Eye Candy for Bibliophiles

Crime Fiction 2

2011-10-04T20:36:00.001+11:00

Surprise, surprise! I am again at a loose end this evening before retiring to read more of Neal Stephenson’s latest novel Reamde, which I have been enjoying immensely and trying to eke out as long as I can.

So, to continue with detective fiction, firstly with the novels of Nicholas Blake , the pseudonym under which Cecil Day Lewis penned detective novels. His prime detective is Nigel Strangeways, based originally, according to Wikipedia, on the poet W. H. Auden. He’s rather effete I thought when I recently reread one of the books The Widow’s Cruise it was. Still the books are civilised and quite readable.

Gore Vidal , author of many mainstream novels, wrote several detective stories under the name of Edgar Box. I appear to have only one of them – Death Likes It Hot with a rather good cover.

Starring Inspector John Coffin, Gwendoline Butler’s mystery novels are first class – suspenseful and gripping page turners. I collected a number of them in various editions, displayed below.

And to finish this post, a stray Raymond Chandler novel – The Lady in the Lake, Pan edition published in 1979.

Coming next – Sherlock Holmes

Crime Fiction 1

2011-10-03T20:33:00.001+11:00

How time flies when you’re not doing much in particular. I noticed today that my last post on this blog was back in early September. Tonight finds me at a loose end so I will start posting on my general crime/detective fiction collection.

Alphabetically as usual I will start with the crime novels of Lesley Grant Adamson who has written sixteen novels in this genre, her first being Patterns in the Dust published in 1985 by Faber. I remember her novels as being quite good, so much so that I collected them for a time, but appear to have only three of them on my bookshelf.

Joan Aiken, sadly no longer with us, was well known as a children’s book author, but she also tried her hand at other types of literature, crime fiction being one of them. I have only Blackground, which is characterised by her wonderful quirky style.

Another grand dame of crime fiction was Margery Allingham who wrote many novels, most of them featuring her literary detective Albert Campion of which the following is one.

Next, a curious collection of omnibus editions under the imprint of Black Box Thrillers published by Zomba, quite a rarity these days I assume. They have great faux retro covers.

I will continue this thread soon with the crime novels of Nicholas Blake, Edgar Box and Gwendoline Butler.

Crime – Penguin Crime 4

2011-09-06T21:07:00.001+10:00

I might as well polish off the last of the Penguin Crime novels in my collection in this post.

To start, the detective novels of Julian Symons, who wrote over thirty crime novels over a period of 51 years. I have only a small collection of his books, and even though it is many years since I’ve stuck my nose in them, I remember them as superior crime fiction.

Josephine Tey was the nom de plume of Elizabeth Mackintosh, who also wrote plays under the pseudonym of Gordon Daviot. Her detective novels still stand up today. The most famous of them is The Daughter of Time, an investigation into the guilt or otherwise of the much maligned King Richard III. Below is my ancient (1964) Penguin edition of the book.

The Franchise Affair is based on the true story of Elizabeth Canning who falsely accused two innocent women of kidnap and abuse. Bratt Farrar concerns false identity and like all Tey’s mystery novels is well worth reading.

Robert van Gulik is famous for his Judge Dee mysteries set in ancient China. I have quite a few of the Judge Dee novels in other editions, so The Emperor’s Pearl is my sole Green Penguin edition. It was published in 1966.

The Hazell crime novels were written as an off shoot from the Television series of the same name. Published under the name P. B. Yuill, the books were a collaboration between Gordon Williams and Terry Venables. The following editions were published in Penguin in the late 1970s.

And finally for Penguin Crime a collection edited by Michele B Slung, Crime On Her Mind featuring female sleuths. It was published in 1977.

Coming next is the rest of my collection of detective novels in various editions.

Crime – Penguin Crime 3

2011-09-04T21:17:00.001+10:00

I have been remiss again. So much for retirement from the work force, I seem to be busier than ever with trivial distractions.

But to continue with Penguin Crime, here is the next instalment…

P. D James is well known in the field of detective fiction, particularly for her Adam Dalgliesh detective series of which I have quite a few, all published by Penguin.

Firstly two omnibus editions, the first obviously featuring Adam Dalgliesh. Trilogy of Death comprises two Cordelia Grey mysteries and general crime novel, Innocent Blood.

The following are more Adam Dalgliesh novels. P D James also wrote a quite interesting dystopian novel The Children of Men, which I will display later.

The detective novels of H.R.F. Keating are set in India, his detective character being Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID. It is remarkable how many detective novels are set in unusual locations and periods. I suppose it adds a certain exoticism to the storyline. These Penguin editions date from the mid 1970s.

Also set in the exotic location of Berlin during the Nazi ascendancy , Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels are of the hard boiled Raymond Chandler type. The first three of the Bernie Gunther series are available in the omnibus edition Berlin Noir which comprises the three novels March Violets, The Pale Criminal and A German Requiem. A friend loaned me the collected edition, and I desultorily tried to collect the individual volumes, hence the sole copy of A German Requiem in my library.

Back to more conventional crime locales with the novels of Hilda Lawrence. There’s not much about her on the web, but I recall not minding these novels at all.

Next Mad Hatters Holiday by Peter Lovesey. This appears to be the only one of his books I have. It’s an old Penguin edition published 1981.

Margaret Millar is an American Canadian crime writer, who is married to fellow crime novelist Ross MacDonald. It is years since I last read the two novels below, so can’t really remember what they were like, but they sound quite interesting from the blurbs on the back.

And finally for this post, Edwin of the Iron Shoes by Marcia Muller, which was her first novel featuring female sleuth Sharon McCone and was published by Penguin in 1978.

There are only about a dozen or so Penguin crime novels left to display. I’ll try and get them out of the way soon, then tackle the rest of my crime and mystery collection.

Crime - Penguin Crime 2

2011-07-09T20:43:00.001+10:00

Tsk tsk, I have been remiss once more in not posting anything new on this blog for a while.

To make up for it, here are a few more books in the Penguin Crime series.

Continuing alphabetically, first off the rank is The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes edited by Hugh Greene who was the elder brother of Graham Greene, and Director General of the BBC from 1960 – 1969. He edited several crime anthologies and was creative consultant to the TV Series of the same name. The Penguin edition below was published in 1972.

William Haggard was an English writer of fictional spy thrillers set in the 1960s through the 1980s. Venetian Blind is one of them though I can’t remember a thing about it. The Penguin edition pictured was published in 1964.

Michael Innes, was the pseudonym of academic J.I.M Stewart, under which he wrote many detective stories, most of them featuring Scotland Yard Detective Inspector John Appleby.

I’m a great fan of Michael Innes detective stories. They have devilishly clever plots, are crazily eccentric and above all, are great fun. I have quite a collection of his books in Penguin Crime editions, most I must admit I purchased fairly recently second-hand though they are oldish editions with classy covers, dating from the 1960’s.

The two omnibuses below were purchased in the 1980’s.

Coming up – PD James and other classics of Penguin Crime

Crime – Penguin Crime

2011-05-27T21:01:00.003+10:00

For the next however many posts it takes me to write about old paperback crime, I trust you will find it amusing, edifying and of course, eye pleasing.
I’ll start with Penguin Crime, which was distinguished in the 1960s and early 1970s with classy covers. I don’t have than many of them, but do have a smallish Penguin Crime collection.

First The Beckoning Lady an Albert Campion detective mystery by Margery Allingham, published by Penguin in 1978.

John Franklin Bardin is best known for three novels The Deadly Percheron, The Last of Phillip Banter and Devil Take The Blue Fly, which were published in an omnibus by Penguin in 1979. They are noir psychological thrillers, very atmospheric and excruciatingly tense. The Deadly Percheron cracks a mention in the film Mona Lisa.

I don’t know much about about Sarah Caudwell or remember anything about this novel of hers in my crime bookshelf. (pub 1986)

Raymond Chandler needs no introduction. The Phillip Marlowe novels still hold up after all this time and remain the classic hard boiled detective fiction on which all others are styled. These Penguin editions were all issued between 1976 and 1978.

G K Chesterton author of the bizarre fantasy, The Man Who Was Thursday, also wrote a series of short stories featuring Father Brown. Penguin published The Complete Father Brown in 1981.

And finally for this entry a 1971 of Edmund Crispin’s The Moving Toyshop with a classic old green Penguin cover design .

To be continued with more Penguin Crime

General Fiction – Arthur Edward Waite, Mary Webb, Marianne Wiggins, Charles Williams, Wu Ch’eng-En & W B Yeats

2011-05-24T21:36:00.002+10:00

A mishmash of styles and genres seems to be the case for this post. which is also the last for the time being in the General Fiction category.

To start, a curious fiction by Tarot Card designer (Rider-Waite Pack) and occultist, Arthur Edward Waite called The Quest of the Golden Stairs published by Newcastle in 1974, though it was not part of their Forgotten Fantasy series.

Mary Webb’s Precious Bane is a classic rural countryside novel. It is an extraordinarily moody novel, as bleak and lonesome as the landscape in which it is set. Actually, I have always had a fondness for this book, in the same way I appreciate sad songs.

