NOTICE: (Updated March 5, 2010)

Beginning December 19, 2009, Books 'N Border Collies will be posting but only intermittently while I pursue personal goals. I plan to share some reading I'm doing, but there will be no reviews. I will, however, be sharing my exploration of vegetarian cooking and the cookbooks and websites I use to educate myself. I hope you enjoy it!

Lezlie



Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Yesterday's Purchases


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!



8 comments:

Literary Feline said...

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!

Lezlie said...

Literary 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! :-)

Lezlie

JoAnn said...

I've been eyeing Burn This Book, too. It looks so good!
Enjoy your new books.

Lezlie said...

JoAnn ~ Thanks! Hopefully I'll be reporting back on that one sooner than later.

Lezlie

Andi said...

Awesome haul! All of these look really interesting.

Lezlie said...

Andi ~ And this is just for starters. That Interview series has the potential to beggar me! :-)

Lezlie

Serena said...

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.

Lezlie said...

Serena ~ 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!

Lezlie