Last book you bought?

[Archae]

Describe the last book you bought.

I bought from our local library the American Heritage History of WW2.
BIG honkin' book.

[graywarrior]

1. Harry Potter...the last book

[Debi]

20. Wheeee!

Is it July yet? Can't wait for the movie of HBP!

[mainegreen]

2. Move Under Ground. It's got Jack Kerouac and Cthulhu.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Move_Under_Ground

[JitterbugPerfume]

8. that sounds

really interesting . Anything with Jack Kerouac, Neil Cassidy , Alan Ginsberg and Cthulhu can't be all bad

[Z_I_Peevey]

3. Love All the People: The Essential Bill Hicks

by Bill Hicks and John Lahr.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

31. If you're a Bill Hicks fan,

and I trust you are, this book is a must-read: http://tinyurl.com/cjfxaf

[Z_I_Peevey]

63. Thanks. I'll put it on my list. n/t

[bicentennial_baby]

4. Simultaneously: New Pathways for Sock Knitters

and Start Spinning: Everything You Need to Know to Make Great Yarn

:)

[surrealAmerican]

62. You're not the only one here whose latest purchase was ...

... a sock knitting book. Mine was "Knitting Vintage Socks".

[bicentennial_baby]

67. How is it?

Bordhi's book is mindblowing. Wow.

[surrealAmerican]

69. It's great, very comprehensive.

The Bordhi book sounds interesting too.

[netania99]

91. Big Nancy Bush fan here.

I bought Vintage Socks recently - haven't made anything yet, but I really like the Cycling or Golf Stockings. And the fancy Silk Socks, too. So pretty.

[mtowngman]

5. Nixonland by Rick Perlstien

I'm about two hundred pages in and really enjoying it.

Great 60s insights.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

32. Thank you!

For reminding me that I've wanted to read that book.

I just ordered it. I cannot WAIT to read it ...............

[Reverend_Smitty]

46. that is the last book that I bought too...

I just got a used copy of it online today for $8.50 shipping included! I can't wait to read it

[trackfan]

6. The Wine Cook Book, by the Browns

It's a cookbook from the 30s, reprinted in the 40s. I got it at a library book sale for $1. The interesting thing about it is that the literary style tells me James Beard either just HAD to have a hand in writing this book, or his entire output is extremely influenced by the Browns.

[JitterbugPerfume]

7. Last Time To See by Douglas Adams

he traveled the world with some mates back in the 1980s lookong for animals in danger of extinction . Of course he wrote the book with that DNA humor and empathy that we expect of such a smart and cool guy

He died WAY to soon:cry:

[struggle4progress]

9. A gripping and suspenseful page-turner:

Numerical Applications of Special Matrices

[Book Lover]

10. The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz

Simply amazing, magical, and trancelike. I totally love this book.

[gmoney]

11. "More Nudes" by Andreas H. Bitesnich

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3832792112/amzng-20/

A coffee table book of art nudes, dramatically lit and such.

Ordered it online yesterday, but it won't show up until next week sometime...

[LisaM]

12. "Girls Like Us"

biography of Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon. I wouldn't say it's the best-written thing I've ever read, but for the material it contains, you can't beat it.

[kimmerspixelated]

15. Oh,Oh,Oh,Oh,!

I saw that one! Spied it in an unusual used bookstore. I didn't necessarily think it was new, but I did sit down to take a good look at it. I might still go back to get it!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

34. It's just plain fun -

dishy and full of stories, and I just loved it!

[LisaM]

35. I got the urge to get a black velvet minidress and boots

with some antique lace sewn on it!

Then I wanted to get a cup of tea and a cat and curl up in a window.

Seriously, it all sounded good, and fun.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

37. I did all that, back then - with a dog, though - no cat -

We hippies had the best fun, but I had NO IDEA that Joni was such a tramp! I found that inspiring even if her music leaves me cold. Carly Simon's story was the most fun - although really, eventually, heartbreaking.

And Carole King! Man, wasn't she all over the place?

These women did not miss a trick, bless them all. I just came across my copy the other day - time to give it a quick re-read...........

[LisaM]

39. I don't think Joni was a tramp. I just think she had a short expiration date.

It wasn't as if she was with all of them at once.

I never knew the song Carey was about a man! (Or that it wasn't spelled "Carrie"). I love Joni Mitchell's music, but she was enough ahead of me that I didn't know it as well as I'd like.

I got out a notebook last night and fast scribbled a bunch of images from the book, then I drew a line next to them, and tried to match up images of now. I concluded that 1) being in your teens and twenties right now would be really sad; and 2) there are some things that are just lost forever.

