Free Books in October

Too late for the autumnal equinox, or even for Canadian Thanksgiving; yet too early for Hallowe’en: here, not quite coinciding with either my sixth wedding anniversary, or the third anniversary of the conception of this site, is the seventh of my occasional free book giveaways. Peruse the list of books below. If you’d like one of them, check the comments to see whether your choice has already been claimed or not: if not, then leave a comment stating which book you want. Once you have laid claim to the volume of your choice, send me an e-mail (to mr.h@spamula.net) which contains your snail-mail address. In a few days’ time, I’ll sort through the requests, and will decide who gets what: in most cases, it’ll simply happen that the first person to claim a book will be the one who receives it. I’ll mail out the books within a week or so (I will pay all postage costs). I’m limiting the offer to one book per recipient (except in the case of #10—see below).

1. Baroque and Rococo Pictorial Imagery: The 1758-1760 Hertel Edition of Ripa’s Iconologia, published by Dover Books. Had this been a little less Rococo and a little more Baroque then I would be keeping it. As it is, the imagery, while elaborate and not uninteresting, doesn’t have whatever quality it is that particularly attracts me to late-16th-Century and early-17th-Century emblem-books & their ilk. The book has 430pp; ISBN: 0486227480.

2. A Matter of Death and Life by Andrey Kurkov, translated from the Russian by George Bird. This slender novella by the author of the delightful Death and the Penguin has a premise I had met with elsewhere (a man engages the services of a hit-man to end his own life, but then comes to have second thoughts) but Kurkov adds a couple of sharp twists which just suffice to keep his tale from falling flat. My copy is of the UK harcover ediiton; 128pp; ISBN: 1843431041.

3. The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch, translated from the Dutch by Paul Vincent. Late one night, whilst driving through the deserted streets of The Hague, womanising astronomer Max Delius happens upon absent-minded linguist Onno Quist in what seems to them a chance meeting, but in fact is an encounter precisely choreographed by an interested third party. What follows is the story of their peculiar friendship, of their complicated joint involvement with musician Ada Brons, the progress of their careers, and ultimately of the remarkable son born from their three-way relationship. This stout novel (736pp) has some slow & awkward spots but for the most part is engrossing and thought-provoking. This is a UK paperback edition published by Penguin. ISBN: 0140272380.

4. Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey. This first novel didn’t strike me as particularly remarkable, but it was generally very well-reviewed: ‘A sublime take on the Gothic horror novel,’ ‘a strange and beautiful book.’ Its plot centres on Francis Orme, heir to the eponymous Mansions, a magnificent estate turned apartment-complex, who works as a living statue ‘practicing “inner and outer stillness,”’ meanwhile curating a private museum of stolen objects. Statistically improbable phrases from the book give a good idea of the flavour of its prose: upright pine chair, glove diary, flesh dummy, outer stillness, wax sculptors, hundred smells, wax people, moustache man, remembered aloud, wooden eyes, red leather armchair, statue plinth… My copy is the UK paperback edition published by Picador, (368pp). ISBN: 033039116X.

5. Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer by Peter S. Turchi. I bought this book after reading that it had won an award in an international competition for the most beautiful or best-designed books. It is indeed a notably handsome, well-made volume, but I found that the text itself, a discourse on the likenesses and analogies between map-making and story-telling, struck me as lacking in depth; perhaps a little too much like a map itself, and not quite enough like the territory it describes. This hardcover book is published by the Trinity University Press, and runs to 224 pages; ISBN: 159534005X.

6. Celestial Harmonies, by Péter Esterházy, translated from the Hungarian by Judith Sollosy. This long novel relates ‘the intricate chronicle of the Esterházy family, a saga spanning seven centuries of epic conquest, tragedy, triumph, and near-annihilation. Told by a scion of this populous clan, Celestial Harmonies is dazzling in scope and profound in implication. It is fiction at its most awe-inspiring.’ Well, maybe so, but I couldn’t get more than a few-dozen pages into it, and, if I ever try reading it again, it won’t be this cheaply-&-nastily made UK hardcover edition issued by HarperCollins’ Flamingo imprint; 608pp; ISBN: 0007141475.

7. On Beauty: A History of a Western Idea, edited by Umberto Eco and Girolamo de Michele, and translated from the Italian by Alastair McEwen. One has to look carefully on the back of the title-page to see that this book is adapted from a CD-ROM project issued in Italy a few years ago. Such is the selling-power of Eco’s name, that he could probably get his Collected Shopping Lists published if he put his mind to it. Nevertheless, this history, while sometimes a little perfunctory, is fairly interesting, and includes extracts from numerous notable writings about beauty. The book’s best feature, though, are its many delightful illustrations. This is a 438pp UK hardcover edition published by Secker & Warburg; ISBN: 0436205173.

8. The Mirror:A History by Sabine Melchior-Bonnet, translated from the French by Katharine Jewett. Even though this history has a fairly narrowly French focus, it is still an interesting glance at some reflections from the past, and a nicely-made little book. The publisher’s blurb: ‘This engaging cultural history traces the evolution of the mirror from antiquity to the present day, illustrating its journey from miraculous wonder to commonplace object. Drawing on rich sources of history, art, literature and philosophy, the author recounts the story of the mirror as one of discovery and invention, commerce and intrigue.’ My copy is a UK hardcover, 288pp; ISBN: 0415924472.

9. Either/Or (Part I), by Søren Kierkegaard, edited, and translated from the Danish by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Every year or two I will forget my customary antipathy toward philosophical tracts and, acting on some uncharacteristic impulse, will order a big book of thinking-aloud, an impulse which, by the time the book arrives, I will find myself beginning to regret. Alas, I only have to think about this thick block of a book by the Danish proto-existentialist and my eyes glaze over; it’s a 728pp US paperback edition, courtesy of the Princeton University Press; ISBN: 0691020418.

10. Il Sistema Periodico by Primo Levi, is one of the books I bought while in Italy optimistically thinking that my command of the language would advance to the point where I could read it; an ambition I failed to realise. I had read it in English translation some years earlier, and it is a book I still love. I’ll throw in my copy of Levi’s I Sommersi e I Salvati too, if the claimant wants it. Both books are Einaudi Tascabili (pocket-paperback) editions. 264pp/184pp. ISBNs: 8806135171/8806126954.