BOOKLOVE: 2nd Half of February 2014

Posted by bennardfajardo on March 7, 2014 · 2 Comments 

I absolutely have not one iota of restraint in my body. Again and again, I have said that I shall whittle down my book purchases for propriety’s sake (and because my TBR is already at a point where it’s threatening to bury me). However, good books abound and they are waiting for me to find them so I just can’t resist. I just take comfort in the fact that I mostly buy books for less than their original price. What would life be without small comforts, eh?

Anyway, here’s my haul for the second half of February:

• Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov – So far, I have read three works by this master of prose and, of the three, I consider one to be masterful (Lolita) and the other two to be just okay (The Eye, Bend Sinister). Does this mean that Nabokov has disappointed me? I won’t go as far as to say that because I know that I haven’t even read Pale Fire, one of his more acclaimed works, and his short stories. I have read on Flavorwire that Invitation to a Beheading is one of his better works so, even if I have been disappointed twice by Nabokov, I’m willing to give him another shot.
• Ignorance by Milan Kundera – Truthfully, I just bought this because the cover design matches the other Kunderas that I have in my possession but, after reading the blurb, I’m grateful that I bought it for a petty reason. Why am I glad? Because the book is about the possible rekindling of lost love, a plot that somehow resembles the plot of Stefan Zweig’s Journey into the Past, a book that I love.
• Cooking and Stealing: The Tin House Non-Fiction Reader edited by Tin House – One of my reading resolutions this year is to read more non-fiction books so, when I saw this anthology, I immediately swiped it off the shelves for fear of somebody seeing it and taking it away from my deserving and selfish hands. The anthology includes works written by Jeffrey Eugenides, David Gates, and Russell Banks.
• The Assassin’s Gate by George Packer – I have been an admirer of George Packer’s writing for The New Yorker but I wasn’t aware that he had a book about the Iraq War, a subject that I have a weird fascination with. Anyway, I couldn’t pass this up because this is just too interesting to let go.
• The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges – It’s a book by Borges about imaginary beings written like an encyclopedia or something similar. In other words, it’s Borges being Borges. What’s not to like?

That’s it, another record of my lack of restraint when it comes to books. Please, please, please don’t judge.

Filed under Book Love, Books · Tagged with Book Love, Books, Cooking and Stealing: The Tin House Non-Fiction Reader, George Packer, Ignorance, Invitation to a Beheading, Jorge Luis Borges, Milan Kundera, The Assassin's Gate, The Book of Imaginary Beings, Tin House, Vladimir Nabokov