Really good times. Lots of info about James Taylor, too.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

40. Wait............

If you just do guys sequentially, no matter how many, you're NOT a tramp?

Oh, all RIGHT!!!! I'm in the clear, then. Thank you.

Your conclusions are interesting - and as to (1) I agree, 100%, totally, in spades - there is nothing rich like our music scene was back then to compare today - what are going to be their "oldies" in twenty, thirty, forty years? And, as to (2), yes, sadly - that's just a function of life going on.

That's what memories are for. When I'm with my old pals from the sixties, we talk and talk and talk and laugh a whole lot, and, lately, as our numbers have started to decline, sometimes we cry. But, above all, we're so thankful that we were young and foolish enough not to have missed anything. Not any of it.

Carly Simon had the WORST luck with men, didn't she? I'm so nuts about her.

Yep, definitely time to read it again ....................

[LisaM]

42. You are welcome! Of course you're not a tramp!

I get fed up with some of my younger friends, they seem so prudish. And it's not just because of AIDS. They just are.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

49. Here ya go, sweetie -

Words of wisdom from a very happy old hippie chick:

"Abuse it or lose it."

[pokerfan]

13. Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference

Yeah, I know it's available as a http://www.ubuntupocketguide.com/download_main.html">free download. I just wanted a hard copy.

[Bucky]

14. "Essays on Regional Mexican History 1910-1929" by a buncha damn PhD fuckers

It's about Mexico, which is a country south of us you mighta heard of.

[MedleyMisty]

16. A World Lit Only by Fire:

The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance - Portrait of an Age

Long name, huh?

Basically I wanted to find out if humans were really nice and empathetic and had equal societies and were caring and peaceful in the days before capitalism as some people claim. Turns out, not so much. I've only just started but there's been lots of massacres and large scale executions and general violent death so far.

[Book Lover]

22. As a medievalist in a former life, I feel compelled to rat this book out

It is written by someone with an antipathy to the era, and is riddled with factual errors. I recommend Tuchman's A Distant Mirror as a book with the info you seek.

[Adsos Letter]

38. I loved "A Distant Mirror!"...

as well as "The Proud Tower," and "The Guns of August." Tuchman could really tell a story.

[BuddhaGirl]

71. Wow!

I bought this book years ago, but have yet to read it - thanks for the tip!

[Rising Phoenix]

17. Wet on Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture

by Mira Schor

actual cover....

[Call Me Wesley]

18. I'll name three:

- Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (never read it before.)
- Confederacy Of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (never read this one before, either.)
- Life After Black by Barron Storey (signed with print inside, great book, awesome artist!)

[Debi]

23. Wow, a friend of my husband just recommended Confederacy of Dunces for me to read

plan on buying it our next book store datenight.

[JitterbugPerfume]

25. Slaughterhouse Five and

Confederacy of Dunces are both just awesome ! My guess is that you will love both of them

[Debi]

19. Iowa Rules of Court, 2009 ed.

No.....not for fun....no fun....bleh.....

[hellbound-liberal]

21. The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby

It is a description of all of the cultural forces that have given birth to the current state of anti-rationalism in our country. Jacoby traces the American distaste for intellectuals back to the founding of this country. I just finished the McCarthy era and I am moving on to a chapter concerned with "Middlebrow Culture from Noon to Twilight". I highly recommend this book to any one else who is frustrated with the fact that, as George Carlin noted: "the life expectancy and the IQ of the average American just passed each other...going in opposite directions!"

[JitterbugPerfume]

26. I loved that book

Freethinkers by Jacoby is really good too

[jobycom]

24. John Le Carre "The Mission Song," though I bought "Angels and Demons" on audiobook since then.

"The Mission Song" has been slow. Interesting hero, well written, but somehow the story hasn't kept me involved.
I listened to "Angels and Demons" mostly on a recent road trip. Exciting story, but Dan Brown needs writing lessons something fierce.

[Sultana]

27. No Woman, No Cry by Rita Marley w/ Hettie Jones

[Tangerine LaBamba]

28. "Some Of It Was Fun"

by Nicholas deB. Katzenbach

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41XLAWOL81L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg

People who are interested in what the civil rights movement was like during the JFK-RFK years should read this account by the man who was Robert Kennedy's right-hand guy at Justice. Brave people. So very brave, and I'm afraid people today don't understand or appreciate how terrifying it was to go after the Southern bigots and implement the brand-new civil rights legislation.