Marianne Wiggins is the ex wife of Salman Rushdie, but is also a fine writer in her own right. Probably her best known novel is John Dollar a female version of Lord of the Flies. I do have a copy of John Dollar somewhere, but the three below are others of her work in my possession, written in the 1980s and ‘90s.

To continue with my Charles Williams collection, here are three more published by Eerdmans 1974, 1979 & 1980, the latter two having surrealistic covers by Jim Lamb.

Monkey or Journey to the West by Wu Ch’eng En is a classic of Chinese Buddhist Literature. The definitive translation is by Arthur Waley. I remember being addicted to the TV series of it back in 1970s, which is no doubt why I have a copy of the book.

And finally Mythologies by Irish poet William Butler Yeats, studies of the supernatural based on Irish country folklore. This edition published by Collier Books in 1974.

Coming up next – Penguin Crime

General Fiction – Masako Togawa, Michel Tournier, Violet Trefusis, Rose Tremain & William Trevor

2011-05-23T21:33:00.001+10:00

Now where was I… off somewhere? No, not at all, but just distracted by other things. Anyway, I’ve got myself back into the mood to post more book covers after a long hiatus, for which I apologise.

We’re still on general fiction for the moment, but I have scanned many more covers in the interim, and plan to tackle Crime Fiction after I’ve got through the next few posts.

First up The Master Key by Masako Togawa, a creepy Japanese detective novel set in a single ladies apartment block.

French author Michel Tournier won 1970 Le Prix Goncourt for his novel The Erl King which was a best seller here in Australia at that time. A black, savage novel of a misfit forced to serve the Germans as a prisoner of the Third Reich.

Something of a curiosity is Echo by Violet Trefusis. Violet Trefusis is best known as the lover of Vita Sackville-West and was the daughter of Edward VII’s mistress, Alice Keppel. Echo is a romance based on her affair with Sackville-West. A classic of gay literature.

Possibly the finest of the writers in this post, is Rose Tremain, who has long been one of my favourite authors. I therefore have most of her books in my collection, mostly paperbacks, but at least three hard cover first editions. I recently picked up on a bargain table, a signed copy her novel The Road Home. What distinguishes her books for me is how each of them is totally different to the others and how pristine is her prose style along with her skill in creating endearing and vivid characters . My favourites among her novels are Restoration, Music & Silence and Sacred Country (which has gone missing, but I have managed to acquire a Kindle version).

And finally for this entry, The Love Department by William Trevor. It’s a King Penguin edition of this 1966 novel, so has a rather splendid cover.

Next – the final post, for now, on general fiction before I launch into Crime.

General Fiction – Arturo Perez Reverte, Jean Rhys, George Saunders, Carol Shields, Susan Sontag, Patrick Suskind, Graham Swift, Steve Szilagyi

2011-01-27T22:18:00.002+11:00

Arturo Perez Reverte, though not a household name, is quite well known as the author of The Dumas Club and many other books. I have several of his novels, including The Dumas Club below. The Dumas Club was made into the film by Roman Polanski. Called The Ninth Gate, it totally ignored the Dumas portion of the book, and concentrated instead on the quest for the mysterious magic book.

A writer of mostly depressing books, Jean Rhys is best known for the novel Wide Sargasso Sea, a sort of prequel to Jane Eyre, telling the story of Rochester’s mad wife.

George Saunders on the other hand writes weird, funny sad stories of dysfunctional persons, set in his own off beat universe. CivilWarLand In Bad Decline contains the stories "Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz" and “Downtrodden Mary's Failed Campaign of Terror", which sort of gives you an idea of his style. Pastoralia includes the superb short story The Falls available here on online.

Now you don’t hear much about Canadian writer Carol Shields these days, no doubt because she passed away in 2003. Her novel The Stone Diaries won the Pulitzer Prize and several other awards in 1993. I recently reread the three of her books I could find in my library and enjoyed them enormously. I thought i had a copy of her novel The Republic of Love, but have yet to unearth it. Happenstance is actually two novels, back to back, telling firstly the wife’s story, then the husband’s or the other way around if you so wish.

The Volcano Lover by Susan Sontag is the superbly written story of vulcanologist Sir William Hamilton and Emma Hamilton who became the mistress of Lord Horatio Nelson.

Patrick Suskind is famous for just one book – Perfume The Story of a Murderer, published in 1985.

English writer Graham Swift is fairly well known and won the Booker Prize in 1996 for his novel Last Orders. My favourite of his books is Waterland, which alas I can no longer find on my bookshelf. I have others…

And to end this post, the wonderful Photographing Fairies by Steve Szilagyi, loosely based on the Cottingley Fairies. It’s written with blithe insouciance, a style that belies the darker nature of the story.

I’m drawing to the end of this particular part of my book collection, but will go back to it later on, as there are still heaps of interesting fiction books to scan.

Coming up next will be “T” writers then “W” to “Y” after that.

General Fiction – Lawrence Norfolk, Robert Nye, Robert C. O’Brien, Charles Palliser, Mervyn Peake, Juan Perucho , Jayne Anne Phillips, Popol Vuh & Amanda Prantera

2011-01-26T22:20:00.002+11:00

Lemprière's Dictionary by Lawrence Norfolk is an unusual and complicated historical novel described in Wikipedia as “starting out as a detective story and mixing historical elements with steampunk-style fiction It imagines the writing of Lemprière's dictionary as tied to the founding of the British East India Company and the Siege of La Rochelle generations before”.

Robert Nye’s imaginative and clever The Memoirs of Lord Byron is quite a wonderful confection, written in a style that one imagines would be Byron’s had his memoirs not been destroyed on his death.

Robert C. O’Brien is the author of several award winning children’s books, his best known being Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

The Quincunx by Charles Palliser is a Dickensian mystery set in Victorian times. A best seller in its day, it is a complex sprawling monster of a book.

Look what I found lurking in the general fiction shelves – Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor by Mervyn Peake. This is a 1973 edition published by Academy Editions.

An unusual magic realist vampire novel - Natural History by Catalan author Juan Perucho.

Jayne Anne Phillips book of short stories Black Tickets, won her the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, awarded by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and has since become a classic. This King Pengiun edition has a rather classy cover by Russell Mills.

I seem to have this edition of Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Ancient Maya, no doubt acquired during my New Age phase in the 1970s.

And finally for this post, the novels of Amanda Prantera. The first of her books that I read was Strange Loop, an elegant and haunting gothic tale of a werewolf . The Cabalist, a spooky metaphysical thriller is her second novel and well worth the effort to seek out and read. All Prantera’s early books are interesting and unusual novels, (and I dare say her later ones too) but my favourite still is Conversations with Lord Byron on Perversion 163 years after His Lordship’s Death.

Next - “R” to “S” writers

General Fiction – Bernard McLaverty, J J McRoach, David Mitchell, G H Morris

2011-01-17T22:00:00.003+11:00

An odd bod selection this evening, starting with Bernard McLaverty’s well regarded novel Lamb published in 1980. This edition is a King Penguin with a rather splendid cover.

Something of an anomaly is the collection A Dozen Dopey Yarns by J J McRoach, who ran for parliament as a candidate for the Australian Marijuana party in the 1970s. Those were the days… I remember going to one of their rallies in the Bourke Street Mall in Melbourne CBD at the time. To say there wasn’t a strong herbal aroma emanating from the rally would be a fib.

Anyway, I knew J J McRoach personally as Peter Olszewski a journalist who was at one time editor of Australian Playboy and People magazines. He also authored A Dozen Dopey Yarns, subtitled Tales from the Pot Prohibition as well as several other books. I believe the book is pretty rare these days. My copy is the first edition published in 1979.

On a less heady note, the novels of David Mitchell…

Cloud Atlas was my first introduction to the writing of David Mitchell as no doubt it was to many other readers. I was entranced by the novel and awestruck by Mitchell’s clever sleight of hand prose. At my time of life it was thrilling to discover a writer of Mitchell’s calibre as such beguiling writers are all too infrequent. Needless to say, I sought out his earlier novels and have since followed David Mitchell’s career with deep interest.

So here’s the complete collection of five books. He’s only a young man so hopefully there will be plenty more to come.

And finally for this post the magnificent Brightside Trilogy by G H Morris. There is very little online information about this author or the books. This trilogy is like One Hundred Years of Solitude set in a Yorkshire mining village, telling the story of the Brightside family in particular, with a cast of eccentric secondary characters. The three novels that make up the whole are Doves and Silk Handkerchiefs, Grandmother, Grandmother, Come and See and The Brightside Dinosaur. Though hard to get, if you like magic realism with a mordant twist, find a copy and read it. The omnibus edition in my library was published by Penguin in 1992.

Coming up N”, "O"“ and “P” authors.

General Fiction – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Molly Keene, William Kennedy, Allen Kurzweil, Lautreamont, Stanislav Lem & Jonathan Letham

2011-01-16T22:34:00.002+11:00

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is a well known novelist and screenwriter. She won several Academy Awards for her screenplays – Room With A View & Howard’s End – and also was awarded the Booker Prize for her novel Heat & Dust.

I must admit I have read hardly any of her books and have only one on my bookshelves, A New Dominion published in 1972.

