Lookey Lookey I Got A Bookey

Oh heavens!

If it isn't obvious enough, I love books. Not only do I love reading them, I apparently love to just collect them.

Over the last month or two I have been stock piling. Mostly because it was my birthday and I got Barnes and Noble gift cards to blow on delicious novels.

(Yes, delicious.)

Here are some of the newest ones:

I have always wanted to read Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. A friend of mine read it when we were in probably the fifth grade, and it has always been one of her absolute favorite books.

This little play was so absolutely adorable, I had to buy it. The cover made me do it... look at that jolly little guy! Plus, it boasts of being funny, and I loves me some funny.

I've already read Night but that doesn't mean I won't want to read it again. What a powerful story, a truly great read.

This old copy of Jane Eyre was only $1.50. I asked myself, does this mean I have to buy it? And the answer was yes. duh.

I'm feelin' like a lot of Science Fiction lately. Specifically dystopian. I believe I've mentioned that before on this blog. And, I think I forgot how much I really love SciFi, being in school made me read so many things that weren't SciFi, and now that I am able to delve into whatever I so please, I see myself leaning more and more towards those kinds of novels. Plus, I've always wanted to read something by Ayn Rand... Atlas Shrugged is for sure on the list to buy, but for now I found Anthem and that made me happy.

I can't even tell you how long I've wanted to own/read this book. Naked Lunch has been on my TBR list since the day I was born I'm pretty sure. And now, eegads!, I own it!

Tender is the Night, oh how I hope you will live up to my love for The Great Gatsby.

This is on my list of TBR, and I came across it at my BFF's house in Washington this last weekend. Upon giving her the "let me borrow it eye" she handed it over for an undetermined amount of time (seeing as the pile of books I have that need to be read is staggeringly tall).

I was gifted Hammerhead (signed!) by my BFF (see above). She knows this Jason Andrew Bond fellow and he was nice enough to autograph it for me and ask my opinion. It is SciFi. I shall keep everyone up to date with it.

Ok, now I have already finished this book, it shall be my next post, but I figured I should put it in here as a book that I recently acquired. I bought it for @1book140 on Twitter - we were doing a spooky Halloween read for October.

And this is the book I am currently devouring. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I am loving it. It's funny and stupid wacky - in a great way.










I also bought Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, but mi madre wanted to borrow it, so I allowed her to do so...

Anyway folks, those are the 12 books that I have bought recently. I'm excited to read all of them - as well as all of the others that are accumulating in my little library.

On to reading!

Top Ten Tuesday: Book Covers

This week's Top Ten Tuesday from The Broke and the Bookish is to choose ten books that I have purchased solely based on their covers.
I really do buy books based on their covers - but most of the time I have to have some inclination (besides really cool artwork) that the book is going to be worth the money. I can't just throw cash down without having some idea that the book will be well worth it... and not just look pretty.

So, I'm sure I could go through my bookshelf and point out specific books that I chose because I liked their covers, but it was probably because I had to choose between two different covers and one appealed to me more. Or, for instance, when I recently bought H.P. Lovecraft's complete works - I could have just bought another version, but the fact that it was so pretty was hard to pass up. But I'd had an idea that I wanted to buy something by Lovecraft before I even saw it.

So, that's why this week's topic would be hard for me to do.
Instead I strolled over to the Book Cover Archive and found quite a few covers that I found extremely visually appealing.

So, I think it's pretty obvious that I like more modern book covers, I like interesting type fonts. I love weird. I'm a freak for 50's bright, fun advertising - but I love dark, creepy Kafka too.




I think one of the most iconic book covers for me is Beowulf. I could see the tiniest sliver of this book cover and know exactly what it was.







Anyway, I have a lot of great books that I have recently acquired, so next post shall be of those beauties.
Then, I recently finished Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill for 1book140 on Twitter... A spoooookey October read.
And now I am reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which I can't wait to finish so I can tell everyone everything I love about it.

On to reading!

Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.

All my life I’ve heard about how great Kurt Vonnegut is. How Slaughterhouse Five changed peoples lives. How his writing was so absolutely fantastic.

And all I am left with thinking is, “I guess”. 

I don’t know. It’s good. It was tragic and funny – sad and delightful (just like the back of my edition boasts), but the best antiwar novel? Hmmm. I’m not so sure. I’d rather promote Catch 22 or even Johnny Got His Gun as the two most influential antiwar novels. Or even The Painted Bird which deals not with the soldier side of war, but civilian’s experiences with war.

I guess, for those who haven’t read it, a description of the plot, and maybe a little background information, would be beneficial (maybe).

The novel is based on Vonnegut’s experience in World War II. He was a Prisoner of War when the firebombing of Dresden took place. The novel begins with his explanation of his experiences in the war. Vonnegut says that some of the things that happen in the book really did happen to him (and as you read, Vonnegut puts himself there in Dresden in a few occasions, just as a background character, nothing huge, almost just to make the story seem more real and less like a story).

The real story is about Billy Pilgrim. Billy joins the war effort and is almost immediately captured as a prisoner of war by the German troops. He is transported in an extremely crowded train to a POW camp. Billy suffers a breakdown and is hospitalized.  Soon he and the other American POWs are sent to Dresden. They are set up inside a former slaughterhouse (i.e. Slaughterhouse Five). One night, while locked in their airtight meat locker, allied troops bomb the city and kill nearly 130,000 people. They surface from their camp to find a moonscape of devastation. They are forced to exhume corpses from the debris and wreckage. Billy returns to Ilium, NY after the Russians capture the city. He becomes engaged. He has a breakdown. He gets electro-therapy. He gets married. He has children. On the night of his daughters wedding he is abducted by a race of aliens called the Tralfamadorians. They make him live in a zoo and mate with an adult film star/actress from earth. They teach him their thoughts on the universe.

All of this is much better when you read the novel – believe me. Just reading over what I wrote would NOT make me want to read this book.

Anyway, all of this is told in a nonlinear fashion. Billy Pilgrim goes back and forth between past, present and future throughout the novel.

In the end, I don’t think I could ever figure out if Billy Pilgrim was crazy or not. Did he really get abducted? Or was this all just because of what he experienced in the war… it could be, due to the breakdowns he suffers at different times throughout the novel.

I see how it is antiwar to an extent. I mean, Billy Pilgrim DOES go through some pretty horrific things. He sees death and destruction. But, it’s also about a guy who gets abducted by aliens. I get it. It’s like black humor. It’s taking a super serious topic, like war, and mixing it with bad science fiction. Does Catch 22 do it better? Yeah, I think so.

Anyway, it’s not the last Vonnegut novel I will read. That’s for sure. I like his style.

And, all I know is that I want the last words for my eulogy to be “So it goes”.

On to reading!