Your Amazon wish list: and, Join Book a Week!

[Violet Crown]

Friends,

Jeff "Santa" Bezos, now the world's wealthiest person at more than $183 billion, clearly intends to purchase all of our books off our Amazon Wish Lists. I mean, he kind of has to at this point, right?

So what books are on your wish list that you'll you be receiving from the Amazon truck this month?

Also: Mid-year is the perfect time to join the Book a Week thread. Avoid the New Year's rush! Remember, you don't actually have to read a book every week. Here in July, the pressure is totally off to make it to 52 by the end of 2020. Not that 2020 is ever going to end. Reduced subscription fee for former members, whom we all miss sadly and would like to see back.

What I'll be getting from my pal Jeff:
Eugene Francois Vidocq, Memoirs (any English translation)
Edgar Allen Poe, Essays and Reviews (Library of America edition)
Hans von Grimmelshausen, The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus (Penguin)
Eugene Sue, The Mysteries of Paris (Penguin)
Elmore Leonard, Four Later Novels (Library of America)
Dashiell Hammett, Crime Stories (Library of America)
Raymond Chandler, Later Novels (Library of America)
Joseph Shaw, The Case for Liturgical Restoration
Gerard de Nerval, Selected Writings (Penguin)
Henry James, Novels 1903-1911 (Library of America)
Henry James, Novels 1896-1899 (Library of America)
The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol (Pevear trans.)
Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (Penguin) [forthcoming]
Breece D'J Pancake, Complete Writings (Library of America) [forthcoming]

 

 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

This is an embarrassing confession to make on a homeschool board and an invite to a book of the week thread, but I've been mostly reading twaddle. They are very much my comfort books I revert to. Manga is very much that for me from my childhood because I shared it with my brother and now with my son and nephew. If that is ok I will be more than happy to join. 

I think there is always a place for fluff. Don’t be intimidated by @Violet Crown; she’s a dang genius! 😄 Sometimes I have to read some light books because real life is beating me down and I just want to laugh at some silly YA character or mutter about plot holes in a genre paperback with barely a hundred pages. 

I have been in the Book A Week club for a few years but I haven’t been posting my books this year. I am also “behind” this year for a couple of reasons: the class I’m taking, the time I spend reading about COVID and reading magazine articles, my frame of mind this year. 

 

[Kareni]

14 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

...I've been mostly reading twaddle. .... If that is ok I will be more than happy to join. 

I am very active on the Book a Week thread. I would be delighted if a fellow twaddle reader would join in. 

Regards,

Kareni (A happy reader of genre fiction and a good many low brow books)

[Violet Crown]

2 hours ago, peacelovehomeschooling said:

Okay, I am obviously missing something.  Please tell me what this is about!   I don't keep an Amazon wish list.....do I need to create one and put some books on it?

Just wishful thinking, and curiosity, and a desire for discussions unrelated to the CV. 🙂 I keep my Amazon wish list mostly to keep track of books I want to buy if I can find them cheap enough, and to remind dh about when birthday/Christmas rolls around. It's been added to a lot during Coronatide.

10 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

This is an embarrassing confession to make on a homeschool board and an invite to a book of the week thread, but I've been mostly reading twaddle. They are very much my comfort books I revert to. Manga is very much that for me from my childhood because I shared it with my brother and now with my son and nephew. If that is ok I will be more than happy to join. 

Manga is totally in. Comfort reading is the best thing. "Twaddle" is a banned word in BaW, or ought to be. We read what we read.

2 hours ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

I clearly lack restraint, so I just order the books y’all throw at me in real time. The last week has seen The Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok, A DK book on Mesopotamia, Builders of the Old World, and Every Day the Way Home Gets Longer by Fredrik Backman (because his last book didn’t make me cry enough apparently) grace my front porch. Don’t tell my husband or he’s going to get the proxy blocker back out. 

Those all sound like necessary homeschooling materials to me. Also that bottle of wine you mentioned. Wish I'd known you needed Builders of the Old World; I'd have sent my unused copy!

[maize]

My Amazon wish list is full of all kinds of important random stuff I looked at once on Amazon. Books occasionally make an appearance.

What I really want to read is the series I have been imagining up in my head. I just want to enjoy reading it though, not do the work of writing it!

[Violet Crown]

32 minutes ago, Quill said:

I think there is always a place for fluff. Don’t be intimidated by @Violet Crown;

Hey, I like fluff; I just like old fluff.

