Wish List (2)

More great books that I learned about from my fellow bloggers.

Aurelia by Anne Osterlund, from Presenting Lenore

Recommended for anyone who likes their princesses with some backbone to go along with their whalebone corsets.

Sounds like a fun read. Awful cover, though.

Seeing Venice: Bellotto's Grand Canal by Mark Doty, from Bermuda Onion

Reading the essay and seeing the painting makes me want to go to Venice so I would recommend this charming book to lovers of art and Italy.

This ones seems especially apt since who know how much longer Venice will look the way Venice does? (Example: NY Times article on recent floods.)

Artificial Light: A Narrative Enquiry into the Nature of Abstraction, Immediacy and Other Architectural Fictions by Keith Mitnick, from Fantastic Journal (via Bookslut)

This last reaction sets the tone for Keith Mitnick's adult relationship with architecture; troubled, anxious, occasionally nauseous. ... This is a fabulous book - strange, eccentric and intelligent. For once the over familiar claim that preconceptions will be challenged rings true, and architecture seems new again.

From the review, this one sounds challenging but worth it. And it's got a lot that seems up my alley: architecture! Dark humor! the Jersey Shore!

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde, from Presenting Lenore (I'm beginning to think we share similar taste in books!)

I love the creativity and world creation of his Thursday Next series and the premise of this one - A brilliant new novel about a world where social order and destiny are dictated by the colors you can see - sounds highly original.

This one doesn't come out until July 2009, but I had never heard of this author and it sounded so good, it inspired me to pick up The Eyre Affair, the first "Thursday Next" Novel. It's on my TBR shelf (aka my bedside table) so I am hopeful that I will be able to get to it soon.

Gemma Bovery by Posy Simmonds, from Shelf Love

Posy Simmonds has created a marvelous graphic novel in Gemma Bovery, a fresh, sharp, modern take on Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.

Phew, that's quite a lot of reading to be done! And quite a range of topics and styles, too.