Monday, March 10, 2008

Again Jackpot!

Though not as exciting as last time,* I still managed some nice stuff.

To wit:

Charles Causley: Collected Poems

Maurice Lindsay: Collected Poems 1940-1990

Chris Wallace-Crabbe: I’m Deadly Serious

Ian Crockatt: Flood Alert

Kathleen Jamie: The Queen of Sheba

Andrew Motion: Salt Water

Douglas Brooks-Davies (ed): Jane Austen: Poems and Favourite Poems

Hugo Williams: Billy’s Rain

Geoffrey Hill: Canaan

Elaine Feinstein: Gold

Peter Reading: Marfan

Robert Crawford: Spirit Machines

Donald Davie: Poems and Melodramas

Tom Bryan: North East Passage

Maura Dooley: Explaining Magnetism

Alan Jenkins: The Drift

Keki Daruwalla: Crossing of Rivers and Keeper of the Dead

Thom Gunn: Boss Cupid

Peter Redgrove: Assembling a Ghost

Tony Lopez: Data Shadow

Thom Gunn: Shelf Life

Alan Riach (ed.): Hugh MacDiarmid: Selected Prose

Christopher Isherwood: Exhumations: Stories, Articles, Verses

Bruce King: Derek Walcott and West Indian Drama

Clive James: Brilliant Creatures

John Banville: Ghosts

And two E.F. Benson books (Cat, wonder if you've read him).

* The exciting part was in turning up early enough so as to avoid lines and then realise that I'd forgotten my library card (having transferred everything but that to the bag I was carrying); then attempting to charm the staff to let me in without it; failing; making a mad dash back home - thank god it was a Sunday - getting the wretched card and returning with two minutes to spare and to take my place in a long, snaking line.

PS: I must be the last person in the world to realise this, but staying away from the blog - and everyone else's blogs - makes for some astonishing increase in productivity. I think I shall stick with this.

5 comments:

??! said...

I think I shall stick with this.
Whaaaat? naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahin. no no, cannot be. will NOT accept. We will all start writing such brilliant stuff, you won't be able to let go.

Cheshire Cat said...

Whoa, that's quite a poetry stash you're building there. I wish libraries in India stacked more American poetry, though...

Benson's a delight. I did read most of the Lucia and Mapp books when I was in high school, and am now beginning to rediscover them on Gutenberg. The one I really want is "David Blaize and the Blue Door"; it seems hard to find. Which ones did you get?

Space Bar said...

??!: Aargh! No! Don't do that!

Cheshire Cat: I know. Heck - I wish they stacked more Indian poetry, in translation especially.

I got Miss Mapp (and that short story that goes with it) and Lucia's Progress (also known by another title that now escapes me). They're great fun...finished one.

Haven't read David Blaize and the Blue Door. IS it by Benson?

Cheshire Cat said...

Yes, David Blaize is kind of a Benson alter-ego. The other two books about him are about his life at school and college - reminiscent of early Wodehouse. The one I mentioned is supposed to be an "Alice in Wonderland" rip-off, which is obviously why I want it.

Space Bar said...

Ah, yes. (I clearly did not read the wiki entry beyond the Lucia entry!)

You know what would be a good list for you to make? Authors who had well-developed aliases. Cecil Day-Lewis as Nicholas Blake, Philip Larkin as Brunette Coleman.

Like that.