My books are looking for a new home (updated)

When I visited the local library earlier this week, a book fell off the shelf and landed at my feet.

That’s certainly an improvement from what happened the last time I went to the library. I’d been reaching for a book on the top shelf, when three other books adjacent to the one I was trying to extract tumbled down. One of them hit me nicely on the head. It hurt. It wasn’t a paperback.

Fortunately, other than feeling a little dazed – and furtively glancing over my shoulder to see whether any fellow borrowers had witnessed this embarrassing mishap – it caused no lasting damage. Well, none that I know of.

Anyhow, this time the book was Karen Kingston’s Clear your Clutter with Feng Shui. (Her website, if you’re curious, is http://www.spaceclearing.com/.)

Was this a message from the universe that my cupboards needed de-cluttering?

Yes, indeed. The universe had obviously picked up on some repressed and unconscious urge to autumn-clean the house (I didn’t have time to spring-clean last year).

I regarded it as such, and promptly took the book home, where I read it from cover to cover. Not in one sitting, no, because the first chapter or two was so inspirational that I leapt up immediately to tackle the clutter. I’ll tell you about that another time.

For now, I just want to tell you: THAT BOOK IS BRILLIANT! If you need any urging or prompting to clean out your closets and toss out all that STUFF you’ve never used, never worn, haven’t worn in years, have disliked for years although it was a present from a close friend … it will give you all the motivation you need.

As part of the entire exercise, I want to sell, give away, and donate a lot of my books.

If you want one, two or more (and preferably if you are in Cape Town, unless you don’t mind paying the postage and waiting for the SA Post Office to deliver), let me know! For the sake of simplicity, I haven’t included any prices, but just give me a shout and I’ll tell you what, if anything, it’ll cost. It really won’t be much! Many of them are very new or in really excellent condition, but some of them are second-hand.

Here is the first batch of books that need a new home:

Fiction

1. Samuel Beckett – Murphy
2. Samuel Beckett – Watt
3. Sybille Bedford – Jigsaw
4. Maeve Binchy – The Copper Beech
5. Maeve Binchy – Quentins
6. Maeve Binchy – Tara Road
7. Maeve Binchy – Evening Class
   
8. Italo Calvino – If on a winter’s night a traveller
9. Jack Canfield and others – Chicken Soup for the Couple’s Soul – Inspirational stories about love and relationships
10. Jack Canfield and others – Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul – Stories to open the heart and rekindle the spirits of women [Sold!]
    
11. Jack Canfield and others – Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work – 101 Stories of courage, compassion and creativity in the workplace [Sold!]
    
12. Paulo Coelho – Brida – A moving tale of love, passion, mystery and spirituality from the master storyteller and author of The Alchemist [Sold!]
    
13. Paulo Coelho – The Devil and Miss Prym – About the struggle within every soul between light and darkness, and its relevance to our everyday struggles [Sold!]
    
14. J M Coetzee – Age of Iron (hardcover)
15. J M Coetzee – Dusklands (hardcover)
16. J M Coetzee – Foe (hardcover)
17. Li Cunxin – Mao’s Last Dancer
18. Arielle Ford – Hot Chocolate for the Lover’s Soul – 101 true stories of soul mates
19. E M Forster – Where angels fear to tread
    
20. E M Forster – A room with a view
21. E M Forster – A passage to India
22. E M Forster – Maurice
23. John Fowles – The French Lieutenant’s Woman
24. Edward M Hallowell – Human Moments – How heartfelt connections can bring you greater love, health and happiness
25. Khaled Hosseini – The Kite Runner
26. Khaled Hosseini – A Thousand Splendid Suns – Set in Afghanistan, this is a deeply moving story of family and friendship
27. John Irving – The World according to Garp
28. James Joyce – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
29. Garrison Keillor – Lake Wobegon Days
30. D H Lawrence – Women in Love
31. Marina Lewycka – A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian: A Novel
32. Sharon Owens – The Tavern on Maple Street
33. Robert M Pirsig – Lila: An inquiry into morals
34. Luke Rhinehart – Adventures of Wim
35. Paulina Simons – Tatiana & Alexander – The World at War… Two People in Love
36. John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy of Dunces
37. Sue Townsend – The Queen and I – a very funny book by the author of the Adrian Mole series

Non-Fiction

1. Michael Asher – Impossible Journey: Two against the Sahara
2. Confetti.co.uk – Wedding Readings for church and civil ceremonies [Sold!]
   
