Haul

First night of ginormous library book sale last night. Here's what me and the missus-to-be scooped up. Feel free to lend recommendations and/or snark where appropriate, otherwise this post just looks totally narcissistic and masturbatory:

Bleak House - Charles Dickens
Read Xgau's piece "James Brown's Great Expectations" recently and realized I should read more Dickens. You can never listen to too much James Brown.

Innocent - Ian McEwan
One of my favorite living authors. Don't know much about this one though.

The Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami
Ditto, though to a slightly lesser degree.

Shiloh - Bobbie Ann Mason
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All - Alan Gurganus
The Knockout Artist - Harry Crews
Southern lit. Rawr.

Motherless Brooklyn - Jonathan Lethem
I loved Fortress of Solitude. Hate me now.

Sabbath's Theater - Philip Roth
Per Alfred's rec. On a barely related note, I noticed Chuck Klosterman mispelled Roth's first name in the "Nemesis" essay that ran in Esquire. Strange no one caught that.

Feel Like Going Home: Portraits in Blues and Rock 'n' Roll - Peter Guralnick
I NEVER find decent music books at book sales. Shocka.

Breaks of the Game - David Halberstam
Ditto sports books. Bill Simmons has lauded this one repeatedly and I think it's out of print, so I was totally stoked to find it. Includes maybe the most unintentionally hilarious epigram in literary history, which I'll paraphrase if anyone asks.

Democracy in America - Alexis de Tocqueville
Seems like something I need to read.

Vintage Mencken - H.L. Mencken
Ditto.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love - Raymond Carver
Geeked to read this. Even brought it with me to work today.

The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. - Raymond Coover
I think I recall JCL testifying to this book's greatness. Terrific find.

For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies - Pauline Kael
I know embarrassingly little about movies and less about Kael. Hopefully I've done Alfred proud with this pick.

Here's Mrs. Caruso-Love-to-be's grab:

United States - Gore Vidal
Lincoln - Gore Vidal
Messiah - Gore Vidal
The Smithsonian Institution - Gore Vidal
I may read Lincoln before any of my own stuff.

The Oxford Illustrated History of Western Philosophy
I NEED to read this myself as I am a philosophy-ignorant motherfucker.

Life of Pi - Yann Martel
I know this one's been hyped to death but I bet it's really good.

The Lexus and the Olive Tree - Thomas Friedman
Lauren digs Friedman but reports that From Beirut to Jerusalem was written suckily, so I'm not exactly sure why she wanted this one.

Pnin - Vladimir Nabokov
I love Nabokov. Lauren LOVES Nabokov.

I did all of that from memory so I'm probably forgetting a few. Will update if/when necessary.