Remember when I told you that The Paris Reviews Interviews, Vol. II caused me to add about a million books to my Wishlist? Well, I spent an hour at Barnes & Noble yesterday making a small but interesting dent in that list. Here's what I brought home:
Burn This Book: PEN Writers Speak Out on the Power of the Word
edited by Toni Morrison. I chose this one because I want to read more essays about literature. OK, and it was 60% off. :-)Gimpel the Fool: And Other Stories
by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Singer was one of the author interviews included in Volume II. I was particularly intrigued by a short discussion of "Gimpel the Fool", so I thought I'd start here with his work.On Moral Fiction
by John Gardner, another author interviewed in Volume II. This is part of the description from the jacket flap: "With a daring not obscured by the author’s extraordinary humaneness of spirit, the book argued that contemporary literature suffers first and foremost from a basic failure of the test of 'morality.' By 'moral fiction' the author meant fiction that attempts to test human values, not for the purpose of preaching or peddling a particular ideology or mode of conduct, but in a honest and open-minded effort to find out what best promotes human fulfillment." Gardner discussed some of his ideas from this book in his interview, and it sounded like something I would enjoy reading. Barnes & Noble has a new line of books called "Barnes & Noble Rediscovers Series" and this one just happened to be sitting front and center for a mere $9.95 in hardcover. Serendipity!Hopefully none of these will have to sit around too long before I can get to them!
I couldn't resist adding Burn This Book to my TBR collection either. It looks like it will be an interesting read. Enjoy your new books, Lezlie!
ReplyDeleteLiterary Feline ~ It really looks good, doesn't it? There are a number of authors included whose work I really like, so I'm pretty excited to read those essays in particular. It shouldn't take me long to get to this one, either, because I have five books left to read for the Essay Challenge, and this will be one of them. Yay! :-)
ReplyDeleteLezlie
I've been eyeing Burn This Book, too. It looks so good!
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your new books.
JoAnn ~ Thanks! Hopefully I'll be reporting back on that one sooner than later.
ReplyDeleteLezlie
Awesome haul! All of these look really interesting.
ReplyDeleteAndi ~ And this is just for starters. That Interview series has the potential to beggar me! :-)
ReplyDeleteLezlie
I hope you enjoy your books. I really did not enjoy another of Gardner's books...The Art of Fiction. Perhaps this will be better.
ReplyDeleteSerena ~ Thanks for the warning! I saw that one when I looked up some of his work on Amazon. Maybe I won't rush to add that one to the piles until I see what I think of this. :-) I also have his fiction book Grendel, which I plan to read somewhere in the next couple of months. Hopefully I won't hate them!
ReplyDeleteLezlie