[Kareni]

19 minutes ago, Violet Crown said:

Hey, I like fluff; I just like old fluff.

Vintage fluff!

Regards,

Kareni

[Violet Crown]

11 minutes ago, Kareni said:

Vintage fluff!

Regards,

Kareni

Exactly. First it's Fluff; then it's Retro; then it's Vintage; then it's Literature.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Violet Crown said:

Exactly. First it's Fluff; then it's Retro; then it's Vintage; then it's Literature.

Victorian England Mother: “Elizabeth, dear, has this parcel arrived for thee?”

18-Year-Old Elizabeth: “Oh yes, Mother! I implore you to pass it to me quickly! It is the latest chapter of Miss Austen’s Pride and Prejudice! I am longing to discover what is to become of Lydia!”

Victorian England Mother: “Hrumpf! Such twaddle!*”

 

*Okay, I grant you, she wouldn’t have said “twaddle.” But it does fit. 

[Violet Crown]

John Henry Newman, 1868:

Quote

I will take an illustration of this, though somewhat a familiar one, from the effect produced upon the mind by reading what is commonly called a romance or novel, which comes under the description of polite literature, of which I am speaking. Such works contain many good sentiments (I am taking the better sort of them): characters too are introduced, virtuous, noble, patient under suffering, and triumphing at length over misfortune. The great truths of religion are upheld, we will suppose, and enforced; and our affections excited and interested in what is good and true. But it is all fiction; it does not exist out of a book which contains the beginning and end of it. We have nothing to do; we read, are affected, softened or roused, and that is all; we cool again,—nothing comes of it.

tl, dr: Put away that novel. It's fluff, and it's rotting your brain.

Edited July 24, 2020 by Violet Crown

[aggieamy]

Okay gals! Here's the deal with BaW ... whatever you're reading, you're welcome to hang out at BaW. Everyone's already said it but I'll jump in and add another welcoming voice. One year I only read British mysteries and nobody asked me to leave. Wait. Basically that's every year, I love my British mysteries. 

But before you join ... make sure your library account is up to date. Because you'll end up with so many books you want to read. I've discovered some of my favorite authors though BaW recommendations. 

And @Robin M has fun weekly and monthly challenges. They're optional but you'll want to join in one or two anyway because they're just cool!

[Miss Tick]

13 hours ago, Violet Crown said:

Wish I'd known you needed Builders of the Old World; I'd have sent my unused copy!

😂 Just what I was thinking! So many books, only limited time to impose them on my children....

 

13 hours ago, Kareni said:

Vintage fluff!

Regards,

Kareni

That is how I refer to some of the dust bunnies around here!

[mumto2]

On 7/23/2020 at 9:37 PM, Dreamergal said:

This is an embarrassing confession to make on a homeschool board and an invite to a book of the week thread, but I've been mostly reading twaddle. They are very much my comfort books I revert to. Manga is very much that for me from my childhood because I shared it with my brother and now with my son and nephew. If that is ok I will be more than happy to join. 

You are totally welcome!   Everyone is welcome which is the great thing about BaW.......

Btw, I would like to learn more about Manga so I would love it if you joined!

[mumto2]

1 hour ago, Dreamergal said:

Thanks. Planning to post today ! But be prepared, Manga is a wonderful rabbit hole to fall into. It comes in different genres which will lead you to look for the anime that it is associated with, then the JDramas and JMovies made from it, the cuisine, music and language of Japan and my life long love of it though I am hardly proficient in Japanese, but enough to be self learn a little. Sushi and cherry blossoms are my favorite simply because of Manga though I have hardly seen them in person much. It led me to manwha (Webtoons) of Korea, another recent and great love of mine which I share with my children now and comes with the wonderful world of food, Kdrama and Kpop. 

😂I know rather a lot about cherry blossoms irl because I grew up on a fruit farm  but doubt that will help me with Manga in the slightest!

Looking forward to seeing you over on BaW!

[marbel]

Ahhh... I slunk away from the group a while back... though I still have my list of English county books ready to complete any year now!

You've inspired me to return, even though I am hardly reading. But I miss the conversation!  

[Kareni]

2 minutes ago, marbel said:

You've inspired me to return, even though I am hardly reading. But I miss the conversation!  

Yes, do come back, marbel. The more the merrier!

Regards,

Kareni