2012 Book Haul

Recently I sold about 48 DVDs via Amazon Trade-In. Ended up getting about $68 in credit for them. It may not seem like that good of a deal, selling DVDs I originally paid nearly $500 for at such a low price. But a number of the DVDs were old and most I hadn't watched in a couple years. Amazon will make money off them and I cleared out shelf space and was able to buy some books I've wanted for some time. A win-win situation.

I ended up clearing some of the books off my want list. Nine of them in all. A wide variety of topics from science fiction, graphic novels, and pulp fiction to anthropology, history, and political science. A very interesting haul, and possibly the only “book haul” I'll manage this year. Total postage for all of these was about $35.55; more than half of the amount I traded the DVDs in for.

Doctor Omega: by Arnould Galopin. A French sci-fi novel from 1905 translated to English. Unfortunately it has been “modernized” a bit in the process of translation. Possible inspiration for Doctor Who.

The Ayn Rand Lexicon: edited by Harry Binswanger. Looks like this will be a great reference guide to learning more about Rand's philosophy. I'm not really an Objectivist but want to learn more about them.

Adventure volume one: edited by Chris Roberson. Well over a dozen new pulp-style stories by about seventeen different authors. This promises to be very good, and was much larger than I anticipated. Overall I'm usually very happy with Monkeybrain Books.

The Political Philosophy of Bakunin: by G.P. Maximoff. I know a little about Bakunin. I want to read some of his writings to see if my picture of him is correct. Even if my initial perceptions of him are wrong I'm sure he's still a better man than Marx.

Road Belong Cargo: by Peter Lawrence. An anthropological study of the Cargo Cults of New Guinea. Has a bit of underlining and highlighting. Looks like it may be an ex-college book. Looking forward to reading it; I've always wanted to learn more about the Cargo Cults.

The Seychelles Affair: by Mike Hoare. The story of Hoare's failed attempt to liberate the Seychelles after being hired by its government in exile. I've read some magazine articles on the subject, it'll be nice to read the memoirs of the man in charge of that operation.

The Kingdom: Graphic novel by DC Comics. A sequel to the awesome Kingdom Come series. While not nearly as good as the original I do remember the stories begin entertaining.

Gold & Iron: by Fritz Stern. A study of the relationship between Bismarck and Gerson von Bleichroder and how it influenced the rise of the German nation. Hopefully there will be some useful insights in this book. Some very light pencil underlining and a little stained but good binding.

Pearls from Peoria: by Philip José Farmer. A large collection of short stories by Farmer. This book is huge; about 770 pages or so. It is an ex-library book but in pretty good shape considering that.

The biggest problem I have now is to decide which of these to read first. And since they are new acquisitions for me they won't count for my TBR Pile reading challenges for this year. Well, there are far worse problems to have.