The Literary Acquisition Thread (2 Viewers)

[ballin]

Hmm, I recently bought:

John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
George Orwell 1984

Wtf.. these 3 cost me $75 at Angus and Robertson... How are you guys getting such good deals on books!!!? Where do i look?

 

[stillwaters]

lol, if you dont mind getting slightl;y worn books (or more, musty books) which have the same text on the page just check out secondhand bookshops... op shops like anglicare and the salvos... if you're into classics you can get cheapies printed by penguin etc. from angus and robertsons.. man, it sounds kinda like you got ripped... unless the copies you got of orwell etc. are exceptionally sexy with nice looking covers and pages etc.
you can try kinda independant book shops... gleebooks in... GLEBE ^^ or other places.. better read than dead in newtown... ^^

i cant wait till i have an income to buy millions and millions of books and also the time to read them when the heinous hsc ends. i have to borrow stuff from library which is alright cos they have pretty good selection.
i really want to acquire (i was going to write acquisition before realising... no... wait... that doesnt make sense...) nam le's the boat.... i read one of his stories which was uuber awesome... has anyone read it yet?
http://www.all-story.com/issues.cgi?action=show_story&story_id=305 <--- one of his stories...

 

[bawd]

Hmm, I recently bought:

John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
George Orwell 1984

Wtf.. these 3 cost me $75 at Angus and Robertson... How are you guys getting such good deals on books!!!? Where do i look?

Just checked Dymocks.

John Steinback - The Grapes of Wrath: $19.95
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World: $24.95
George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four: $19.95

So $64.85 total. And this is the online price; it's usually a bit cheaper in store.

But if you're really stuck for money and don't give a damn about cosmetic appeal of books, then buy them during Library book sales. You can fill a whole library bag full for a few bucks and with a bit of sorting through the piles, you can usually find great classic titles, non-fiction etc.

 

[u-borat]

well i used to shop at dymocks, but borders is the way to go; they have this online promotions thing you sign up for and every few weeks you get awesome shit; like 15 and 20% off all stock.

and...seeing as i'm getting more jew as i get older, i've taken to downloading. e-books FTW.

 

[russianROULETTE]

today i bought:

anthony and cleopatra - william shakespeare. we had a sale table at work so it was only $6, woot. the bell jar - sylvia plath. picture of dorian gray - oscar wilde. staff discount, so all up it only cost me about $30, woot.

next books to buy: animal farm, 1984, his dark materials series.

 

[bawd]

well i used to shop at dymocks, but borders is the way to go; they have this online promotions thing you sign up for and every few weeks you get awesome shit; like 15 and 20% off all stock.

and...seeing as i'm getting more jew as i get older, i've taken to downloading. e-books FTW.

The closest Borders shop is...very far away from my place, but yeah, I signed up for the email newsletters and the deals are pretty good. (Do they apply to educational titles?)

I prefer books over e-Books.


Anyway, just went to my local Salvation Army op shop, and I picked up a classic hard-copy (printed circa 1960) of The Eye of the Tiger by Wilbur Smith for three dollars. It's in absolutely fantastic condition. Also picked up a copy of the Second Neurotic's Handbook (also classic hard-cover, printed circa 1960) for a dollar. They had plenty of other books as well, including Stephen King, Shakespeare, Jules Verne etc. ranging from 50c for soft covers to $1/$2/$3 for hardcovers.

 

[Hatta]

Bought in the past few days:
New -
Everything's Eventual (1408 edition... pretty picture, in other words) - Stephen King.
Manga Shakespeare - The Tempest (yeah, I know they're iffy, but it's drawn well and gives a good quick-revise)

2nd hand -
Engines of God - Jack McDevitt
2 harcover compilation things. One on fairy tales and folk lore, another of just random essays by notable... essayists.
Ella Enchanted - Gail Carson Levine

 

[bawd]

Bought recently:

Great Speeches
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
+ a free copy of Bombproof by Michael Robotham because A Thousand Splendid Suns was on the Books Alive list

 

[Hatta]

Matthew Reilly - Ice Station
Doctor Who; Crisis in Space (choose your own adventure book from the '80s)
Threshold - Sara Douglass
Darkness Comes - Dean Koontz
Tales of the Unexpected - Roald Dahl

All 50c from an op shop

 

[bawd]

Matthew Reilly - Ice Station
Doctor Who; Crisis in Space (choose your own adventure book from the '80s)
Threshold - Sara Douglass
Darkness Comes - Dean Koontz
Tales of the Unexpected - Roald Dahl

All 50c from an op shop

Immaculate condition? Where? I need some cheap paperbacks to distract me in the holidays. Can't find good books at the charity stores I go to anymore.