Not to mention the brilliant insider's look at how LBJ handled the Vietnam disaster:

From Publishers Weekly

Katzenbach is perhaps most famous for his role in 1962–1963, as deputy attorney general under Robert F. Kennedy, confronting Mississippi governor Ross Barnett and Alabama governor George Wallace when each was forced to racially integrate their state universities. In this fascinating memoir, Katzenbach gives an invaluable insider's view of life in both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, in the latter of which he was attorney general and undersecretary of state.

Katzenbach is uniquely positioned to throw light on the personal and political animosities between Bobby Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson: an uncomfortable Katzenbach was often forced to become an emissary between the two.

At one private White House meeting, Katzenbach has Johnson accusing the antiwar Senator Kennedy of prolonging the war, causing more American deaths: You have blood on your hands, Johnson shouted. I had never seen like this, Katzenbach writes, almost totally out of control.... 'I don't have to listen to this, I'm leaving,' Kennedy retorted.

Such tales as this, never before told, are more than worth the price of admission.

[Forkboy]

29. World War Z

[ACTION BASTARD]

43. +1 for Zombie Love

Read the battle for Yonkers yet? As someone that spent a lot of time there in my youth, I could picture exactly what areas Brooks was writing about.

[Forkboy]

44. I finished the book in a day. Two sittings.

Can't wait for the movie. :)

[Tangerine LaBamba]

50. That's by Mel Brooks' kid?

Interesting ..................

[Forkboy]

53. Surprised me, too.

Great book, though. The Gone With The Wind of zombie stories. :)

[Lucian]

57. I have that on my wishlist on Amazon.

[Forkboy]

59. Lots of fun, with some truly mind blowing scenarios and ideas.

Let's put it this way, it's as good as any zombie movie I've seen...and I've seen them all. :)

[AllenVanAllen]

81. Here's one from my wishlist

[AllenVanAllen]

75. That is the last book I bought too.

I had a lot of fun reading that one! The only beef I have with this excellent story is that Brooks treats the zombie phenomena like a disease instead of it having a somewhat unknown cause, like the three original Living Dead" films. You had to be bitten and infected to reanimate as opposed to bodies reanimating regardless of cause of death as long as enough of the brain is still intact.

Still it's a great book and I recommend it to any horror or "living dead" fans. I read that Brad Pitt's production company is going to make it into a film. A faithful representation of this would truly be an epic!

[LeftyMom]

30. The Tyranny of Oil

Months ago. Lately I've been swapping/giving away books, because I just have so many I never really plan to read again. So anything on my "must have" list right now is either coming from the library or paperback swap.

[Left Is Write]

33. Where Are You Now by Mary Higgins Clark. Fluff mystery. Paperback.

[Adsos Letter]

36. "An Instance of the Fingerpost: A Novel" by Iain Pears

Historical Fiction/Murder Mystery set in 17th century England. Great read, so far...but it's looooong.

[justabob]

41. Last Train from Berlin by Howard K Smith

It is the best book about Nazi Germany that I have read to date, and I have read a lot of them. :)

It is the most insightful man-on-the street reporting about what it was like living in the Nazi regime. He focuses on how difficult it was to convince people of the menace that was Hitler in Britain and in the US and how the opening of the Russian front changed everything for ordinary Germans. Most people point to Berlin Diary by Shirer, which is also a good book, but Smith's book is much better in my opinion.

[LadyoftheRabbits]

45. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

:)

[Wetzelbill]

47. Some James Patterson one

My fast reading. Kind of like when I'm too lazy to cook and I go to McDonald's instead.

[Texasgal]

48. A thousand splended suns

EXCELLENT read.

Same author of the Kite Runner which is also an excellent book.

[Xipe Totec]

51. Matrix Methods in Data Mining and Pattern Recognition

http://www.mai.liu.se/~laeld/matrix-methods/index.html

[Mike 03]

52. I bought a bunch at once.

I bought two books (that I recently read and loved) for my mother for Mother's Day:

The biography "Cheever" by Blake Baily
The novel "2666" by Robert Bolano

And I know this is really lame, but lately I've wanted to re-read Bret Easton Ellis' books. I own them as first editions, but I hate reading first editions, and I am going to be spending hours and hours at the hospital over the next three weeks, so I bought some of his works in paperback:

The Informers
Rules of Attraction
Glamorama
American Psycho
Less than Zero (of course)
Lunar Park

You caught me at a lame time when I am reading very questionable literature.

If you had asked this question two weeks ago, I could have told you about brilliant biographies of Samuel Johnson.

