Free books

[tigerfort]

We seem to have a number of unwanted books, acquired over the years. This may sound like heresy, but in fact they're all duplicates, things that came in bulk boxes of 'we want most of that', books my grandmother doesn't want anymore and no-one else in the family will ever read, and so on. Anyway, we thought we'd try to find homes where they could be properly cared for, so is anyone interested in any of the following:

Fiction:

PD James - Death in Holy Orders; The Skull Beneath the Skin; A Taste for Death; Death of an Expert Witness; Shroud for a Nightingale

Ellis Peters - Fallen into the Pit

Dan Brown - Angels and Demons

Morris West - The Clowns of God

Mary Stewart - The Prince and the Pilgrim

Lynn and Jay - Yes, Prime Minister, volume 1 (hardback, no dustcover)

EE 'Doc' Smith - Grey Lensman; 2nd Stage Lensman; The Purity Plot

Michael Marshall Smith - Spares

Katherine Kerr - The Fire Dragon

Shea and Wilson - The Eye in the Pyramid (Illuminatus 1)

Non-fiction:

Michael Lewis - The new new thing. (Mildly interesting book about the founding of Netscape and the late 90s internet boom. Amusing at the end, where the author - writing just before the bubble burst - predicts that the boom will last forever and simultaneously laughs at the idiocy of some venture capitalists who've just wasted money on a chunk of a company called Google that consists of two guys and an idea about search engines....)

Michael Moore - Dude, where's my country? (Moore does his thing.)

Andrea Barham - The pedant's revolt. (One of those books correcting long lists of 'facts' which 'everyone knows' but which aren't actually true. At a quick glance, it looks to be mostly, but not always, accurate.)

Self-help:

Secrets of the Cube
Success system that never fails
Know who you are, be what you want

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes please to the Ellis Peters if it isn't a Bro. Cadfael mystery!

Also, as a lifelong and fervent Mary Stewart fan I offer anyone who wants it the advice not to read The Prince and the Pilgrim. It's really not very good.

[lnr]

Oh, then maybe I don't want it :-)

How not very good?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Just sort of limp, really. I think of MS as writing either thriller-ish books, or reasonably erudite historical novels. TP&TP is a historical novel but it just sort of noodles along going nowhere in particular, and then ends.

To be honest, I can't remember that much about it, beyond having put my copy straight in the 'out' pile after I'd read it. Maybe if you do take it you could update me :)

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

The plot summary on the back starts "When an obnoxious Nazi land-worker is murdered...", so almost certainly not Cadfael :)

[lnr]

I'd love to take the Mary Stewart off your hands, if no-one else wants it. Perhaps second weekend of January?

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

Assuming that you still want it, certainly. Or earlier, if we see you before then :)

[colinbj.livejournal.com]

The Mary Stewart romance-thrillers set in modern (well, post-WW2) times are really excellent.

The best are 'Airs Above The Ground' and 'This Rough Magic'.

Your conversation has reminded me of her, I have ordered four more (My Brother Michael, Thunder On The Right, Madam Will You Talk, and Wildfire At Midnight), all of which I dimly but fondly remember from teenagehood, from Amazon where they are all still available in ppbk.

I never could get into her historical/Arthurian stuff as much, but maybe that's just me.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I loved the Merlin trilogy, and quite like the other historial ones barring the abovementioned limp effort. But yes, the romance-thrillers are the really special ones. I'd recommend Touch Not The Cat and The Ivy Tree if you've not read them. I recently re-read My Brother Michael having read it when I was about 13, and was relieved to find it was still a cracking book. Lots of my other teenage favourites seem to have gone off with time ;)

[lnr]

Touch not the Cat is definitely one I love, and which I borrow from my mum every so often. I'm always very reluctant to give it back :-) But yes, I love the Merlin ones too. I'm so going to have to buy my own copies some day.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

The Purity Plot is actually by Stephen Goldin.

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

I only gave the covers a cursory glance while dictating the list, but yes, it does give his name in very small lettering beneath Smith's.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Yes. The four Lord Tedric books are even more coy about their real author.

[thalassius.livejournal.com]

I'd be happy to take Clowns of God off your hands, as I very much want to read the trilogy in order.

I'm away from the end of the week until January, but I should come say hello to you in any case.

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

Certainly (to both parts :).