Made four eclectic purchases while visiting two bookstores in the Twin Cities yesterday.
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, a classic in American Southern writing, a much-neglected area in my reading.
To Let by John Galsworthy - I know it's book #3 in the Forsyte saga, but I hope it's okay to read as a stand-alone novel. I've never read this Nobel Prize winner previously, and I was pleased to find a nice vintage hardcover copy with a dust jacket in almost perfect condition. Given its low $10.00 price, I'm guessing the bookseller wasn't confident there would be much interest in this author.
Roubles and Kopeks by Vasily Shukshin (not Shushkin). This was a new name to me. When I looked up the book/author online, I liked what I read: "This collection of Shukshin's stories depict with gentle humour and humanity, the frustrations, struggles and minor triumphs of the people who migrated, dispossessed and powerless, to the city from the country. It provides a fascinating insight into what ordinary people felt and experienced in the Soviet Union of his day."
Mad Toy by Roberto Arlt. I didn't love
The Seven Madmen when I read it years ago, but I decided to give this Argentine novelist a second chance. After all, Roberto Bola
ño once quipped "Let's say, modestly, that Arlt is Jesus Christ."