One thing I love about bargain book stores like Book Sale is that they have great titles at low prices allowing me to get the most bang out of my money. So after spending an hour digging around the book bins and rummaging through their shelves I walked out with three books:

The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant – A novel set in 15th century Florence, Italy about Alessandra Cecchi, a young woman with a passion for the arts and struggles her way through romance and being married off to an older man chosen by her family while the city is gripped by a fundamentalist monk and its streets stalked by a serial killer. Click here to buy this book.

The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav – This was recommended to me by my highschool mentor whom I happen to bumped into while at Book Sale yesterday. It’s about Zukav’s questioning of the Western concept of the soul and posits that the human species is in the middle of a great transformation and the explosion of human perception beyond the five senses. A very heady book isn’t it? You can click here to buy this book.

Perils of Perestroika: Viewpoints of from the Soviet Press, 1989-1991 – It’s a compilation of 33 articles translated into English from the Soviet press chronicling the reactions and viewpoints about the rapid changes the USSR went through during the last years of the Soviet Union. I look forward to reading this book because it gives a first-hand view of what it was like in the USSR during those turbulent times. Most of what I know about this period I read from Western sources so this book is a welcome counter-balance and a good basis for further studies.

The fourth book in the picture I picked up from Rex Bookstore in Dasmariñas, Cavite. It’s the 2003 edition of Justice Isagani Cruz’ book on International Law. It’s a required reading for my Political Science and Law subjects and of course it would be an essential reference once I get into Law school.

Anyone who has read any of the new books I recently acquired? You can share quick reviews but no spoilers please.