The Wayward Home for Books

Hello, I'm the Wayward Bookwoman, and these are my books. Updates Sporadically & Unpredictably.

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Hello Bibliophiles, the Wayward Bookwoman here,

I have tried to keep my personal life out of this blog, but a lot of stuff has been happening the past few months, and now it is too much work for me to continue updating Monday-Friday.  Before I make a major change to the posting schedule I wanted your input: would you rather get posts Tuesday and Thursday, or Monday/Wednesday/Friday?  Respond to this post and let me know your preference.  The new posting schedule will start next week.  Thanks to you all for being so understanding :)

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War and Peace

(Leo Tolstoy tr. Constance Garnett, Barnes & Noble Classics, 2006)

This book is a beast.  Also, it consistently places pretty high in lists of books that people tend to lie about having read.  (If you lie and say you’ve read this book, I’m not going to judge.  But you should totally read it.  Because it’s good.)  I can’t say I blame people for being intimidated by this book: it’s a behemoth, it’s Russian, and not only do you have to pay attention to the timeline and maps, but there is also a massive character list to keep track of.  It’s a formidable undertaking.

I had a copy before this that I’d gotten in high school, but my sophomore year of college I did a major book purge and gave it to a friend.  I regretted doing this, and just a few months later I found this copy in my favorite used book store and snatched it up.  This edition is a lot nicer than my old one: it has cleaner pages and much more notes and background info, so overall I definitely came out on top.

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The Longman Anthology of Detective Fiction

 (ed. Deane Mansfield-Kelley and Lois A. Marchino, Pearson, 2005)

The college I went to had a semester breakdown where January was its own semester by itself, and then there was a week off before spring semester started in February.  My freshman year, I took a class on detective and crime fiction during the January term, and this was our textbook. 

I had planned on keeping my copy of the textbook, but by the end of the year I was broke and I needed to sell it back to the bookstore.  I bought this copy late in my senior year to replace that first copy.  It’s not in as good shape as my first copy was, but it’s still in readable shape and it ended up being pretty cheap.

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Ice Cream & Sadness

 (Kris, Rob, Matt & Dave, ItBooks, 2010)

Cyanide and Happiness is often a great example of mildly offensive dark humor.  Very few strips fail to make me laugh, and when I saw this book in my college’s campus bookstore, I picked it up.  I usually don’t pick up random little books like this, but I’d just been paid, and I’d had a bad week, and the next think you know I have a book full of comic strips about dead babies et cetera.  These things will happen.

The book is very well put together, and I’m pretty impressed with how well it’s held up so far.  To be fair, it’s not a cheap book, so I certainly hope that it would last a good long while.  Either way, it’s a fun little book full of bloody punchlines.

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Odi et Amo: The Complete Poetry of Catullus

(tr. Roy Arthur Swanson, The Library of Liberal Arts, 1959)

Oh, Catullus.  I’m very fond of saying that being a Classicist makes you sound very intelligent, but really all Classicists do is read porn.  (To be fair, Classicists do more than read porn.  But porn is a lot of it.)  I first got to read Catullus in my college Roman Literature class, much to the chagrin of some of the more prude students.  All of Catullus’ poems are online, in Latin and in English, so I never really had a reason to buy a physical copy of the book.

I found this in a used book store about a year after I graduated.  It was a bit of a slow week for book acquisitions, and the book store didn’t have a lot of things I was interested in, so I went for it.  My only gripe with this is that it’s all in translation.  The first lines are presented in Latin, as a sort of title, but the poems are all in English.  I’d rather have an edition that at least includes the Latin, or an edition that’s Latin only, but overall this isn’t a bad little book.

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The Sandman: The Kindly Ones

 (Neil Gaiman, Vertigo, 1996)

This is my favorite volume of The Sandman.  I like to refer to it as the “Shit Goes Down” volume.  It’s by far the longest, by page count, of the 10-volume set.  I think that The Sandman actually could have ended with this cycle, but I agree that The Wake (Volume 10) offers more closure, etc.  But this volume is a piece of beauty, and I love it.

It’s hard for me to pick a favorite volume of any big comic, and for years I tried to avoid openly declaring that I have a favorite volume of The Sandman.  Certainly, there are individual episodes and stories that I would rank higher as favorites, but in terms of a cohesive, book-like volume, The Kindly Ones takes the cake.  Like I said, Shit Goes Down in this book, and the first time I read it I was struck by Neil Gaiman’s ability to piece a story together.

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Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World

(Rita Golden Gelman, Three Rivers Press, 2001)

This book has a familiar narrative: an American woman realizes that she feels unfulfilled and takes off on a journey around the world.  Unlike other similar stories, she does not return home, but instead becomes a modern-day nomad, with no fixed address and only limited belongings.  I am hesitant about books that I describe as being in the “Eat-Pray-Love genre,” but this book almost called to me when I found it in a book sale donation pile. 