I don’t know much about Molly Keene, but the Independent article (name link) on her describes her “as one of the great chroniclers of Anglo-Irish life”. Her Good Behaviour, published in 1981 was nominated for the Booker.

When I first stumbled across William Kennedy’s wonderful novel Quinn’s Book, I fell in love with it, though for some reason or other never felt tempted to read any of his other books. Anyway, here’s Quinn’s Book in a 1989 US Penguin edition.

Allen Kurzweil’s A Case of Curiosities is an unusual fantastical tale set during the French Revolution. It’s got a great cover.

Quite famous I suppose, is Lautreamont’s surreal prose poem Maldoror, though I am not sure whether I’ve ever read it.

You hardly ever hear anything about Polish Science Fiction author Stanislav Lem these days, but he was a superb writer of speculative fiction. The King Penguin edition has three of his most famous novels – Solaris, Chain of Chance and A Perfect Vacuum. Solaris of course was made into a superb film by Andrei Tarkovsky. It is one of my all time favourite films which I could watch over and over again.

Finally for this post, my collection of Jonathan Lethem novels. He is one of the best and most interesting young writers around today. He has written books in several genres, science fiction, crime etc., but his take on those genres is startling and original. Motherless Brooklyn, for example, is a mystery novel, narrated by one Lionel Essrog who suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome. It’s a tour de force! His last three novels have tended to be about popular culture and are considerably more mainstream than his earlier work, though do contain fantastical elements.

Coming up - “M” authors including David Mitchell

General Fiction – Che Guevara, Rodney Hall, Anne Hebert, Hermann Hesse, Alan V Hewat, Russell Hoban, Spencer Holst, Glyn Hughes, J K Huysmans,

2011-01-10T15:51:00.001+11:00

A bit out of place in the fiction shelves Che Guevara’s Bolivian Diary was first published by Lorrimer Third World Press in 1968, and is indeed the edition pictured below. Che Guevara was and still remains an iconic figure in popular culture, the archetypal revolutionary hero. I did have a poster of him at the time as well, long lost.

Rodney Hall is a well known Australian author. His novel (the only one of his books I appear to own) Just Relations won the Miles Franklin Award in 1982.

I can’t say I know much about Anne Hebert or her novel In The Shadow of the Wind, but it won the Prix Femina in 1982.

I have a good collection of Hermann Hesse novels, mostly in Penguin and Picador editions. These two paperback editions with quite distinctive covers were published by Jonathan Cape in 1972/73. The cover art is credited to Alan Tunbridge

Lady’s Time by Alan V Hewat won the 1985 Hemingway Foundation PEN Award. It’s an unusual magic realist, crime cum ghost story set in New Orleans. I was very impressed with this book when I first read it in the 1980s.

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban surely needs no introduction. A wonderful dystopian tale set in a post nuclear world, written in a dialect that at first is hard to grasp, but once understood, leads to a confronting first hand account of life in the post holocaust world. The edition below is a fairly recent one, as I don’t think I acquired it when it was first published back in 1980. I won this one from Clare Dudman on her Keeper of the Snails blog, when she was giving away a copy for BAFAB week back in 2006.

Spencer Holst was an American writer of whimsical somewhat twisted short stories.

“The typical Holst story might be a gentle but twisted fable, such as the tale of a frog who, having become addicted to morphine during a laboratory experiment, was rejected by the woman whose kiss transformed him back into a prince because he was, after all, only a junkie.” from Wikipedia

I have two of his books, a UK first edition hard cover copy of The Language of Cats, published in 1971 by Jonathan Cape, and a large paperback copy of his collected stories The Zebra Storyteller (click link to read title story online).

The following two books by West Yorkshire writer Glyn Hughes, I would classify as rural fiction like that of Thomas Hardy and Mary Webb, both novels being very much informed by the landscape of the region in which they are set.

And lastly for this post the decadent La Bas by J K Huysmans. This edition published by Dover in 1972.

Coming up - “J”, “K” and “L” authors

General Fiction – Penelope Fitzgerald, Nina Fitzpatrick, Ronald Frame, Jane Gardam

2011-01-09T16:50:00.002+11:00

Penelope Fitzgerald is a Booker winning author who died in 2000. She was related to notable people. Her father Edmund Knox was editor of Punch magazine 1932-1949, her uncle was Bletchley Park cryptographer Dilly Knox and her other uncle was Ronald Knox, noted English theologian, priest and crime writer.

I must admit I knew none of the above facts until I looked it up just now. I have only one of Penelope Fitzgerald's novels, Innocence, an historical novel set in the 1950s.

Fables of the Irish Intelligentsia by Nina Fitzpatrick is one of those odd and unusual books that you occasionally stumble upon. It is also a very amusing book, being both witty and outrageous. It owes a lot to the writings of Flann O’Brien.

Ronald Frame is not an author you hear much about these days, but he was and probably still is quite prolific. He has been described on the name linked website as belonging “to that select group of male novelists who write almost exclusively from the female point of view; indeed he has been described as the poet of thé dansant, obsessed with the minutiae of women's lives”

I have a number of his novels, which I have read once. Curiously I have never felt tempted to reread them.

I have a pretty complete collection of Jane Gardam’s novels for adults, though she has written many for children as well. She is one of my favourite writers, an author whose books I purchase as soon as they are published; these days at least. Her books are universally excellent with her characteristic gentle and satiric prose and sharp character studies – she is a great writer.

The majority of her books in my collection are Abacus paperbacks…

I seem to be missing God on the Rocks, hopefully not forever and I do have a copy of The Summer After the Funeral in a penguin/puffin edition somewhere.

The following are hard cover first editions.

Next – Che Guevara and various “H” authors including Hesse.

General Fiction – H S Ede, John Eskow, Andrew Field, Timothy Findley & Ronald Firbank

2011-01-04T21:34:00.000+11:00

Surprise, another post, this one with a selection of a few interesting singles and the works of Timothy Findley and Ronald Firbank.

First up Savage Messiah, a biography of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska by H S Ede. It was made into a film by Ken Russell in 1972.

John Eskow’s novel Smokestack Lightning is one of those rare novels centred round rock n roll, a bit of an oddity. This edition published by Delacorte in 1980.

The Lost Chronicle of Edward De Vere by Andrew Field is another odd tome, a fictionalised account of the life of Edward De Vere the 17th Earl of Oxford, popularly considered to be one of the main candidates speculated to be the author of Shakespeare’s plays.

I have several novels by Canadian author Timothy Findley, three of which are displayed here. The Last of the Crazy People was his first novel, published in 1967 followed by The Butterfly Plague (1969).

I recently reread The Telling of Lies. It’s a rather unusual crime mystery set at a seaside resort for the rich and famous.

And finally for this post the weird and wonderful collected writings of Ronald Firbank, writer of whimsical and eccentric tales of decadence. He was pretty eccentric himself being once described as attending a dinner party and partaking of only a pea. The photo on the cover of Five Novels is a portrait of Countess Castiglione.

Next – a few more stray “F” authors and Jane Gardam

General Fiction – Aleister Crowley, Robertson Davies, Lisa St Aubin de Teran Del Piombo, Nigel Dennis and Francesca Duranti

2011-01-02T21:09:00.001+11:00

Apologies for the long silence and hiatus between posts, but expect more frequent updates from now on as I’ve retired from work and finally my time is my own.

So to welcome the new year, the peculiar and purportedly autobiographical Diary of A Drug Fiend by Aleister Crowley, this edition by Samuel Weiser Inc was published in 1970. One chapter is memorable for being entitled A Heroin Heroine.

Quite a different kettle of fish is Canadian author Robertson Davies, who is an old favourite of mine. I present for your bibliographic pleasure several of his works…

Omnibus editions of his first two great trilogies The Salterton Trilogy and The Deptford Trilogy in King Penguin editions

…and the second volume of The Cornish Trilogy, The Lyre of Orpheus in an advanced reading copy. I have the other two volumes in hard cover editions and have written about them previously.

Lisa St Aubin de Teran is described on Wikipedia as an autobiographical author and memoirist and is quite prolific. Her first novel Keepers of the House won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1982. She has obviously led an interesting life. I used to collect her books regularly, obviously being impressed with Keepers of the House, though have over the past two decades failed to keep up.

Here are the three novels I’ve so far located on my bookshelf.

Back to a druggy theme, Fuzz Against Junk & The Hero Maker by Akbar Del Piombo is a sort of novelty book, termed a collage novel, an early form of the graphic novel.

Nigel Dennis’ Cards of Identity is a “scathing satire of psychology, identity theory and class prejudice..” and from what I can recall was quite an enjoyable novel when I read it way back when.

And finally for this entry two books by Italian writer Francesca Duranti. The House on Moon Lake is a kind of literary ghost story and Happy Ending is a pastoral piece.

Next - “E” & “F” authors including Timothy Findlay and Ronald Firbank

General Fiction – John Crowley

2010-10-06T21:28:00.003+11:00

This is a timely entry, as today I received an update on the status of the Little, Big 25th Anniversary edition, a book I have been keenly anticipating for over five years.

It seems, according to the latest newsletter, that publication of this splendid edition is not far off, and I will soon have in my hands probably one of the most beautiful books ever published - as attested by Greer Gilman on her live journal.

