ateolf | Books Books

Had a little day off to make it to the library book sale in the morning so Mary Beth and I went first thing. In the book sale part, I picked up the following: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk, Childish Things by Valéry Larbaud, A House in the Country by José Donoso, Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World by Donald Antrim, A Cure for Dreams by Kaye Gibbons, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley, A Raisin in the Sun/The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window by Lorraine Hansberry, A Virtuous Woman by Kaye Gibbons, The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights Volume 1 by Anonymous (have had the whole set of the Richard Burton Translation for forever but that's a bit unwieldy, and this newer translation by Malcolm C. Lyons has seemed interesting), The Gambler/Bobok/A Nasty Story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Can't and Won't (Stories) by Lydia Davis. Then we went across the hall to the Second Editions bookstore where we got more for almost as cheap and I picked up: May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes, A Painter of Our Time by John Berger, A Devil in Paradise by Henry Miller, Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty, Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf, The Dwarf by Pär Lagerkvist, A Change of Skin by Carlos Fuentes, The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers (this is the play that she adapter herself from her novella, so not a repeat), Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya: the Nabokov-Wilson Letters, 1940-1971 by Vladimir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson, and The Good Conscience by Carlos Fuentes. Then we went straight over to Payne's and picked up some ribs to take home and eat. So very nice day. In the afternoon I finished reading The Talking Room by Marianne Hauser and it was very good. It was quite a very good find as it scores pretty high on the obscure to should-not-be-obscure factor. Stylistically it feels reminiscent of the oulipo writers (I don't know if had any constraint like that in mind, but it has the feel...there is a thing with proper names almost always being just the first letter and the way it plays with that). Anyway, good book. At night Mary Beth and I went to the Orpheum for a reprise of Ballet Memphis's production of Dracula. We saw it last year and it was good and they did it again so back we go. It was the same production so no surprises or anything, but it was fun. The cast was different. I think maybe last year's was a little better, but that might be because it was new and I didn't know what to expect. I felt maybe the cast then was a little better too, but they were still good this time. Could be more of my perception. But it was a good time. The row in front of us was all these preteen girls and they were dressed up in Halloween costumes. The girl in front of me was wearing a unicorn horn thing atop her head. So it was kinda in my view the whole time. It wasn't a huge deal as it wasn't huge or anything and I mostly forgot about it.