It took me a while to get around to starting it, because I was afraid of having gotten an off-brand version of Eat-Pray-Love, but this book never came across as inspirational or motivating to me.  (I suppose it’s probably supposed to be inspirational and motivating, but I didn’t get that feeling from it.)  It’s kind of a gentle reminder that there is no right way to live, and that there are billions of other people out there who are at once different and similar to me. 

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Kipling: A Selection of His Stories and Poems

(Rudyard Kipling & John Beecroft, Doubleday, 1956)

I was never really fond of Rudayrd Kipling when I was younger.  A bit of an aside: The Jungle Book became one of my least favorite films ever in middle/high school because my brother decided he had to watch it twice a day for two and a half years.  But I think I was pretty indifferent to it before then.  I think there was a Kipling poem in one of my first poetry anthologies, and I think I liked it, but overall I didn’t have any opinion at all on him.

In college I started hearing more about Kipling.  I started reading things that Neil Gaiman had written about Kipling, and about Kipling’s ability to craft a story.  I also started learning more about his role in the Great War and the general role of his writing in the twentieth century.  And I started appreciating it more.  I found this book, as well as its partner volume, at my school library’s used book sale right before I graduated, and I snatched them up for $1 per volume.  The illustrations are gorgeous, exactly what you’d expect from a mid-century publication, and I am very happy with these copies.

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A Philosophy of Mizvot: The Religious-Ethical Concepts of Judaism, Their Roots in Biblical Law and the Oral Tradition

(Gerison Appel, Ktav Publishing House, 1975)

Regular readers will know how interested I am in Judaism.  I studied Judaism about as extensively in college as I could, and I try to maintain a good collection of books about Judaism.  Mizvot is one aspect of Judaism that appealed to me since I first heard about it my freshman year, and when I saw this book in the used book sale donation pile I grabbed it almost without thinking.

It’s an accessible book, and not difficult to get into at all, but I still haven’t managed to do more than pick at small pieces of it since I got it.  It definitely fills a gap in my Judaism library, and the book itself is gorgeous for a scholarly paperback.  This book is almost certainly not intended for a commercial audience, but rather for a scholastic one, so its aesthetics shouldn’t be a big deal.  But the cover design and layout of this book are absolutely phenomenal for what is essentially a textbook, and I just love it. 

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Death of a Salesman

(Arthur Miller, Viking Press, 1949)

Theatre was a big deal at my high school.  (We were ranked hilariously low in everything except theatre, music, and wrestling.)  We did five plays a year, and we had an improv team, plus there were electives in acting and playwriting.  Whether you got involved in one of the plays, took an acting class, joined improv, or somehow registered for playwriting, odds are you would read at least one Arthur Miller play during the course of the semester.  It’s just how things work out.

I’ve developed an appreciated for Arthur Miller over the years, and Death of a Salesman was always the one play that sort of evaded me.  I always heard about it, and it was always mentioned in class or at rehearsal, but I never actually figured out much more than the title, and I never managed to get around to reading it.  So when I found this copy in my college’s used book sale donation pile, I grabbed it for myself.  There are some notes in the margins, but nothing too distracting, and overall it’s proven to be a pretty good copy.

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Islamic History: A Very Short Introduction

(Adam J. Silverstein, Oxford University Press, 2010)

The Very Short Introduction books are some of my favorite books on the planet.  They’re tiny books, chock full of condensed information, and they limit their scope right from the get-go (seriously, how much into depth can you go with a book that calls itself A Very Short Introduction?).  (Plus the entire series is a uniform size, and there’s just something about uniformity that gets me.)

I started collecting these books in college just by keeping them after a course required them, but since then I’ve started picking them up in secondhand stores whenever I find them.  This book was originally assigned for a comparative religion class I took in college with one of my favorite professors.  It was probably only the second Very Short Introduction book I got, but I love the “References and Further Reading” section in here.

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Codes, Ciphers & Other Cryptic & Clandestine Communication

 (Fred B. Wrixon, Tess Press, 1998)

I’ve been interested in cryptography and cryptology since I was a little kid.  I spent weeks coming up with the most complex ciphers and codes that my six-year-old brain could muster, and then losing the keys I’d laboriously written out.  Fast forward to my senior year in college, and I needed a topic for my history thesis.  My advisor looked at me and said, “you like linguistics, right?” and suggested I analyze cryptography and cryptology in the first World War.  Bingo.  I wrote a killer thesis and had a ton of fun researching it.

The next Christmas, my brother (who shares my interest in codes and ciphers and followed the development of my thesis with more interest than my actual thesis advisor) gave me this book.  It’s a fun book, and it covers a lot of ground.  It’s a really good introduction to codes and ciphers and the history thereof.  It’s a fun book, and my brother and I have managed to have some fun with it.