Speaking of Little, Big I can attest that I have a dinky di, true blue, genuine first edition of the novel, first published in 1981 in a Bantam Trade Paperback edition. It’s rather the worse for wear – it has been in my possession for almost 30 years, and read many times, not to mention loaned out on several occasions – but it hasn’t fallen apart. As much as I am longing to reread it, I’ve sworn to myself that I will do so when the 25th Anniversary edition arrives.

Little, Big is of course John Crowley’s best known work, but equally worthy is his marvellous Aegypt Quartet which I acquired piecemeal over the twenty years it was written.

Firstly Aegypt, published in a Gollancz paperback in1988, and Love & Sleep, in a Bantam trade paperback in 1995.

A long wait resulted in my purchasing hard cover first editions of Daemonomania, published by Bantam in August 2000 and the final book, Endless Things published in 2007 by Small Beer Press.

In between the publication of Daemonomania and Endless Things I acquired first editions of The Translator (2002) and Lord Byron’s Novel – The Evening Land (2005) both published by William Morrow and both fine novels in their own right.

John Crowley’s latest novel is his wonderful re-creation of the lives of those who worked in a world war II aircraft factory, Four Freedoms, published in 2009 by William Morrow.

And finally to complete my John Crowley collection, Novelties & Souvenirs, Collected Short Fiction, published in 2004 by Harper Perennial

Next – the other Crowley and Robertson Davies

General Fiction – Carey, Carson, Carter, Chute & Colette

2010-09-27T16:04:00.003+10:00

Though my head is still somewhere in William Gibson land after finishing his latest fiction Zero History this morning, I will endeavour to distract my mind and resume with more offerings on this blog in the general fiction category.

Firstly, Edward Carey’s wonderful and strange Observatory Mansions.

Closely followed by that other more famous Carey, Peter Carey’s 1988 Booker winning novel Oscar & Lucinda.

Twisted Kicks by Tom Carson is one of the first and best rock n roll novels. There have not been many written at all. Published in 1981 my paperback copy of the novel is an Arena edition published in 1984.

Now on to more of my Angela Carter collection, mostly Virago paperbacks.

Carolyn Chute is an American novelist and political activist. Her best known novel is The Beans of Egypt Maine. This King Penguin Edition has a wonderful cover in a primitive/naive style,

And finally, The Tender Shoot a collection of stories by French novelist Colette translated by Antonia White. I was a great fan of Colette in my youth and have many of her books in old Penguin editions which I’ll get round to displaying later. This edition was published by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux in the 1970s.

Next – John Crowley

General Fiction – Berendt, Bloom, Bonfiglioli, Bradshaw, Burgess & Byatt

2010-09-15T21:40:00.002+10:00

Taking up from where I left off last time, some more general fiction or non fiction in some cases.

Case in point, John Berendt’s classic take on Savannah Georgia, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. It has been a long time since I last read this book, but I do recall being quite taken with it at the time. This edition was published by Vintage circa 1994.

Harold Bloom, eminent American man of letters wrote only one novel, which purportedly he has disowned, according to the Wikipedia entry on The Flight to Lucifer, the novel in question. It is a sequel to the David Lindsay novel Voyage To Arcturus.

An oddity – the Mortdecai trilogy by Kyril Bonfiglioli.

I’ve mentioned Gillian Bradshaw previously in relation with her well regarded Arthurian trilogy that featured Sir Gawain. She has written many other novels - historical fiction primarily and The Bear Keeper’s Daughter is one. It is set in Byzantine Constantinople and features the Empress Theodora, wife of Justinian 1.

Anthony Burgess’ novel Earthly Powers opens with surely one of the most provocative opening sentences of any book.

”It was the afternoon of my eighty- first birthday, and I was in bed bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.”

Burgess most famous novel is of course Clockwork Orange of which I do believe I have a copy of somewhere, also a collection of his Enderby novels.

This edition of Earthy Powers was published by Penguin in 1980.

To end this post, some of my collection of A S Byatt in paperback editions. It was in fact The Virgin in the Garden, the first of her Frederica novels, that introduced me to her writing.

The first three Frederica novels in Penguin editions…

Collections of Short Stories in Vintage editions…

Coming up: Peter Carey, Edward Carey, Angela Carter among others.

General Fiction – Allende, Ariosto, Banville, Barnes & Bedford

2010-09-08T21:27:00.001+10:00

To resume…

Back to general fiction and to begin - two volumes by Isobel Allende. You may have noticed that I haven’t posted her most famous novel The House of the Spirits. That is because my original paperback copy of the book went missing and to replace it I bought (second hand) a movie edition – pretty boring, so I’m not showing it here.

The below editions are Eva Luna in an uncorrected proof edition and The Stories of Eva Luna in a Penguin edition.

Next a book, that crazily was popular in the 1970s as a result of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series. I do believe that there was a Ballantine edition of Orlando Furioso
by Ludovico Ariosto, but this edition was published by Oxford University Press in1974.

John Banville won the Booker Prize for his novel The Sea in 2005, but the two below novels are much earlier. Kepler is part of his Revolutions series and is an imaginative biography of Johannes Kepler the German mathematician and astronomer. Birchwood is an odd sort of book, a tale of decadence and decay set in a dilapidated Irish Manor.

Julian Barnes wonderful novel Arthur and George was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2005. It is described on his website as “A novel about low crime and high spirituality; guilt and innocence; identity, nationality and race; and thwarted passion.” and contains an illuminating character study of Arthur Conan Doyle, who is indeed the Arthur of the title.

And finally for tonight, my small collection of Sybille Bedford novels.

Next – more general fiction.

Fiction – Fantasy Interlude Part 2

2010-07-27T21:45:00.001+10:00

When I wrote that the David Lindsay Violet Apple was a rarity, I didn’t realise that my edition which I paid $6.20 for in 1976, is now worth something like $150.00. Something to remember when I’m down and out.

Anyway, that’s beside the point…

To continue and conclude, for now, the stray Fantasy books, among which there are Science Fiction titles, I present first up Sylvia Engdahl’s Enchantress From The Stars and its sequel The Far Side of Evil, highly regarded young adult fantasy/SF novels, published in the early 1970s.

Also in the juvenile fantasy category is Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Trilogy. I have the three books in hard cover editions, published by Gollancz and acquired by me in 1974. Only The Farthest Shore is a first edition, the other two are second impressions, but as a set they look very handsome.

A couple of oddities to follow this well known series are John Fuller’s Flying To Nowhere, which won the Whitbread Best First Novel Award in 1983, and A Dark Horn Blowing by Dahlov Ipcar.

Sheri S Tepper’s Beauty won the Locus Award in1992.

In the above Sheri S Tepper link, which is an interview with the author, she mentions that one of her favourite books was Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright. Naturally I have a copy…though it is years since I last opened its covers.

The next two novels are once again oddities, and deal interestingly with gender. Childe Rolande, is a most unusual fantasy by Samantha Lee wherein the hero/heroine is a hermaphrodite, and Donald Kingsbury’s Courtship Rite set on a planet where polyandry is a way of life.

And finally for this post another Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy, The Fates of the Princes of Dyfed by Kenneth Morris, a Welsh fantasy based on the Mabinogion.

I’ll get back to general fiction in the next entry.

Fiction – A Fantasy Interlude

2010-07-25T21:03:00.003+10:00

Long time, no post, but I have been thinking about it, but failing to summon up the energy to do anything about it.

To make up, here are some stray Fantasy & Science Fiction books, which were hiding in the general books collection.

For a start, this Dover edition of Jurgen by James Branch Cabell with fantastical illustrations and decorations by Frank C Papé.

Joy Chant was the author of the highly regarded young adult fantasy Red Moon and Black Mountain which was included in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series. The Grey Mane of Morning is a sequel to the aforementioned book.

Another author who was featured in the Ballantine series was Lord Dunsany. He also made it to the spin off fantasy series, The Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library of which series I have a few, including The Food of Death.

A couple more in the Newcastle series… The Haunted Woman by David Lindsay of Voyage to Arcturus fame, Aladore by Henry Newbolt, The Glittering Plain and Golden Wings by William Morris.

And to finish this post a rare David Lindsay, The Violet Apple & The Witch, published by Chicago Review Press in 1976.

A few more Fantasy novels will follow shortly.

Faber Books – Part 3 – Garrison Keillor, Mario Vargas Llosa, Sylvia Plath, Wilma Stockenstrom, Charles Williams

2010-06-08T21:41:00.001+10:00

The last of the Faber books. From here I will move on to general fiction in a variety of editions.

First though, Garrison Keillor of whom I have two books, Lake Woebegone Days and Radio Romance. Keillor is of course well known as a humorist and broadcaster of Prairie Home Companion. He also released the charming and funny Songs of the Cat, a must buy for cat lovers.

Below are the books, cover illustrations by Pierre Le Tan

Mario Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian writer. I think when I acquired his War of the End of the World I was very taken with South American literature. These days I can’t even recall whether I actually finished the novel. Anyway, here’s the cover.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath was also published by Faber and was something of a bestseller back in the 1970s. Must read it again sometime.

