The theme of my book purchases this month was apparently translated authors from eastern Europe.  I bought two new books:

• Herscht 07769 by Lazlo Krasznahorkai - After Satantango and Seiobo There Below, I will read any Krasznahorkai that I come across.  I wasn't aware of this book, but came across it in the bookstore, and now it's mine!
• The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk - I really enjoyed Flights and Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, so here's another case where I bought this based on the author without much sense of what this book is about.  Kind of cool to have a signed edition from a Nobel Prize winner, though.

My reading slowed down a bit in September, as classes kicked into high gear, but I did read Pnin and it rated very high on the "quiet chuckles to myself per chapter" metric.  Thoroughly enjoyed it, even though reading Nabokov always gives me trust issues with every one of his narrators.

I also read The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera, which won a couple of sci-fi/fantasy awards this year for debut novel.  It was an interesting story, set in south Asia (but an alternate world overlaid on top of it).  Having read this and Rakesfall from Chandrasekera, I find his projects interesting, and I could see him writing something in the future that really puts it all together and blows me away.  These two books didn't quite get there for me, but still worth a look if like this kind of cultural sci-fi/fantasy hybrid genre.

How many z's are in the last name of the authors of the books you read or bought in the last month?