Manara Library
Trade paperbacks, older editions, and miscellaneous for February AND March 2013
Last month, I didn’t get a chance to finish all of these before I went to the convention in Seattle, and then I was busy when I got back. So this month, we get a double dose of trades and books I’ve read and such. That means this is really long, and I apologize for that!
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What I bought – 13 February 2013
Sipping drinks on the porch in the sunset, Farsheed Shomloo, an immigration lawyer, pointed to a book on the patio table and told Jim, “You should read this new book about Iran, it’s really interesting.” Jim replied:
“I don’t want to read it. I know the outcome already. In Iran, there is beautiful poetry and everything turns out a disaster. Here the poetry is not so beautiful, but people are free to discover the best in themselves; that’s why America has happy endings. Here it’s a negative system: there is no entrenched despotism, no will to dominate. We immigrants can remake the whole country if we want to. It’s ours for the taking, as if there is a perpetual clean slate where nobody is ever owed anything. I’ll tell you, the Iranian revolution was a disaster for Iran and a success for America, because it brought a lot of talented, ambitious Iranians here. Every time there is a disaster in the Third World, it’s a good thing for America, since the best of the middle class finds its way here.” (Robert Kaplan, from An Empire Wilderness)
Trade paperbacks, older editions, and miscellaneous for August 2012
I like doing these posts. They’re fun!
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What I bought – 15 August 2012
“Stories have no point if they don’t absorb our terror.” (Don DeLillo, from Mao II)
Trade paperbacks, older editions, and miscellaneous for January 2012
As I’m getting more and more things in trade these days and many of those don’t come out very quickly, I often miss titles that everyone is raving about for my year-end lists (see: Daredevil). So I’ve decided to do a post every month about the various trade paperbacks I got in the month. I’ve also included editions of things that may be from an earlier year but which I didn’t get until now or which have been re-released, and some other stuff, too. I’m still going to review new graphic novels individually, but this is for anything that doesn’t fall into that category. Sound good? Great. Let’s check some stuff out!
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What I bought – 24 January and 1 February 2012
Despair and idleness are, I think, the chief motives for religious devotion. When we have nothing on earth to do or hope for we gaze at the sky. We kiss the holy ikons because we have nothing better to kiss. (Lawrence Durrell, from Pope Joan)
What I bought – 26 October 2011
I understood it this evening: the author has to die in order for the reader to become aware of his truth. (Umberto Eco, from Foucault’s Pendulum)
