Book Haul Revisit for February

Let's take a look back at the books I hauled in February of 2020 and see how many I've read and how many I'm still interested in reading. I neglected to mention the translators of two of the books, so they are noted below.

Titles mentioned:
My Alexandria, by Mark Doty
The Girl with the Louding Voice, by Abi Daré
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea, by Yukio Mishima (translated by John Nathan)
The Makioka Sisters, by Junichirō Tanizaki (translated by Edward G. Seidensticker)

My husband made a cookbook! Check it out here:

But wait, there's more!

[-ParisTexas-]

Yes! Library building is something I definitely do, but then in e-books. But I should really stop it. I guess I could read for 3 years and not run out of new things to read. So I should really read from my virtual shelf and not get new things.
The Girl With The Louding Voice was great. I enjoyed it so much more than I expected.

[lloyd]

Allways enjoy your books and what you have been reading sending love from new Zealand

[lindseysbooklife]

"I hope I did math right" 😂😂 I have started book haul revisits and it is so fun...and illuminating! That Tanizaki book is beautiful.

[myreadinglife]

Yes I definitely buy books I consider ‘library builders.’ They are almost always classics.

[melissafirman]

Mark Doty is one of my favorite writers. I'll read absolutely anything he writes. In addition to his poetry, I would highly recommend his memoir Dog Years. And I definitely buy books as "library builders." I love the idea of having a curated library.

[doraramirez]

I really like this idea! Maybe a way to remind myself to read what I buy

[dhurd]

The Makioka Sisters has Shawn’s fingerprints all over it. I bought an old yellow mass market version with an ugly cover a few years ago after his glowing description but I covet your beautiful copy.

[dqan]

Between my Kindle, Nook, and physical collection, I probably have a couple lifetimes worth of books. These days I try (not too hard) to limit myself to established classics, but my interests are too wide. I really enjoyed Makioka Sisters. The Kon Ichikawa film adaptation is great too.

[ltruoby]

I wasn't big fan of poetry myself, but now I always read poetry book besides the novel I'm reading. It's great escape and doesn't require much effort and time like reading a novel

[MarilynMayaMendoza]

Hi Greg, I also have a great interest in Japan. I’d very much love to read the Makioka sisters. I lived Over three years in Kobe Japan. I had originally went to visit my daughter who had been teaching there for seven years. She was ready to come home and told me this was my chance to visit Japan. When I arrived, I found that my training in teaching English as a foreign language was very much needed because I was an older woman. It was a wonderful experience learning about Japanese culture and I feel like I left a bit of my heart in Japan when I left. I’d like to visit again one day. In some ways Japan is still very traditional . When you think that during my mothers lifetime, she had experienced the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the propaganda campaign against the Japanese that came with war.When my daughter decided to study Japanese culture and language in college and went to Japan for the first time, My mother was amazed. By the time my mother passed away in 1995, she had completely changed her mind about Japan and Japanese people. Of course that was partly because Japan had changed so drastically after the war. I would love to get the Japanese point of view about the fine line between piece and losing some of their culture. I hope you get to it soon so I can hear your opinion about the book. I tend to stay away from Tomes but I am trying to stretch myself and experience different genres From the ones I usually turn to. Thank you for your channel . Aloha

[josephmarcincuk]

Mishima was a piece of work. I remember being drawn to him because of the Kris Kristofferson-Sarah Miles movie version of "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace WithThe Sea" reset in Scotland, I think but I just couldn't buy into that Samurai culture which eventually killed him (although I named my first Toyota "Mishima."}

[jacquelinemcmenamin]

The Girl With the Louding Voice was abridged on BBC radio 4. It would be great on audio.

[ameliareads]

I am not doing library building on purpose, more by accident, because I always get more books in, than I am always able to read, even if I would try harder. 😉

[cats]

I loved Girl with the Louding Voice. If you can, I would listen to the audio and read along. The audio is great!

[the_broken_spine]

I've been visiting my used library bookstores A LOT lately (in part for retail therapy) for library building books. I'm still very intentional about the books I buy. Just a few weeks ago I found and bought the complete Arabian Knights. It's a 3 volume set, in really good condition and it's beautiful. The likelihood of me reading that set is slim to none.

[mradcaqbdb]

I have Yoko Ogawa’s The Housekeeper and the Professor from that beautiful series. I want to read that soon. I went looking for new books in that series but couldn’t find any. I’ll be curious to see what they come out with next. I also have Abi Daré’s book and need to get to it soon. I’ve heard such great things about it.

[JentheLibrarianreads]

The idea of library building is really interesting. I’m building a library of favourite books but I’d never thought of building a library of potential future reads - I can see that being a great of of collecting certain authors or themes of books ☺️

Also, if you’re looking for more poetry and want something readable and lgbtq I can’t recommend more highly fléche by Mary Jean Chan. I often find poetry hard to read, but there’s a certain style of poet who thinks that you’re not really supposed to understand poetry and it’s supposed to be opaque, I really don’t get along with that style. I used to be intimidated by that, now it just annoys me because it’s just unnecessary 🤣

[jacquelinemcmenamin]

Just lit wood stove here. It’s so cold 🥶

[AJDunnReads]

In 2022 one of my reading goals is going to be queer poetry. I'll add this to the list. I have Danez Smith and Ocean Vuong on it right now.