But in the duty to honesty, I must confess, my recent purchases have been less than stellar.

[Sisaruus]

54. atheism or fast food

At a Taste of the Nation benefit event (supporting programs fighting childhood hunger) last week, I bought a copy of More Fast Food My Way signed by guest of honor Jacques Pepin. Also purchased last week from a bookstore: How to Be a Good Atheist by Nick Harding.

Books are my addiction: http://www.librarything.com/profile/sisaruus

[timtom]

55. Plato's Complete Dialogues

(Not the Jowett translation)

and Stephen Vincent Benet's "Reader's Encyclopedia"

Just replacin' stuff...

[Lucian]

56. Small Favor by Jim Butcher

Book Ten of The Dresden Files.

[bluedigger]

58. House Buying for Dummies.

What?

It's got pages

and words

and stuff...

:rofl:

[BlueStateGirl]

60. today... Slaughterhouse Five.

[JTG of the PRB]

61. Watchmen

I hadn't read it before, and, as it turns out, I WAS missing out!

[rurallib]

64. Letter to a Christian Nation by {somebody I can't remember}

[LeftyMom]

73. Sam Harris.

Come to think of it, I think I bought that more recently than Tyranny of Oil.

[madinmaryland]

65. The ((madinmaryland)/my family name) Saga.

The history of my family from 1600.

[yellowdogintexas]

66. The Miracle at Speedy Motors...Alexander McCall Smith

#9 in the #1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

[femmocrat]

68. I just bought an art book from Amazon.

Still waiting for it. I don't know what to expect... it was just the cheapest book that Amazon had about that artist.

[BuddhaGirl]

70. How Language Works - by David Crystal

I bought it two months ago but haven't read it yet...I am so backed up on books it's ridiculous! LOL

[elshiva]

72. Yes, I am an atheist, but I still love hagiography.

"Illustrated Lives of the Saints Boxed Set" by Hugo Hoever and Thomas Donaghy
Lots of lovely kitschy illustrations. :)

[Throd]

74. Is a copy of "SWANK" considered a book?

[sakabatou]

76. A book for my digital painting class.

[Broken_Hero]

77. hmm,

The Dark Tower graphic novel "Gunslinger Born"

http://hubpages.com/hub/gunslinger

It was pretty good, took some parts of The Gunslinger/Wizard in Glass and made a decent, flowing story....:)

[WorseBeforeBetter]

78. Christmas Sucks: What to Do When Fruitcake, Family, and Finding the Perfect Gift Make You Miserable

It was in the $3.99 bin at Border's and the perfect pre-holiday gift for a friend.

[Arugula Latte]

84. Love that title!

[vixengrl]

79. I went on a binge two weeks ago at Farley's in New Hope.

I finally decided to own copies of Maus (Spiegelman), Persepolis (Satrapi) and V for Vendetta (Moore). I'd read bits of them before, now I can can really appreciate them. Although they are graphic novels, I'd even say I think the first two wouldn't be out of place in a HS lit class.

I also picked up Matt Taibbi's The Great Derangement, which I enjoyed in an actually "LOL" kind of way--he really is funny. He made an observation about parts of our ideological bandwidth--he looked at evangelicals of the "Jesus Camp" variety and 9/11 "Truthers"--that they aren't just operating from different points of view or political opinions--but whole different sets of "facts". When I look at the current "Tea Party" crowd, or evaluate anything that Michele Bachman says--different set of facts seems about right.

I also picked Ahmed Rashid's Descent into Chaos. He's a Pakistani journalist, and his book covers U.S. foreign policy and how it is disastrous for Pakistan & Afghanistan. It's very detail-packed and I'm still not through it yet. I'm actually right at a part where he discusses the abuse of prisoners at Baghram. I recommend this one, too, for the perspective it provides.

(Buying books one-at-a-time for me is impossible. It's like going into Costco for "just one thing.")

(Edit--html...can't live with it...grumble....)

[BlueIris]

80. "Welcome to the Monkey House" (Kurt Vonnegut). nt

[MilesColtrane]

82. "Talk Talk" -T.C. Boyle

The jacket blurbs describe it as detective novel/road story hybrid.
The plot is built upon a case of identity theft

[Inchworm]

83. One Nation Under Dog

I read the cover, wanted the book, but not a "real" reader...

Someone else is reading it, and I'll ask questions when it's returned :D

:hi:

[mvd]

85. Breaking Dawn - I was disappointed (SOME SPOILERS - don't read if you don't want to know anything)

Here's my review:

I'm not the teenage girl who is normally thought to be the audience for the Twilight series. I'm a 32-year-old man, and the Twilight series wrapped me in anyway. The series is not very well written - kind of disjointed, actually, with lazy lapses into terms like "he sighed" - but the characters are interesting, the romantic tension real, and the books hard to put down.