I can’t say I know anything about Wilma Stockenstrom or her book The Expedition to the Baobab Tree, which I find in my collection, but apparently she is an Afrikaans poet and novelist. Ah the wonders of the Internet…

And finally, Charles Williams, who was one of the Inklings along with J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis. His novels are quite distinct from theirs being of a contemporary nature and are classified as supernatural thrillers. They are somewhat weird and most unusual, often featuring demonic possession being overcome by angelic intervention.

Here are three Faber editions of his books. I have others in diverse editions elsewhere.

Next – a diverse range of large size fiction paperbacks (with a few hard covers)

Faber Books – Part 2 – Lawrence Durrell, Ellen Gilchrist, William Golding, Nikolas Kazantzakis

2010-06-01T21:32:00.001+10:00

To continue with Faber books, and Lawrence Durrell first of all…

I cannot claim to have read either Bitter Lemons or Tunc, or maybe I have, in the dim distant past, but here are the old Faber editions of the books in question, editions published respectively in mcmlix (1960) and 1969.

Two books from Durrell’s humorous stories of the diplomatic service, Stiff Upper Lip & Esprit de Corps, very funny books indeed!

Next Ellen Gilchrist, a wonderful American novelist and short story writer from the southern state of Mississippi. Her collection In The Land of Dreamy Dreams, which I have in a first edition hardcover, was my introduction to her fiction. It introduces the character of Rhoda Manning who featured in many of her short stories. But as I am showing only paperback Faber publications, I’ll get to that book later.

The Annunciation (1983) was her first published novel and Net of Jewells was published in 1992.

Victory Over Japan is another collection of short stories, won the National Book Award in 1984, and is quite marvellous from what I can recall.

William Golding is famous for his novel Lord of the Flies, which I have in a Penguin Modern Classic. The Scorpion God is a lesser known work, that no doubt I read way back in the past, and is set in Ancient Egypt.

Finally for this entry, two novels by Nikos Kazantzakis, well known for his novel Zorba The Greek that was made into an immensely popular film in the early 1960s and thus thrust him into the spotlight. I have only two of his novels, Zorba The Greek, of course, and Christ Crucified.

The last of the Faber books will be posted shortly and include works by Garrison Keillor and Charles Williams.

Faber Books – Part 1 – Paul Auster

2010-05-15T14:03:00.003+10:00

Faber & Faber are an interesting imprint, and they were adventurous in the authors they chose to publish. Always, you could rely on a Faber & Faber book to be out of the ordinary.

I suppose I discovered the writings of Paul Auster when a friend, who happened to be the Faber rep for Australia gave me the proof copy of The New York Trilogy in 1987 and I was subsequently blown away by it.

I sporadically collected his novels thereafter, and though they failed to thrill me after a time, I did enjoy In the Country of Last Things and Moon Palace.

An author you don’t hear much about these days is Djuna Barnes. Her most famous novel, Nightwood, was a must have novel if you in any way embraced the counter culture of the 1960/1970s. The cover is typical of Faber books of the 1960s...

…as is the case of the paperback editions of Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet , a series that was immensely popular in the 1960s. I reread them about five years ago, and found them to be surprisingly well worth the effort.

Durrell’s other great sequence of novels was the Avignon Quintet which also has references to the Alexandrian series.

Monsieur, Livia & Constance are all paperback editions, but Sebastian and Quinx are first edition hard covers. The delicate cover art is by David Gentleman.

That’s it for tonight, but I will continue with more Lawrence Durrell next time.

Picador Books – Part 12 – Authors “T” to “Z”

2010-05-10T21:08:00.003+10:00

The final post on Picadors will cover various authors of diverse nationalities, the first being Japanese author Junichiro Tanizaki whose novel The Makioka Sisters was published in Picador in 1983.

Next two novels are by British writer Emma Tennant - The Bad Sister and Wild Nights.

D M Thomas’ The Flute Player is next. The author describes this novel as emerging out of a fascination with Russian poets and particularly Anna Akhmatova. The Picador edition has a rather splendid cover.

Silver Light by David Thomson “is perhaps the first Western novel inspired by Western movies. Or perhaps obsessed is a more accurate word. The old West of Silver Light is populated by ''real'' characters (Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Billy the Kid) and ''reel'' characters (Montgomery Clift's Matthew Garth from Red River, John Wayne's Ethan Edwards from The Searchers).” ~ Entertainment Weekly

I have been reading this book over the past few weekends, and though it is not great literature with a capital L, it’s an unusual kind of novel, and it did keep me interested from start to finish.

The cover photo is marvellously apt.

From the Wild West to Africa in the form of anthropological studies of the the Mbuti pygmies of the Belgian Congo (Forest People) and the Ik from the mountains of north eastern Uganda near the border with Kenya (Mountain People) by Colin Turnbull the famous British anthropologist.

Norwegian author Sigrid Undset won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928. Her best known novel is Kristin Lavransdatter a trilogy tracing the life of the eponymous heroine in 14th Century Norway. The Picador edition is an omnibus of the entire trilogy. It is a large tome, but a very enjoyable and engaging saga. I’ve read it several times, though not for many years.

The next book sounds extremely politically incorrect…

It is Memoirs of An Anti Semite by Gregor Von Rezzori and is in fact a satire on post war Europe. Elie Wiesel is quoted as saying about this book, and Von Rezzori: “Rezzori addresses the major problems of our time, and his voice echoes with the disturbing and wonderful magic of a true storyteller."

Next Fay Weldon’s early novel Female Friends, which indeed was my first introduction to her novels, and Deirdre Wilson’s Slave of the Passions, an interesting coming of age novel.

Followed by French feminist Monique Wittig’s surreal Lesbian fantasy The Guerilleres with a stunning cover by John Holmes. It was one of the first books issued in Picador in 1972.

And the final Picador is Mars, by Fritz Zorn.

It has been quite interesting displaying these old books, and it has encouraged me to reread a few of them whilst I’ve been putting up these posts.

Next - Faber books

Picador Books - Part 11 – Damon Runyon, Salman Rushie, Jose Saramago, Jonathan Schell, Idries Shah, Josef Skvorecky, Lee Smith

2010-04-30T22:05:00.004+10:00

This is the second last post on Picadors, as I should be able to knock off the final thirteen books in my next entry.

A good couple of books to start this post are two Damon Runyon collections. As I wrote previously, Runyon was “best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the Brooklyn or Midtown demi-monde.”
His style is very individual and he is very quotable, for instance this one:
“I came to the conclusion long ago that all life is six to five against.”

Salman Rushdie won the Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children in 1981. If I recall, I never could get into it all that much and failed to finish the book. Perhaps I should give it another chance.

Baltasar and Blimunda by Portuguese novelist Jose Saramago is a magic realist historical novel set in the 18th Century. It is many years since I have it, but I recall being charmed by the story at the time it was purchased.

And now for something completely different, not fiction at all, but Jonathan Schell’s The Fate of the Earth – a chilling description of the consequences of nuclear war. The cover is understandably stark and bleak.

On a lighter note The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin and The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin, by Persian writer Idries Shah, are humorous collections of folklore, featuring Nasrudin, “a fictional legendary satirical Sufi figure who is believed by some to have existed during the Middle Ages (around 13th century), in Akşehir, and later in Konya, under the Seljuq rule. Nasreddin was a populist philosopher and wise man, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes.” - from Wikipedia.

From Persia we proceed to Czechoslovakia and Josef Skvorecky’s great novel, Miss Silver’s Past. I recently reread this novel and enjoyed it tremendously. It is a satire on the publishing industry in Soviet controlled Czechoslovakia, a murder mystery and a tale of obsession. The Picador edition has a very evocative cover and a foreword by Graham Greene.

Finally, for this entry, a multi-generational mystery by American writer Lee Smith, Family Linen.

The final Picador post will feature various ‘T’ to ‘Z’ authors including Emma Tennant, D M Thomas, Sigrid Undset and Monique Wittig.

Picador Books – Part 10 – Flann O’Brien, Marcel Pagnol, John Cowper Powys & David Profumo

2010-04-28T22:19:00.002+10:00

Myles na gCopaleen aka Flann O’Brien aka Brian O’Nolan needs no introduction, being the well known writer of satiric novels The Third Policeman and At Swim Two Birds. I have a pretty good collection of his books, becoming highly enamoured of The Third Policeman back in the 1960s, but they are all in diverse editions. Picador published his The Poor Mouth and The Best of Myles in the 1970s along with the aforementioned books. The cover art is by Ralph Steadman.

Marcel Pagnol was a French novelist whose books, collectively called The Water of the Hills, became popular in the English speaking parts of the world in the 1980s after they were adapted to film. Below are the Picador edition of the books Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources in one volume.

The Picador edition of A Glastonbury Romance was my first introduction to the novels of John Cowper Powys. Even though it is over thirty years since I have read it, images from the book still resonate in my head – a jug stuffed with bluebells, a drowned girl, an iron bar…. It’s a hefty tome, too big to carry around commuting, but I look forward to rereading it when I retire from work.

I can’t say I remember much about the rest of his books I have in Picador editions, but here they are anyway, and they are all large books.

