Top Ten Tuesday - Recently Acquired Books

                                        

It's Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by The Broke and the Bookish) and the topic is: Last Ten Books That Came Into My Possession! This is the perfect topic for me as I've recently rediscovered my love of buying books after a Half-Price Books moved in nearby. It's great for my bookcase but horrible for my bank account! I've also been going to the library often but since I've been checking out everything that's remotely interesting, I have too many library books out to narrow the list to just ten.

So without further ado, here are my ten most recent purchases:

                                                              
1. Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel by Rebecca Goldstein - I'm obsessed with mathematical histories and biographies of mathematicians so when I spied this at Half-Price Books, I had to have it.




                                                              
2. Madam Ambassador: Three Years of Diplomacy, Dinner Parties, and Democracy in Budapest by Eleni Kounalakis - Last month, I got to hear the author speak at the Bay Area Book Festival about her experiences as the U.S. ambassador to Hungary. She's such an interesting, forceful and compelling speaker and she was kind enough to sign my copy after.


                                                               
3. Exactly Opposite the Golden Gate: Essays on Berkeley's History 1845-1945 by Phil McArdle - Picked up at the local historical society booth at the festival. As I did my undergraduate degree at U.C. Berkeley, I'm always interested in the history of the area.


                                                                
4. Russia: A 1000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East by Martin Sixsmith - I've been on a Russian history and literature kick lately and this was noted as an accessible overview in a few reviews. Plus, my local B&N, which is rapidly becoming a toy and action figure store, actually had it in stock!


                                                               
5. The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov - For the Bulgaria entry in my European Reading Challenge. Couldn't resist the cover on an expedition to Green Apple Books in SF (couldn't resist a lot of books there, actually. I picked up at least 10 and forced myself to put them all back except for this one!)


                                                               
6. Civil to Strangers and Other Writings by Barbara Pym - I didn't buy this myself but actually won it in a giveaway from the lovely Thomas of Hogglestock (formerly myporch). I am a huge Barbara Pym fan (especially Excellent Women) and was thrilled to find a Pym I hadn't yet read. The vintage wallpaper cover is great too.


                                                                
7. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino - My first Calvino! Only in the middle of the first chapter, but really liking it so far. My kind of magical realism.


                                                                
8. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara - For once, I am reading one of the it-books of the moment. Pleasantly, so far it promises to be as good as the hype.


                                                               
9. An Exaggerated Murder by Josh Cook - An homage to Sherlock Holmes and a murder mystery parody combined with multiple references to James Joyce. Sign me up! Found out about him from the interesting, but now defunct 2 Book Minimum podcast.


                                                                
10. The Perfect Theory by Pedro G. Ferreira - A breezy history of the theory of relativity? Totally right up my alley!

Packing (books) for a Short Trip

I will be going away soon on a short trip out of town and a currently have a serious packing dilemma: Which books should I bring? And how many?

I'll have my Kindle, of course, which contains at least thirty books that I need to read, but because I am hopelessly afraid of being caught with downtime while at the airport, with an uncharged Kindle, I also need to take a book or two (or three) along for bookish emergencies!

Currently, I am thinking about taking a biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford, that I picked up after reading Kate Bolick's book Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own. Millay is featured as one of Bolick's five "awakeners" i.e. five women who have influenced her life and Bolick made her sound so fascinating that I ran straight to my Barnes & Noble and picked up Milford's biography.







I also have a book about the creation of the 2010-11 Vancouver Canucks team that made it to the Stanley Cup final - Ice Storm: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Vancouver Canucks Team Ever by Bruce Dowbiggin - which I have been meaning to read for some time. It has the advantage of being nonfiction (which always can hold my attention), about a somewhat non-serious subject (which means I won't have to concentrate so hard on the plane - always a good thing!)





I will probably also throw in a very light book for the plane, specifically for hours three or four of a flight when you start to feel irritated and antsy about it being over soon. I'm considering a Terry Pratchett since I have never read him and my sister keeps telling me I need to do so immediately. I have a copy of Equal Rites, is that a good place to start? I also have an Agatha Raisin; the little mass markets are the perfect size to go in a purse to be read while waiting. Maybe I'll just bring both!

Four books for four days seems about right, yes? Between those and my Kindle I should be set. The Kindle is necessary since I often want to spontaneously pick a book at random while I travel. Since you can't control anything else about your flight, it's nice to be able to pick a book according to your present whims.


When I get back next week, I'll be starting All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr for book club. I was so happy when we voted on this novel since some of the other choices were not my cup of tea. On a related note, am I being a hopeless snob about Paul Coelho and Mitch Albom? Should I give their books a try? Input would be much appreciated.