I had no problem reading through Breaking Dawn, but that's mostly because I like the series and I wanted to see how it ended. However, it was a disappointing end to the series. Bella is too self-deprecating anyway, but it gets unbearable in the first part of the book. I also felt no more magic in the wedding than the usual wedding. This is a book geared to young people, so I did not expect detailed accounts of sex - but the way Edward and Bella were depicted on their honeymoon was pretty cheesy. And since it states vampire women can't have babies due to their bodies changing, how can Edward help create one? Vampire men have a different number of chromosomes than human men, and no beating heart! And if the baby could stand human food as a child, why not in the womb? Also, when most of what you read about are Renesmee's thoughts getting shown, you don't get to know the character that well. Her traits were written predictably as a mix of vampire and human. One good thing is that she is an endearing character.

Jacob's part of the book was actually pretty funny, though time is wasted on imprinting. And Bella's narration improved during her third of the book when she became a vampire. She became a better, more cool character as a vampire. But anytime a conflict emerges or there's a build to a climax, there's a big letdown. With the shape shifters (thought to be the werewolves,) stupid imprinting negated the reason they exist - to protect the tribe and human life. At the end, I was left wishing that Bella and Edward did do something illegal and their group would defeat the Volturi. While happy endings are fine, everything was too perfect. Not even any arguments or anything. The ending was like a fairytale, and I didn't think of the series that way. It's a shame, because the author can actually create a mood of suspense quite well. If not for that gift, the book would be harder to read than it is. In summary, Breaking Dawn got distracted from the Bella and Edward chemistry that made the series good up to this point.

Here's how I'd rate each book -

Twilight - 4/5
New Moon - 3/5
Eclipse - 4/5
Breaking Dawn - 2/5

[dembotoz]

86. some mind candy from the local library used book shelf

a thomas wolfe collection that wasn't too bad
2 books about a coplike charactor named jack reacher that were fun--forgot the author
a pale rider--piers anthony book that i just can not seem to get into--guy at work saw me
reading it and went into a long thing on how fantastic the book is and a classic and bhah blah
sorry don't see it....

[Soylent Brice]

87. Accelerando. n/t

[BurtWorm]

88. It has really been a long, long time.

And that's unusual for me. I've been reading lots of library books and I get a bunch of free advance copies of books as a reviewer. But the last book I remember buying was a Barnes and Noble edition of Darwin's The Descent of Man. Oh yeah! I also bought Nicolas Wade's Before the Dawn. (Or was it a collection of Tolstoy's short novels?)

[Hayabusa]

89. Some Star Wars at the Goodwill

Books 2 and 3 of the Corellian Treaty. I thought I needed them because my other copies were bad. Turns out I was thinking of the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy...

Oh, well, it was only $1.40.

As for books I could actually use, it was books one and two of Karen Traviss' Wess'har Trilogy from the local library. Hope she doesn't tick me off with these as she does with some of her Star Wars novels.

[frogmarch]

90. Greenmantle by Charles de Lint

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51jQCqb1duL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Greenmantle-Charles-Lint/dp/0441302955

Review excerpt:

"Charles de Lint likes to study different cultures and introduce them into his stories. In Greenmantle, we have the Mafia, we have Celtic nature-worshippers, and we have a Horned God who is a modern-day version of the Roman god Pan. The clash of cultures often highlights belief systems; in this story, concepts like honor, violence as a means, exploitation, and self-image get put in the spotlight. The book has good character development, a coherent, fast-paced story, and intriguing ideas."

[SoxFan]

92. "Radicals In Robes", Cass Sunstein

“ latest effort could serve as a briefing book for the Democratic senators vetting Samuel A. Alito Jr. for the Supreme Court.”
— New York Times Book Review

“This timely book builds a convincing case that extreme right-wing courts are wrong for America. Cass Sunstein, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, pulls away the veil of rhetoric from dangerous and radical movements and issues a strong and passionate warning about what some extremists really intend for our judicial system.”
— Washington Post

“In his wonderful book, Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts Are Wrong for America, Cass Sunstein lays out four alternative theories of constitutional interpretation and concludes that judicial minimalism is the surest and most principled path. Senate Democrats should commit to memory the parade of horribles Sunstein lists as following from the fundamentalist project.”
— Slate (A Best Book of 2005)