3. John Edward – Crossing Over: The stories behind the stories
4. Victoria Finlay – Buried Treasure: Travels through the jewel box – When we put on jewels, what are we really wearing?
5. Kate Gordon – A Practical Guide to Alternative Weddings [Sold!]
   
6. John Gray – Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus – A practical guide for improving communication and getting what you want in your relationships
7. C G Jung – Four Archetypes: Mother, Rebirth, Spirit, Trickster
8. Holger Kersten – Jesus lived in India
9. A T Langford – Why Men Marry – Insights from men about what makes them ready for marriage
10. Bob Mandel – Two Hearts are better than One – A handbook on creating and maintaining a lasting and loving relationship
11. William McGarey – The Edgar Cayce Remedies
12. George Monbiot – No Man’s Land – An investigative journey through Kenya and Tanzania
13. Thomas Moore – Soul Mates: Honouring the mysteries of love and relationship
14. Caroline Myss – Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can – A practical programme for healing body, mind and spirit [Sold!]
    
15. Cheryl Nissinen – The Conscious Bride – Women unveil their true feelings about getting hitched
16. Mark Prophet and Elizabeth Prophet – The Lost Teachings of Jesus
17. Jon Ronson – The Men Who Stare at Goats – This story is about what happened when a small group of men – highly placed within the United States military, the government, and the intelligence services – began believing in very strange things [Sold!]
    
18. Torkom Saraydarian – Other Worlds
19. Rory Steyn – One Step behind Mandela – The story of Rory Steyn, Nelson Mandela’s chief bodyguard, as told to Debora Patta
20. Marilyn Vos Savant – The Power of Logical Thinking – Easy lessons in the art of reasoning – and hard facts about its absence in our lives
21. Nick Williams – The work we were born to do – Find the work you love, love the work you do. [Sold!]
    

Poetry and Plays

1. Michael Chapman (ed.) – A century of South African poetry
2. John Keats – Poetical Works
3. Cecily Lockett (ed.) – Breaking the silence: A century of South African women’s poetry
4. William Shakespeare – Histories and Poems (Everyman’s Library)
5. William Shakespeare – Comedies (Everyman’s Library)
6. William Shakespeare – Tragedies (Oxford UP)
7. Peter Shaffer – Four Plays (The private liar, The public eye, White liars, Black comedy)
8. Peter Shaffer – Amadeus
9. Sam Shepard – Seven Plays (True West, Buried Child, Curse of the Starving Class, The Tooth Crime, La Turista, Tongues, Savage/Love)
10. Tom Stoppard – Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead [Sold!]
    

Language

1. Mona Baker – In Other Words: A coursebook on translation
2. Lonely Planet – Czech Phrasebook with two-way dictionary
3. Norman Scarlyn Wilson – Teach Yourself French
4. Hugo – Italian in Three Months – Simplified language course
5. Olga Ragusa – Essential Italian Grammar
6. Italian Phrase Book – Teach Yourself Series
7. Dorling Kindersley – Italian Phrasebook

German-language Books

1. Harald Fritzsch – Quarks: Urstoff unserer Welt
2. Jeff Love – Die Quantengoetter: Ursprung und Natur von Materie und Bewusstsein
3. Ramakrishna – Ausgewaehlte
4. Jess Stearn – Der Schlafende Prophet: Prophezeiungen in Trance 1911 bis 1998 (Edgar Cayce)