Have you had any sucess finding Russian authors in used book stores?

CharlasFans of Russian authors

Únete a LibraryThing para publicar.

Have you had any sucess finding Russian authors in used book stores?

Este tema está marcado actualmente como "inactivo"—el último mensaje es de hace más de 90 días. Puedes reactivarlo escribiendo una respuesta.

1BookAddict
Ago 5, 2006, 6:21 pm

I have found that Russian authors are difficult to find in thrift or used book stores except for the most widely read titles. I have gotten most of mine from trades on the internet. Any luck in your area? What great finds have you come across?

2kieren_valente
Ago 8, 2006, 12:12 pm

I don't know of how much help this will be still:
due to my english mother and portuguese father I've been partly brought up in London and apart from the internet that's where I've bought most of the books I own. Most of them were bargains. Russian authors were not a particular interest of mine up until college apart from Tolstoi, Dostoievski, Pushkin, Gorki and Sholokhov. All these were easily found both in London and back in Portugal (well in Lisbon). When I started to branch out just a little - Lermontov, Ivan Turgenev, Chekhov, Anna Akhmatova, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Mikhail Bulgakov, Marina Tsvetaeva and others - I still found them widely available and reasonably priced in London.

It's only since I have been trying to find out more about post-soviet russian writers that I've had to increasingly turn to the internet. I quite like Nina Gorlanova but have only read two novels (Love in Rubber Gloves and Roman vospitaniya). I also like some of Vassily Aksyonov's novels such as In Search of Melancholy Babyand Volteryantsy i volteryanki.

Sorry for the long pointless post full of classic names (found no obscure forgotten masterpiece by any - but have much to read yet, so much) and I am certain I typed many things wrong above. My Russian is not very good in this alphabet (marginally better in cyrillic).

3Dydo
Ago 11, 2006, 5:23 pm

BookAddict: I have the same problem you do! It seems I have to buy them from bookstores or not at all! :(

4sanctityshalo Primer Mensaje
Nov 2, 2006, 12:21 am

I've gotten most all of my Russian Lit. books from Half-Price Books. I only have a small portion of my books cataloged due to the rest being boxed away. Try going to half-price books website to see if there is a location by you. All their paperback books are half-off the cover price (even if a book was originally .35). They are an amazing resourse.

5dags
Ene 4, 2007, 7:26 pm

Don't forget, people that Russian lit is of the highest quality so there will be less of them in used shops than other authors (people don't sell the good books they have, they sell the bad ones).

As well, do not forget that MANY Russian works, famous Russian works, are out of copyright. Check http://www.gutenberg.org for your favourite before shelling out money.

6BookAddict
Ene 10, 2007, 2:00 am

Thanks dags, that's a great resource but I don't like reading books online so I have to find a hardcopy. I like sitting in a comfy chair or laying in bed reading :)

7Jargoneer
Ene 10, 2007, 6:42 am

Isn't one of the problems that, leaving out the big names, most Russian writers are published in small numbers, thereby making the books quite scarce to begin with. These copies probably are split between libraries and readers who have an interest in Russian fiction, and very few copies trickle down into the second-hand market.

8freakshow87 Primer Mensaje
Editado: Ene 30, 2007, 1:50 pm

I find it to be pretty hit or miss. With Abebooks and similar sites you can find much Russian literature on-line, but for me anyway, it's more fun to find it in a book store. A couple weeks back I was walking past a bookstore I don't usually go into and in their bargain bin out front I found copies of Goncharov's Oblomov, Gogol's Dead Souls, & Turgenev's Sketches From A Hunter's Album, for $3 each.

9BookAddict
Ene 30, 2007, 8:46 am

wow Freakshow87 those were great finds.
I was lucky enough to find The Master and Margarita a couple of days ago and I found a copy of We by Zamyatin a couple of weeks ago. It takes a long time to find any though :)

10Randy_Hierodule
Feb 1, 2007, 10:55 am

In DC and its suburbs, the selection of Russian authors found in used book stores is perhaps only rivaled by that of vodka brands in the liquor-marts.

I have found M. Agayev's Novel with Cocaine, novels of the Yuris Mamleyev and Olesha, Leonid Andreyev's The Seven That Were Hanged, Boris Pilnyak's Mahogany and Other Stories, the novels of Andrei Bely and Victor Pelevin and others better known.

11BookAddict
Feb 1, 2007, 8:22 pm

benwaugh your lucky :)
I wonder why there is such a good selection there, is there a large Russian community there?
Hey I just thought of something, I should check to see if we have a Russian community centre here and if so find out if they have used books sales.

12fannyprice
Dic 29, 2007, 7:50 pm

>10 Randy_Hierodule:, that is good to know, since I'm in that area again!

When I was in Vancouver, BC on vacation with my parents like 15 years ago & was still studying Russian, I stumbled upon a huge cache of ancient-looking Russian books in Russian - haven't been able to catalog them, sadly. Got a cool bio on Stalin, "The Captain's Daughter" by Aleksander Pushkin (sorry, no matter how I spell it, the touchstone doesn't work), a volume from what appears to be a complete works of Anton Chekhov (sorry, none of these names seem to work), some book on Trostsky that I can't quite decipher with my crap Russian, and a whole messload of other things. It was one of the weirder souvenirs I picked up on a trip. I don't know if there is a large Russian community there, but it was sure neat to find all that stuff!

13Gypsy_Boy
Ene 6, 2008, 8:43 pm

Although I've occasionally resorted to the net to find something via Bookfinder, I've had very good luck both with 19th century and even contemporary Russian fiction at various used bookstores here in the Chicago area. From the rather common classics you can expect to find most anywhere to some truly arcane things, I've had pretty good luck and attribute it, I guess, to the large university population here, among other things.

14notenoughbookshelves
Editado: Feb 11, 2008, 1:32 am

The Brother Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky $1.00
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky $1.00
The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy $.50
One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn $.50
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov $.50 which is on this copy is the original price.

At local thrift stores, library used book sections, & veterans thrift stores.
Used book stores if they have them they usually charge an arm and leg for them.

Plus about 50+ of the list of "1001 books to read before you die" plus numerous other great finds. A weekly obsession of mine. More then 2/3rds of the books I own I have acquired at these fine establisments. It makes for a fun search.

Únete para publicar