Thrifty Thursday (May 21)

Welcome to Thrifty Thursdays!

The rules are simple and are as follows:

1. Each week’s link-up will be posted on Thursday.

2. Post or talk about a book you found used (preferably in a book store or thrift shop).

3. The book must cost less than $5.

4. Be sure to return for the link-up! Weird or strange books are preferred.

Ideally, we all would be exploring authors, books, and genres that we never would have considered otherwise. Some of us may find new favorites. Others may just find some laughs. Either way, we’d be supporting independent booksellers who are the backbone of what we do as bloggers. Of course, these books cost money, and posting each week isn’t required, though you’re certainly welcome to do so. An interesting possibility down the line may be picking a subject or genre and trying to find the oddest possible title.

My pick for this week?

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

Cost: $3.97

Geek Love came highly recommended by Julianne.  After Annihilation, never mind our mutual love for Danielewski’s House of Leaves, I naturally couldn’t help but eventually picking this one up with her approval.  At such a price, I figured why not for Thrifty Thursday?

Total saved thus far compared to new prices: $42.

From Amazon:

Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out–with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes–to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There’s Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family’s most precious–and dangerous–asset.

As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same.

This sounds like it’s going to be a weird one, but weird’s right up my alley.  We all have dysfunctional families, right?  I’m not sure what more I can say.  In some ways,  I feel like I’m going to be reminded of Francesca Lia Block’s Weetzie Bat due to a kind of fairy tale-esque late 80’s/early 90’s parallel alongside a focus on ideas of family values.  Looking forward to it, though, and I’ll be sure to let you know what I think.

What did you pick up on the cheap this week?