One Night Stanzas

UPDATE: guys, these books here in the photo? These aren’t the books I’m giving away — this is just a pic off Flickr! Scroll down for the full list in the blog text!

So guys, I’m likely moving house soon (VERY EXCITING), and between us, Lovely Boyfriend and I own at least a metric ton of books (really. I think this might be quite an accurate figure). Once I own a book, I am generally extremely loath to part with it again (hence the metric ton thing), but the prospect of carrying all the books we currently own down five flights of stairs and all the way across town has forced me to seriously consider the creaking, slightly-bowed problems that are my various bookshelves.

The list below is only a tiny fraction of my book collection, but it’s also only phase one: when my PhD thesis is finally finished, I’ll likely have a load more academic tomes and textbooks to offload. However, what little there is here I am throwing open to you lot before just sending it all to the charity shop. Would you like a free book? A bunch of free books? If you can come and collect them from Tollcross, they’re yours. Have a browse:

Poetry

GONE, SORRY!The Invisible Mender by Sarah McGuire (Cape)
GONE, SORRY!Looking Through Letterboxes by Caroline Bird (Carcanet)
Trouble Came To The Turnip by Caroline Bird (Carcanet)
Orphaned Latitudes by Gerard Rudolf (Red Squirrel Press)
GONE, SORRY!Cascade Experiment by Alice Fulton (Norton)
GONE, SORRY!Sensual Math by Alice Fulton (Norton)
On Purpose by Nick Laird (Faber)
Not In These Shoes by Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch (Picador)
The Janus Hour by Anne Stewart (Oversteps Books)
GONE, SORRY!Lyric/Anti-Lyric: Essays on Contemporary Poetry by Douglas Barbour
The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America by David Whyte

Fiction

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad (Oxford World’s Classics)
Wieland: Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist by Charles Brockden Brown (Oxford World’s Classics)
GONE, SORRY!Wetlands by Charlotte Roche (hardback)
GONE, SORRY!Ten Women Who Shook The World by Sylvia Brownrigg
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos

Essays

GONE, SORRY!Wallflower at the Orgy by Nora Ephron
GONE, SORRY!Complete Prose by Woody Allen
GONE, SORRY!Mothers by Daughters edited by Joanna Goldsworthy (Virago)
The Bastard on the Couch edited by Daniel Jones

Women’s Studies/Feminism and Literary Criticism

Dropped Threads: What We Aren’t Told edited by Carol Shields and Marjory Anderson (2001)
GONE, SORRY!Flux: women on sex, work, love, kids and life in a half-changed world edited by Peggy Orenstein (2000)
Men Writing The Feminine: Literature, Theory and the Question of Genders edited by Thais E Morgan (1994)
GONE, SORRY!Is The Future Female?: Troubled Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism Lynne Segal (1987)
GONE, SORRY!The Female Gaze: Women as Viewers of Popular Culture edited by Lorraine Gamman and Margaret Marshment (1988)*
The Fragile Male by Ben Greenstein**
Critical Approaches to Literature by David Daiches (hardback) (1956)

Other

The Best of Cosmopolitan: The 70s and 80s (I know, wtf? I can’t remember when I bought it or why the hell.)
A Handbook of Games and Simulation Exercises edited by GI Gibbs (inexplicably, given to me by my parents, who’ve had it in their book collection — which makes mine look PUNY — since 1974, when it was published. Fascinating if you’re interested in the education system of 1960 & 70s Britain, I’m sure.)

I also have a bunch of 12″ spoken word LPs if you’re interested — mostly ‘great poets’ (Hardy, Pound, Robert Graves) and a few random kitsch things I bought on whims in thrift shops (an LP of the juicier scenes from Dracula, for example, and an LP of a totally trippy reading of Alice in Wonderland). Totally let me know if you’re into weird-literature-on-vinyl!

*Just to show what a small world Edinburgh is: I just noticed that this book has “Hannah McGill, Christmas 1994″ biro-d into the front flyleaf. It became mine via an Edinburgh charity shop.
**OK, this is a book by a Men’s Rights Activist, which I bought because I, stupidly, wanted to hate-read it. Thankfully, I never got round to it, but it looks HEINOUS.

Finally, NB: I haven’t actually read some of these books, so if you ask for a review first, I only might be able to provide one.

Drop a comment in the comments box or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com to let me know if you’d like any of these!

You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

So, I as I mentioned last week, the British Library were kind enough to send me a copy of The Spoken Word: British Poets, a great CD boxed set of modern poets reading their work, to feature at One Night Stanzas.

The Spoken Word: British Poets is a three-CD set featuring “historic recordings of British poets reading their own poetry.” The full list of poets included is at the bottom of this post, but highlights for me were Edith Sitwell, Stevie Smith, Edwin Morgan and Ian Hamilton Finlay. There are a staggering 115 tracks in total, plus a booklet featuring an introductory essay by Andrew Motion.

One lucky One Night Stanzas reader will get their hands on this cornucopia of poetic delights, free and gratis, as a little present from me and the British Library. All you have to do to be in with a chance is leave a comment at the bottom of this post. It can be literally anything — tell me which poet’s work you most love when read aloud, tell me what spoken word pieces you’d include on your ultimate compilation CD, or just leave me a little ‘hello’! You just need to put something in the comment box before noon on Friday 19th October. After that, I’ll get the magical interwebpipes to generate a random winner, and the CD will wing its way to your door!
(NB: ONS now has comment moderation, so your comment won’t appear immediately, but don’t worry — I know it’s there!)

If you like the sound of The Spoken Word: British Poets and want to make sure you get a copy — maybe you don’t like this gambling malarkey! — then you can buy yourself one at the British Library Shop. There are also others in the Spoken Word series: American Writers looks particularly excellent. Here’s the full listing for the giveaway CD — get commenting, and good luck!

DISC ONE: Alfred Tennyson // Robert Browning // Laurence Binyon // Walter De la Mare // John Masefield // Edith Sitwell // Hugh MacDiarmid // Robert Graves // David Jones // Basil Bunting // Stevie Smith

DISC TWO: Cecil Day Lewis // John Betjeman // W H Auden // Louis MacNeice // Stephen Spender // Sorley MacLean // R S Thomas // George Barker // Dylan Thomas // David Gascoyne

DISC THREE: John Heath-Stubbs // W. S. Graham // Edwin Morgan // George Mackay Brown // Kingsley Amis // Philip Larkin // Ian Hamilton Finlay // Thom Gunn // Ted Hughes

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!