David Profumo is the son of the infamous former British government minister John Profumo of The Profumo Affair. David Profumo wrote a book about that scandal titled Bringing The House Down, but he did write two novels, one of which is The Weather In Iceland that I recall rather enjoying when I first read it.

More Picadors to follow – Damon Runyon, Salmon Rushdie and others.

Picador Books – Part 9 – Matson, McCabe, McEwan, Melville, Mitchell & Morrison

2010-04-26T22:04:00.002+10:00

Before April ends, here’s the continuation of my collection of Picador books.

The first of them tonight is Katinka Matson’s Short lives: Portraits in creativity and self-destruction

The protagonist of Patrick McCabe’s The Butcher Boy is as violent as the title suggests. A chilling, brilliant novel.

Ian McEwan is a well known and highly regarded British writer. Picador published his early novels back in the 1970s.

Described as an anthology with attitude The New Gothic contains stories by Angela Carter, Martin Amis, Anne Rice among others.

Another unusual collection is Pauline Melville’s, Shape Shifter – short stories dealing with post-colonial life in the Caribbean.

Angela Carter once wrote of Adrian Mitchell that he was "a joyous, acrid and demotic tumbling lyricist Pied Piper, determinedly singing us away from catastrophe'’. A poet, novelist and activist he lived an interesting life and died in 2008.

Wartime was published by Picador in 1975 and the fantastic cover shows a detail from the right panel of the Triptych ‘Le Chariot de Fain’ by Jacques Bissot.

And finally for this entry, Toni Morrison’s, Beloved which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987.

More Picadors to follow – Flann O’Brien, John Cowper Powys etc.

Picador Books – Part 8 – Lamming, Lessing, Loos, Lustig, Mackey, Malouf & Marquez

2010-04-23T21:59:00.001+10:00

Tonight it’s the L’s and some of the M’s, and to start it all is Caribbean born, George Lamming’s impressive Natives Of My Person, a rare book these days I guess. It is described as a compelling novel of slavery and colonisation and I recall when I first read it, I was very taken with it.

Now you don’t hear much about Doris Lessing these days, but she was a prolific writer and published books in various genres including Science Fiction.

Memoirs of a Survivor is a dystopian novel, which I must admit I can’t remember a thing about, but having rediscovered it in my bookcase will endeavour to reread soon.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and its sequel But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes by the charming and very talented Anita Loos are also not seen much in the wild these days. Picador published two versions, firstly a sole volume of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, then a back to back edition of the two novels. They are a witty satirical look at the Flapper era of the 1920s and still well worth reading.

Doubled Up or My Life As The Back End of a Pantomime Horse by T J Lustig is a bizarre novel set in a circus.

Also bizarre is Mary Mackey’s, McCarthy’s List, not set in a circus, but in a Mexican gaol, where the heroine is languishing awaiting execution for a murder she didn’t commit, though she is responsible for many others.

On another note altogether is Australian author David Malouf’s The Great World.

And finally for this post, several Gabriel Garcia Marquez novels in Picador editions.

The rest of the ‘M‘ authors to follow shortly.

Picador Books – Part 7 – Anna Kavan, Ken Kesey, Maxine Hong Kingston, J K Klavans & Richard Klein

2010-04-15T21:43:00.002+10:00

Anna Kavan’s novels were rediscovered in the 1970s and Picador published at least two of them, Ice and Sleep Has His House.

Reading her biography on Wikipedia and the website dedicated to her, she sounds like she was a very strange lady.

The Picador editions below have wonderful cover art by Paul Delvaux. I also have copy of her novel Julia and the Bazooka in a 1974 Panther paperback edition.

Ken Kesey was well known as one of the Merry Pranksters, the antics of whom are described in Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Anyway Kesey very much appealed to the counter culture of the 1960s and 70s. Below is the Picador edition of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

The Woman Warrior and China Men are memoirs by Maxine Hong Kingston of growing up in a Chinese American family. It is many years since I’ve read these books, but I recall being enthralled by them at the time. Note to self – read them again soon.

I don’t know much about J K Klavans but I do have her novel God He Was Good in a Picador edition. I remember looking for this book everywhere and finally stumbling across it in a second hand bookshop. Quite frankly, I don’t think it was worth the effort. Anyway, the cover is interesting.

And lastly, for this entry anyway, Cigarettes Are Sublime by Richard Klein, a defence, and cultural history of cigarette smoking. The Picador edition has a very classy cover.

More Picadors to follow…

Picador Books – Part 6 – Hamsun, Handley, Hedayet, Heller, Herr, Hesse, Hoban & Hrabel

2010-04-14T21:38:00.002+10:00

As you see from the title of this blog, I’ll be covering Picadors by authors whose names start with “H”.

First up, Knut Hamsun, a Norwegian author who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1920 for his epic novel Growth of the Soil.

I don’t have that book, but I do have Victoria in a Picador edition.

Max Handley is the little known author of Meanwhile and two other novels. Meanwhile is a dystopian novel wherein men and women have been separated from each other for generations and basically forgotten that the other sex exists. Men regenerate through cloning and live in an under water bubble whilst the women reproduce by pathenogenesis and occupy the land. Meanwhile follows the events of them meeting up again, after one of the men, fascinated by the species of being he discovers in girly magazines, crawls to the surface. It’s a crazy novel, very funny as well. Max Handley died in 1993 and is virtually forgotten these days.

The Blind Owl is the best known novel of Sādeq Hedāyat, an Iranian writer of poetry and novels. This is another unusual novel published by Picador. Can you imagine anyone publishing this type of book these days?

Some better known writers – Joseph Heller with Picture This, and Michael Herr’s memoir of the Vietnam War, Dispatches which was influential in the making of the films Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket.

I discovered Herman Hesse in my late teens, early twenties and deeply identified with the novel Steppenwolf which identification I regard as somewhat self indulgent these days. But heck, I was younger then. I still do have my original Penguin paperback edition of that novel,which I’ll get to later. Meanwhile, here’s one of his less famous novels, Rosshalde, in a Picador edition.

Russell Hoban was one of my favourite writers way back when, though I must admit I’ve failed to keep up with his work. I still love his book The Mouse and his Child, which he signed for me when I met him in 1984.

Here is his first novel The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz and Pilgerman, both published in Picador.

And finally I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal, a Czech writer best known for writing Closely Watched Trains.

Next – more Picadors – Anna Kavan and other writers whose names begin with “K”.

Picador Books - Part 5 – From Dali to Gurdjieff

2010-04-04T21:10:00.001+10:00

To resume, I bring you this evening a mix of books by various authors who were published in Picador during the 70s, 80s and 90s.

First, the sole book by the multi talented Salvador Dali, Hidden Faces which naturally has one of his paintings on the cover.

The next book is a complete contrast – The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan, an early feminist.

Back to the modern age with two books by American authors E L Doctorow and Louise Erdrich.

British author Helen Fielding is famous for her book Bridget Jones Diary which became a bestseller and was also made into a movie.

Moonlite is novel by Australian writer David Foster

Virginia Gay is a little known British author whose book Penelope and Adelina was published by Picador in the mid 1990s, and Henry Green is another British writer whose novel Loving was featured by Time in its list of the 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. I don’t have Loving, but I do have the a collection containing his novels, Nothing, Doting and Blindness.

Turkish born writer, Guneli Gun’s wonderful novel On the Road to Baghdad, is one of my favourite novels. It’s a delightful rendering of the The Thousand and One Nights, from a female perspective, following the adventures of the highly engaging heroine.

And finally for this entry, Meetings With Remarkable Men by G I Gurdjieff, Greek Armenian mystic and spiritual teacher. the book was very popular with the counter culturists of the 1970s and film was made of it in 1979, from which the cover is drawn.

More Picadors to follow…

Picador Books Part 4 – Peter Carey, Angela Carter, Bruce Chatwin & Lindsay Clarke

2010-03-07T15:30:00.002+11:00

Australian author Peter Carey began his illustrious career as a short story writer, his first published collection being The Fat Man in History. I do not have a copy of this book, but I do have in Picador editions his collection Exotic Pleasures, and his first novel Bliss.

Angela Carter’s novel Heroes and Villains, was one of the first Picador books issued in 1972 and also represents for me the discovery of her work. I subsequently went on to collect a lot of her later books in hardcover first editions. The Picador cover shows The Temptation of St Anthony a portion of the Isenheim Altarpiece by Grunewald

Bruce Chatwin, noted novelist and travel writer gained popularity from the publication his first book, In Patagonia, a travel book that seized the imagination of the reading public with its then unusual approach to travel writing. I did have a Picador edition of this book, but it has gone missing in action. I do however still have his wonderful novel On The Black Hill which remains one of my all time favourite novels, and two shorter novels Utz and The Viceroy of Ouida.

An odd writer, Lindsay Clarke ,wrote a couple of unusual metaphysical romance novels, The Chymical Wedding and Alice’s Masque. I have read them, and though not blown away by the story, remember them being an enjoyable reading experience.