 

[Hatta]

Immaculate condition? Where? I need some cheap paperbacks to distract me in the holidays. Can't find good books at the charity stores I go to anymore.

Varying. The copy of Ice Station hadn't even been read, but the Roald Dahl is horribly dog-eared and old.
There's quite a few op shops around Bathurst with good books for cheap, and a place in Lithgow called the Lithgow Bargain Mart that has a lot of older books for cheap, around 50c each (the newer ones cost about $7, but only for "popular" authors). I've fond memories of that place - Moliere's complete works in two volumes for a buck, not to mention the best detective novel I've ever read for 50c.

 

[Hatta]

I just got back from a Library book sale... ehehe. Got any book that took my fancy (and that I could get to without knocking old ladies in the head) while they were cheap

I got:
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Burning for Revenge (TWTWB Series) - John Marsden
Interfaces - an anthology of speculative fiction
Minds and Machines - W. Sluckin
Armageddon the Musical - Robert Rankin
Playback - Raymond Chandler
Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon - Malcolm Hulke
Wampeters Foma & Granfalloons - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Future Shock - Alvin Toffler
Legends - Eleven new works by the masters of modern fantasy
Hugo and Nebula award winners - Sci-fi anthology
20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
Misery - Stephen King (other copy got left in someone's car. grr)
World War: In the Balance & Upsetting the Balance - Harry Turtledove
A New Dictionary of Music

All up, cost me $5. Yay

 

[Cardea]

I just got back from a Library book sale... ehehe. Got any book that took my fancy (and that I could get to without knocking old ladies in the head) while they were cheap

I got:
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Burning for Revenge (TWTWB Series) - John Marsden
Interfaces - an anthology of speculative fiction
Minds and Machines - W. Sluckin
Armageddon the Musical - Robert Rankin
Playback - Raymond Chandler
Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon - Malcolm Hulke
Wampeters Foma & Granfalloons - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Future Shock - Alvin Toffler
Legends - Eleven new works by the masters of modern fantasy
Hugo and Nebula award winners - Sci-fi anthology
20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
Misery - Stephen King (other copy got left in someone's car. grr)
World War: In the Balance & Upsetting the Balance - Harry Turtledove
A New Dictionary of Music

All up, cost me $5. Yay

Wow! That's really great!! I would buy more of my books from op shops and library sales, but I'm usually too picky about the conditions of the books to go through with it.

Hmm, I plan on hoarding more classics in the future. That's basically what I've been trying to do for some time now.. but yesterday, I bought Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta, her newest book yay

 

[pinkly]

The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins
Einstein's Dreams - Alam Lightman (Wonderful, wonderful book, by the way)
Brokeback Mountain - Annie Proulx
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

 

[Hatta]

My mum's friend said he's getting rid of "boxes and boxes" of his books and hinted that he might pass them on to me... if he wasn't teasing me, I'll post back with them.

I hope he wasn't teasing, he has good taste in sci-fi

 

[settle*precious]

I saw this poem on four weddings and a funeral and loved it:


"stop all the clocks by W.H. Auden"

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.


​

 

[Taskan]

i recently got...

The Prince - Machiavelli (or however you spell that)
Eragon
A Clockwork Orange
Counter Clock World and Radio Free Albemuth - bothe by Philip k Dick

Lol, and i got 3 copies of The Great Gatsby for Christmas cos i put it on my list

 

[KFunk]

I am shameless - I recently bought several books that I will not have a chance to read (due to med exams).

Sartre - The Transcendence of the Ego

Kahil Gibran - The Prophet

Rudolph Carnap - Introduction to Symbolic Logic and its Applications

Frank Stilwell - Political Economy (for uni course)

 

[Silver Persian]

Frank Stilwell is awesome. Which uni do you go to KFunk?

Edit: Oh.

 

[KFunk]

Frank Stilwell is awesome. Which uni do you go to KFunk?

Edit: Oh.

Yeah, as per my sig. Sadly it's the wrong institution for Stilwell himself, but I have heard good things about a number of the UNSW politics teaching staff. Fingers crossed.