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Elton John Greatest Hits 1970-2002

 (Elton John, Hal Leonard, 2004)

I love love love Elton John.  In tenth grade, I wrote my big research paper for English on him.  One of the first songs I ever learned on the piano was “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.”  I have most of his songs memorized.  I am a crazy Elton John fangirl and I am not ashamed. 

I “play” piano poorly and sporadically, and despite any and all attempts to actually learn piano, the best I can manage is to learn individual songs-if I love them enough to put in the effort.  I am an undisciplined spirit, and I will never be a concert pianist.  Such is life.  I found this book in a music store when I was there with my family, picking up stuff for my brother (who actually plays piano).  I’d lost my original sheet music to “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” and I like all the other songs in this book, so I picked it up in the hope that I can learn enough to pretend I know how to play the piano.  (Still working on that, but I remain, as ever, hopeful.)

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Find the Constellations

(H. A. Rey, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1982)

I can’t remember when I got this book.  It was definitely in elementary school, it was definitely a gift, and it was almost definitely not a birthday or Christmas present.  At any rate, I’ve had this book for a very long time and it has been very well-used. 

I’ve been interested in astronomy since I was a little kid.  I was in this junior-astronomer enrichment program at my elementary school, and my life ambition was to be the first person on Mars.  That part didn’t work out, but I still love astronomy, and over the course of my life I’ve collected an impressive array of astronomy books.

This one’s really basic, and it was originally published in the 1950s.  But it’s engaging for kids, and there are these two cute characters who guide you through the book.  The book also has interactive sections to help kids learn the constellations, and it tells the stories behind several of the major Western constellations. 

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Best-Loved Folktales of the World

(Joanna Cole, Anchor Books, 1982)

This book was a Christmas present from one of my best friends in college.  I’m a huge fairy- and folk-tale buff (in case any of you couldn’t tell from my huge mythology collection), and I’m willing to say that my friend picked out a pretty good book.  There are 200 stories in here, from all over the world, organized by region (West Europe, British Isles, Scandinavia and Northern Europe, East Europe, Middle East, Asia, The Pacific, Africa, North America, Caribbean and West Indies, and Central and South America).  It’s still pretty heavily weighted toward the European tradition, but it makes a good effort for a low-budget collection like this.

Most of the tales are really familiar, but there are a few pleasant surprises.  As I mentioned above, it’s organized by region, but it is also indexed by title and by categories of tales (Fairies, Talking Animals, Ghosts, Wise Men, Married Couples, etc.).  Each story has also been assigned a home country or other cultural affiliation as well, and though these aren’t always accurate they are pretty interesting at least.

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Harry Poter y el prisionero de Azkaban

(J. K. Rowling, tr. Adolfo Munoz Garcia & Nieves Martin Azofra, Ediciones Salamandra, 2011)

This book has a funny backstory: my sister studies Spanish, and is collecting the Spanish editions of the Harry Potter books to improve her reading.  So for her birthdays and Christmases, we like to get her a new Harry Potter Spanish edition.  For her last birthday, we couldn’t remember which book she was on, and for some reason I thought she only had the first two books, so I ordered the third one.  When she opened her present, she laughed and reminded us all that yes, she did already have the third book.

I promptly went online to order the fourth book for her, and went through the process to return this book to Amazon.  I got through the process and my refund came through, but instead of printing out a shipping label, Amazon informed me that because I am such a good customer, I could keep the book for free.  I figured my Spanish reading is okay, so I kept the book as a curiosity, and every once in a while I’ll read a few pages.

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The History of Rome by Titus Livius Vol. I Books I-XX

(tr. D. Spillan, A.M., M.D., Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1892)

This is a very new book in my collection.  (As of this writing, I’ve had it for three days.)  I went to visit my old boss at my old college library, and she had this book sitting on her desk.  She’d saved it from the recycling bin because she loved the cover (Look at it!  Isn’t it gorgeous?!) and she’d been looking for someone to pawn it off to.  I noticed the cover right away, and was prepared to be disappointed by its contents.  (I was afraid it would be some terrible forgotten novel or something.)  Much to my pleasure, it’s Roman history!

I have mixed feelings about Livy in general, but given my background in the Classics, I thought this book was definitely worth adding to my library.  (Admittedly, I am more of a Hellenist than a Romanist, but I like to at least keep my library balanced.)  It’s not in the greatest shape, but it’s definitely in better shape than some other late 19th-century books I’ve come across.  Interestingly enough, it used to be a college library copy, but it belonged to our rival college.  It was eventually withdrawn and sold or given to an individual, who eventually donated it to my college library’s used book sale.  So not only is it a nifty little book, it has a nifty little story to go along with it.