Next – Dali to Gurdjieff

Picador Books – Part 3 – Jan Harold Brunvand, Robert Byron & Italo Calvino

2010-02-25T21:31:00.003+11:00

Continuing in alphabetical sequence, the first book on display is Jan Harold Brunvand’s fascinating study of Urban Legends, The Vanishing Hitchiker and Robert Byron’s quite wonderful travelogue of his journey through Afghanistan and Persia in the 1930s, The Road To Oxiana. The Picador edition of this book contains a foreword by Bruce Chatwin.

Now on to more Calvino…

Next – Peter Carey, Angela Carter, Bruce Chatwin and Lindsay Clarke

Picador Books – Part 2 – Richard Brautigan

2010-02-21T15:48:00.003+11:00

Richard Brautigan enjoyed great popularity among the counter culturists of the 1960s and 70s as the result of the success of his book Trout Fishing In America, which was a best seller. These days his name is not well known, though he deserves to be more widely recognised. His books have a quirky charm and are highly original. I remember taking along one or other of his books when I had to go for an interview at the Dole Office at a time when I was unemployed. It was generally a long wait, and Brautigan’s books were just the perfect type of book to kill the time.

Picador published most of his books in the 1970s with the classic covers featuring himself with a girl.

More Picadors coming soon…

Picador Books – Part 1

2010-02-20T21:35:00.002+11:00

In 1972 I was working in a bookshop in Melbourne when the first books in Picador were issued. Included among those first published was Heroes & Villains by Angela Carter, which was indeed my first introduction to her books. Picador was an imprint of Pan Books, now Pan Macmillan and its aim was to publish outstanding International fiction in paperback. They had wonderful cover art, which makes them ideal Eye Candy for Bibliophiles.

For many years I collected Picadors as they were released, so I have a fair collection of the early issued books.

For the purpose of this blog, I’ll present them as always in alphabetical, rather than chronological order.

So to start off Renata Adler’s Speedboat, and Fantomas by Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre

Then there’s Gazelle Boy by Jean-Claude Armen

And Julian Barnes wonderful A History of the World in 10½ Chapters and Flaubert’s Parrot.

Murphy by Samuel Beckett

Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood - a short but great novel

Jorge Luis Borges - A Personal Anthology with cover art by Hundertwasser

Next entry will cover Richard Brautigan.

General Fiction – Janwillem van de Wetering, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut & Edith Wharton

2010-02-19T21:32:00.002+11:00

This will be the last mass market paperback post for the moment, though I will be returning to this sort of book later on.

The two Janwillem van de Wetering books below are not actually fiction, but rather his description of his experiences in Zen Buddhist monasteries in Japan and America, They are quite entertaining to read. He is best known for his series of detective novels set in Amsterdam featuring engaging detectives, Grijpstra and De Geir, which I will get to later on and have already mentioned in an earlier post.

Next, the sole book by Gore Vidal in my collection – Myra Breckinridge with a really cool cover published by Panther in 1969.

So, onto my paperback collection of Kurt Vonnegut, published in the early to late 1970s – a mix of British and American editions.

And finally a rather pretty set of Edith Wharton novels published by Berkley in 1981.

Coming soon – Picador books

General Fiction (sort of) – Robert Sabbag, Anthony Scaduto, South American Novelists, Dylan Thomas & John Kennedy Toole

2010-02-18T21:59:00.002+11:00

Now, where was I up to?

Yes, books by authors whose name begins with S and T.

The first of these is Snow Blind by Robert Sabbag, a drug culture novel.

And Rock ‘n Roll is represented by Tony Scaduto’s biography of Mick Jagger

Mass market paperbacks of South American writers – Miguel Angel Asturias, Strong Wind, Conversations With Jorge Luis Borges by Richard Burgin and In Evil Hour by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Here are two rather old paperbacks - a novel and stories by Dylan Thomas, The Beach At Falesa (Panther1966) and Rebecca’s Daughter & Me and My Bike (Sphere1968)

And finally, the first paperback edition (Grove Press 1981) of the famous, posthumously published novel of John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces.

Next – Van de wetering, Vonnegut, Vidal and Wharton.

General Fiction – Tom Robbins, Damon Runyon, Salman Rushie & Russian Novelists

2010-02-10T21:51:00.003+11:00

Tom Robbins was certainly an author for the ‘60s & ‘70s with his wild, weird and wonderfully politically incorrect novels. I have most of them in my library. It was Another Roadside Attraction that first introduced me to his writings and I generally acquired his books religiously for many years, though have tapered off over the past decade or so.

Damon Runyon to quote Wikipedia “…was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the Brooklyn or Midtown demi-monde. The adjective "Runyonesque" refers to this type of character as well as to the type of situations and dialog that Runyon depicted.”

His style is whimsical and colloquial and makes for a very enjoyable reading experience. I have two Runyon collections in Picador editions, and also this one, published in 1966.

Before Salman Rushdie became famous with Midnight’s Children winning the Booker Prize in 1981, his first published book, Grimus, was generally disregarded. I have read it, but can’t remember a thing about it. Anyway, here’s the cover of the mass market paperback published in 1977 by Panther.

And finally for this post – two Russian novelists, Mikhail Bulgakov, the author of the fabulous The Master and Margarita (Fontana 1969), and classic writer Nikolai Gogol’s The Diary of a Madman (Signet 1960)

Next – Novelists whose names start with “S” and “T” and South American authors.

General Fiction – Vladimir Nabokov, Dorothy Parker, Robert Pirsig, John Cowper Powys & Thomas Pynchon

2010-02-09T22:00:00.002+11:00

I think the first book of Nabokov’s I ever read was Invitation to a Beheading which I have in an old Penguin edition somewhere, so it will displayed later. What I do have here and now are three of his masterworks, Lolita (Corgi 1969), Despair (Panther 1969) and Pale Fire (Corgi 1966) in old UK paperbacks.

Dorothy Parker was a member of the Algonquin Round Table and was noted for her wit. The Portable Dorothy Parker (Viking 1975 edition) is a complete collection of her stories, poems, reviews and articles.

Robert Pirsig is mainly known for one book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which was a runaway bestseller in the early 1970s.

Now, John Cowper Powys is an author who interested me greatly in the 1970s. I seemed to have collected quite a few of his books, after reading and being mightily impressed with A Glastonbury Romance. I have a copy of that book in a Picador edition, but as I am planning a separate feature on Picador I’ll be showing the cover of it at a later date.

In the meantime here are three odd editions of his novels, Weymouth Sands (Rivers Press 1973), Porius (Village Press 1974) and The Inmates (Village Press 1974).

Finally, for this post, Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon , the sole novel by this author in my collection. I must admit, Gravity’s Rainbow is one of the few books I could never finish. It put me off Pynchon for life. Below is the 1974 Bantam paperback edition (still in perfect condition!).

Next – Robbins, Runyon, Rushdie and Russian novels

General Fiction – Per Lagerkvist, Guiseppe Di Lampedusa, Wyndham Lewis, David Malouf, Spike Milligan, Yukio Mishima

2010-02-07T21:18:00.003+11:00

Per Lagerkvist was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1951. Barabbas is his most famous novel and tells the tale of the thief who was freed from crucifixion instead of Jesus.

The Leopard by Guiseppe di Lampedusa is a masterpiece, and a book I pick up and reread every so often, it being an old favourite of mine. My old battered paperback edition was published by Fontana in 1969. Also pictured is Two Stories & A Memoir (Penguin 1966).

I appear to have acquired the complete The Human Age trilogy of Wyndham Lewis, comprising The Childermass , Monstre Gai and Malign Fiesta. I’ve never actually got around to reading them. The below editions were published by Jupiter Books (John Calder Publishers) in 1963.

To finish this entry a trio of books – Harland’s Half Acre by Australian author David Malouf, The Bedsitting Room by Spike Milligan and Confessions of A Mask by Yukio Mishima

Next – Nabokov, Parker, Pirsig, Powys and Pynchon

General Fiction – Kesey, Kilworth & Kotzwinkle

2010-02-04T21:54:00.002+11:00

To begin, two single novels (though they wrote others) by Ken Kesey and Garry Kilworth.

Sometimes A Great Notion derives its name from the famous Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) song “Goodnight Irene”, a song that has peculiar significance to me from my childhood, which I won’t go into here. It is Kesey’s second novel, not as famous as One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, but well worth including in anyone’s book collection.

Garry Kilworth’s Witchwater Country is a rather good coming of age novel – slightly spooky. I must admit it is the only one of his novels that I have read.

Now on to William Kotzwinkle, known mostly as a writer of comic novels. His somewhat bizzare novels were very popular back in the 1970s, most particularly The Fan Man – the archetypical 60s novel. The edition pictured is 1977 Penguin.

Doctor Rat won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1977. It’s a savage satirical novel about vivisection. The paperback edition has a fantastic, though gruesome cover.

More William Kotzwinkle – with interesting cover art.

Next – Lampedusa and other authors whose names start with “L” & “M”

General Fiction – Jack Kerouac

2010-01-31T13:29:00.003+11:00

My collection of Jack Kerouac novels is quite comprehensive, though by no means complete. I can’t even say if I’ve read them all as I can only recall reading his most famous novel On The Road which I will not be displaying in this post as it’s in a Penguin Modern Classic edition. I will be doing feature posts on the Penguin Modern Classics in the future.

