing the book on the shelf it all came back to me. Glenny was recently on the RSA podcast and the Guardian Books podcast speaking about this book, and after the second my interest had been piqued so I noted down his name.
It seemed senseless not to buy after all this.
The fact that I do remember all this now shows that my memo system is working, albeit in a round about way.
For a used book it's not very cheap, but the condition is excellent. A sheet of promotional material inside would suggest that it's an advance review copy. Looks like it's never been read.

Anyway, it's Oxfam, so this is more of a charitable donation than a purchase.
Right?
The Damage? €7.00

Total spend: €80.21

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Books Bought Oct 7th




Where? Chapters
Why?
Friday I went home early due to a terrible sounding chesty couch and that inability to think that I term 'fuzzy head syndrome'. All I wanted to do was go straight to bed, but as those of us who live alone, or with housemates who cannot be drafted into being caregivers, know that there's a little ground work to be done before one can take to the sickbed.
There was no food in the fridge for one thing.
So I headed to the other side of town to hit up Tesco, and was genuinely unable to not drop in to Chapters on the way. Despite the fact that my soon to be sick rooms already had a huge pile of books by the bed.
I've been thinking about picking uo The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms for a while, though not just because I'm taken with the premise... can I say this without being offensie?
I've read almost nothing by writers of colour this year. This has been needling away at the back of my head as I try to drown it out with the excuse that I read the next book on the tbr pile that naturally occurs to me as it occurs and there's no call to be putting any political correctness into the mix, and besides. And surely reading a book just because the writer is black is as problematic as just leaving them about because no black writers have happened across my radar.
But all this excuse making is given lie by the fact that about three months ago I noticed that fewer than 10% of the books I'd read this year were by female writers*. As a female person who considers herself appreciative of the works of women I was quite horrified by this statistic and had no problem redressing the balance by intentionally upping my intake of women writers and was thoroughly rewarded with great books that I would otherwise have missed.
That in mind, it seems clear that I stand only to benefit by widening the diversity of my reading choices even if that widening is utterly self conscious.
Anyway, it was a heavily discounted Hugo nominee. I'd be stupid not to buy it.

The Damage? €4.99

Review


Total spend: €73.21

* there is more or less a consensus that the collective term for ladies who write is "woman writers" I find this an abhorrently clunky compound noun and avoid it for this reason and no other

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Books Bought Oct 6th

5) RazorJack (Collected Edition) - John Higgins (tpb)
Where? Forbidden Planet
Why? I've read hardly any comics this year, and haven't experimented with anything new since January. Higgins is GoH at this years Octocon, it seems foolish to go without reading any of his stuff (okay, he was the colourist for Watchmen, and I'm sure colourist is an important job, but I just can't get excited about it. Sorry).
The Damage? €12.99

Total spend: €68.22

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Books Bought Oct 5st



4) The Bone and Jewel Creatures - Elizabeth Bear (thb)
Where? Hodges Figgis, Dawson St
Why? Can I justify spending €32 on a novella? I am rapidly becoming an Elizabeth Bear completist, which given that she's an obscure enough genre writer to not be regularly stocked in Irish bookshops (not that you have to be all that obscure to be denied shelf space in Ireland, stupid country) is expensive in itself. So I'd like to reward Hodges for not only stocking her books, but stocking this limited edition small press novella that is now out of print. Yes, out of print, and if you factor in shipping and condition I've made a saving on what I would have spend getting it used from Abe.
Also the cover art is really pretty.
The Damage? €32.00
Total Spend €55.23

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Books Bought Oct 1st

For the past few years my book buying habit has been getting slightly out of control. The shelves in my bedroom are stacked two deep, there are books on the floor, under the bed, in the bed, in my office, in my parents house, in handbags, still in the bag I got them in, everywhere. Lots of these books don't end up getting read.
I'm trying to get a handle on exactly how many books I buy, how much I spend on them, what proportion of them get read, etc. So I'm going to blog every purchase for a year. Why not?


1) The Demon's Lexicon - Sarah Rees Brennan (mpb) (signed by author)
Where? Eason's, O'Connell St (new)
Why? I saw Sarah Rees Brennan at Octocon last year, she seemed cool. I have little interest in the sort of YA urban fantasy but I'd like to read something of hers before this year's Octocon, which gives me two weeks.
The Damage? €9.25

Review

2)The Chains that You Refuse - Elizabeth Bear (tpb) (signed by author)
Where? Chapters, Parnell St (used)
Why? I'm on an Elizabeth Bear kick right now. This is signed and inscribed to another author I like but won't name for fear of embarrassing him/her (not that anyone is likely to read this). I found this really cool but when I explained it to my sister she looked at me blankly.
The Damage? €5.99

Review

3)Urban Shamen - C.E. Murphy (mpb) (signed by author)
Where? Chapters, Parnell St (new)
Why? Similar reason's to 1, replace YA urban fantasy which just urban fantasy... or possible paranormal romance.
The Damage? €7.99



Total spend €23.23