Library Additions

Geosi shared with me his new source of used books. Not that I didn't know this place but I associated them with text books and genre-fiction. When I was in school I visited them for some of my text books. However, recently they have taken delivery of fiction, literary fiction and Geosi found himself a lot of gems. I went there too and got myself some really interesting books. And the big 'thing' is that the books are cheap. Very cheap. A buck each. I went there with the high-book-cost mentality and came with a truckload of books:

• Atonement by Ian McEwan. This 2001 Booker shortlist book is on my Top 100 books reading challenge. I haven't read any book by this acclaimed British author. Not yet.
• On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. This is also on my Top 100 books reading challenge. By this effort and others, I definitely am on my way to fulfilling at least 50 percent of this challenge, not this year but by 2012. On Chesil Beach was also shortlisted for the 2007 Booker.
• Saturday by Ian McEwan. This makes it a trilogy for McEwan. This trilogy starts of with Atonement published in 2001, Saturday in 2005 and On Chesil Beach in 2007 consecutively.
• The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffeneger. Another recommendation by book bloggers. Sometimes I don't know whether these books have been actually recommended or I buy them simply because I have read reviews of them. But definitely, their names sound familiar and have generated some heat on the web.
• White Teeth by Zadie Smith. This book is also on my top 100 reading challenge. Zadie Smith was voted as one of Britain's Best 20 Novelists under 40 years by the Telegraph.
• The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (1) by Alexander McCall Smith. I saw this book on the blogosphere, amongst the book blogging community. I also love the setting and want to know what it has to offer. It's about a detective agency in Gaborone, Botswana owned by Precious Ramotswe - the first lady to enter into that line of business. The author is Scottish but was born in Rhodesia, current Zimbabwe.
• The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. After his controversies and his supposed 'snubbing' of Oprah's request to appear on her show, after the book had been  selected for the Oprah Book Club, and his latest book Freedom having the Obamas as one of its first readers, I think it is time to listen to what this young supposedly intelligentsia writer has to say with this book.
• Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. This is another book I discovered from reading reviews from book bloggers. I don't know the exact place, but I know I read two reviews of it in a week, positive or negative the name stuck.
• The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl. I love this book because it features Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes as characters and a book club at its centre. It is also about murder and the search of the murderer. I love stories about books and book lovers like Arturo Perez Reverte's The Dumas Club.
• The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. I have heard the name before, perhaps even read a review or two of her books. I bought this because it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994.

What are your thoughts on these titles. I have also realised that most of the books I am acquiring is bound to defeat the purpose of this blog if I go ahead and read them in a row. Thus, I would be going in search of more African titles as I am running-out of them.