So what I have here are all the other various editions of Kerouac in my library. Desolation Angels is a 1972 Panther, Big Sur is a New English Library edition, also 1972

Visions of Cody & Doctor Sax are both 1980 Panther editions

The antique paperback, Maggie Cassidy, is a 1960 Panther, and The Subterraneans is a 1971 Grove Press (Black Cat) edition.

Both Vanity of Duluoz (1969 Andre Deutsch) and Visions of Gerard and Tristessa (1964 Andre Deutsch) are UK hard cover first editions, and I believe quite valuable these days.

And finally, two books about Jack Kerouac, one a biography (1974) and the other a collection of memoirs.

Next – Kesey, Kilworth & Kotzwinkle

General Fiction – a miscellany

2010-01-30T20:53:00.002+11:00

I appear to have only one book by the following authors:

Carlos Fuentes – Terra Nostra
Jean Genet – Our Lady of the Flowers
Hannah Green -I Never Promised You A Rose Garden
Doris Grumbach – The Missing Person

Actually I do have another Joseph Heller book somewhere, but of course Catch 22 is his most famous. It’s still a great read.

Then there are the two Irvings…

John Irving with his famous ‘Garp’ and Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Shirley Jackson’s books have been out of print for decades, but I am pleased to see that her best known books have recently been reprinted in Penguin. She is an extraordinary writer and her We Have Always Lived In The Castle is my favourite of hers and also one of my all time favourite novels. I gave it to my niece at Christmas and she loved it. Merricat Blackwood is one of the most compelling literary creations of all time. My battered old paperback edition is below.

The Haunting of Hill House is one of the scariest, most suspenseful novels I have ever read. There have been several film versions of this book, but nothing beats reading the original. The Lottery is a collection of her best stories. I remember, when I was a member of a small theatrical group back in the ‘60s we performed the play based on The Lottery – I was Tessa, the victim.

Next – Jack Kerouac

General Fiction – E L Doctorow, Umberto Eco, John Fowles,

2010-01-27T21:32:00.002+11:00

E L Doctorow first came to my notice with the publication of his novel Ragtime, which I enjoyed reading at the time, though I never really followed his career much after that, other than to acquire Billy Bathgate ten or so years later. I also have a copy of his novel The Waterworks floating around somewhere.

I, like many others, first came across the books of Umberto Eco through his best selling novel The Name of the Rose. Also in my collection is a hard cover edition of Foucault’s Pendulum (previously displayed).

The Magus by John Fowles was one of those novels that everyone seemed to read in the 1960s. This of course lead to his other books, The Aristos, The Collector and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the latter two books being made into films. I do have a hard covered copy of his novel The Ebony Tower somewhere or other, though i don’t recall seeing lately.

Next – Miscellaneous single novels (f to i) and Shirley Jackson.

General Fiction – Joan Didion & Isak Dineson

2010-01-26T20:22:00.003+11:00

Joan Didion’s novels and non fiction books were well known in the 1970s. Play It As It Lays, was at one time a favourite novel of mine, though it has been years since I last read it. It was made into a film in 1972 and starred Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld. Democracy is a later novel (1984) and was a best seller at the time.

Isak Dineson was the pseudonym of Baroness Karen Blixen. Karen Blixen had an unusual life and her stories are unusual as well. They are not conventional in any sense and have a spooky gothic sensibility. Wonderful stuff! I have a good collection of her stories - they are displayed below and are in various paperback editions produced in the 1970s.

Next – Doctorow, Eco & Fowles

General Fiction – Brautigan, Burgess, Calvino, Carter & Cortazar

2010-01-24T20:42:00.006+11:00

Most of my Richard Brautigan paperbacks are in Picador editions which I shall get down to displaying soon, but here are two in US paperback editions. The Revenge of the Lawn is a 1972 Pocketbooks edition and Dreaming of Babylon was published by Delta in 1978.

I recall that Enderby by Anthony Burgess as being an entertaining novel, though I have not read it for years. This 1973 Ballantine edition describes the novel as an “hilarious and touching portrait of the artist in middle age”.

Italo Calvino I discovered back in the early 1970s. It was Cosmicomics that first blew my mind, so naturally I continued to collect his books. The editions below are only a few of his books in my library. There are more in Picador editions.

Angela Carter is one of my all time favourite writers. I have an almost a complete collection of her novels and non fiction writings. Below is a 1972 Panther paperback edition of her novel Love.

I can’t really recall if I ever read Julio Cortazar’s novel Hopscotch, in any event I certainly don’t remember anything about it.

Next – Joan Didion and Isak Dineson

General Fiction/Non-Fiction - Paperbacks of the 1960s, 1970s & 1980s

2010-01-23T21:14:00.002+11:00

In the main, the books I am about to show here, are a mixture of mass market paperbacks - the small pocket sized variety and larger formats like King Penguins etc. There will even be a few hard covers as well.

I have decided to take it in alphabetical order, starting with A. Alvarez’ book, The Savage God, a rather interesting study on suicide that was a best seller in the 1970s.

Next – Margaret Atwood’s early novels. I must admit the covers aren’t all that inspiring, but then again she did write quite a different sort of novel in her early career compared to her latest novels.

Lady Oracle was my first encounter with Margaret Atwood, and it impressed me enough at the time to continue collecting her books.

Then of course she went on to produce the fabulous Handmaid’s Tale, a wonderful feminist dystopian novel. This edition is a Virago Press edition.

And finally, for the moment – I have other Atwood books on other shelves which I will get to later - Cat’s Eye, also published by Virago Press.

To finish this post a couple of books by John Barth. The Sotweed Factor, with its outrageous plot, was another of those books which were very popular in the 1970s.

The below editions were published in 1972 & 1973 respectively.

General paperback fiction/non-fiction continues in the next post…

General Non Fiction – A miscellaneous selection

2010-01-02T20:58:00.003+11:00

I’ve spent the last week since Christmas scanning the fiction shelves on the left hand side of the large bookcase. It was a task that involved unforeseen toil and trouble. I was wondering why I ended up in the evening with a sore throat, then finally realised today that it was the dusty state of the books that was causing this. The shelves, I must admit have not been dusted for over twenty years. This exercise has at least cleaned them up.

Anyway, before I get stuck into fiction, I’ll finish off the non fiction.

First Andre Breton’s Manifestos of Surrealism and Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces (which book I discovered in the fiction shelves).

Next – a few books relating to psychology. Ego And Archetype and The One Dimensional Man.

A stray Pelican on Existentialism and The Highest State of Consciousness

Literature & Biography – The Bloomsbury Group, both books by Quentin Bell.

A biography of Oscar Wilde by Philippe Jullian

It has been many years since I last heard Findhorn mentioned, but apparently the community is still going. The New Agers of the 1970s were of course fascinated by its claims of giant vegetables and fairies at the bottom of the garden. Being a new ager of the 1970s I of course have a book on the subject.

And Celtic fairies…

Finally a biography of Marie Stopes and a facsimile of colonial Australian history titled Town Life In Australia.

Coming soon – mass market paperbacks of the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Archaeology, History and Mythology

2009-12-19T16:43:00.002+11:00

I think it was reading Gods, Graves, & Scholars by C W Ceram that gave me an interest in archaeology. I recently reread it and it is still a terrifically entertaining history of archaeology.

I can’t think of a more appropriately named author than P V Glob for The Bog People.

The Piltdown Men relates to a famous archaeological fraud. And The End of Atlantis by J V Luce

Another book on Atlantis or Mu as it was sometimes called in the 1970s. Also Pauwells & Berger’s The Dawn of Magic.

Proof copies of The Masks of God by Joseph Campbell, rather the worst for wear.

And finally –The Spanish Conquistadors by F A Kirkpatrick

Next – miscellaneous non fiction

Arthurian Britain

2009-12-18T21:04:00.003+11:00

After shamefully neglecting this blog from August, I was suddenly overcome with an urge to continue it, as I assure you I have always intended to do so.

It has been bubbling up inside me for a couple of weeks and I’m steeling myself to scan some of the fiction shelves on the large bookshelf whilst I’m on leave over Christmas.

So tonight, I present for your delectation various books on King Arthur and an ancient Britain theme, which obviously fascinated me at one time. I do have an Everyman’s edition of “Le Morte D’Arthur” somewhere or other which will be shown later.

A stray Pelican first, and a few popular titles to complement it.

I can’t say I’ve seen these books around in the stores lately…

Next : Archaeology

Feminism & Anarchy

2009-08-31T21:05:00.003+10:00

Do the two above social philosophies go together? For me they do, as I recall that when I first discovered feminism, I also was a member of TREASON, the Anarchist Club at Melbourne University in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Consequently I collected books on these subjects as below.

Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch was for me probably the most influential of the various feminist texts published in the 1970s. It was a book that everyone read at the time, both men and women. I also remember being impressed by Ingrid Bengis’ Combat in the Erogenous Zone.

Then there is The Dialectic of Sex by the wonderfully named Shulamith Firestone.

Emma Goldman actually provides the link between Feminism and Anarchism. I did have both volumes of her biography, but Volume One has gone astray.

A couple of other books on Anarchism…

Next – more New Age type stuff.