My holidays have been lovely so far. Apart from a very cold day of rain & hail on Easter Monday (perfect reading weather), the weather has been unusually mild & sunny (which is also perfect reading weather). You probably won't be surprised to learn that some books have made their way into the house. Above are a few books I bought from my favourite remainders booksellers,
Clouston & Hall in Canberra. I've been buying from their mail order catalogues (& now their website) for nearly 30 years. The latest arrivals are two books by Patrick Leigh Fermor.
A Time of Gifts &
Between the Woods & the Water have been recommended by many people over the years so this was a perfect chance to buy them. The other book,
Cat Detective by Vicky Halls, needs no explanation. I need all the help I can get!
The other books are from the Folio Society. I've joined up for another year. I always wait until they offer the books at half price & the time had come. So, you can see I've bought lovely editions of
On The Eve by Turgenev,
Moonfleet by L Meade Falkner & Holinshed's
Chronicles. I've always wanted to read the
Chronicles as they're the basis for many of Shakespeare's plays & this edition has many of the original woodcuts & commentary by Michael Wood, one of my favourite historians.
However, the most exciting of my Folio purchases (& the main reason I renewed my membership) is this one.
Letters to Vicky, the correspondence between Queen Victoria & her daughter, Vicky, the Empress of Germany. This is the most gorgeously produced book I've seen in a very long time. Folio Society books always have lovely paper & good bindings but this one is just glorious. The photos are also beautiful, including several of the Royal family that I hadn't seen before. The letters have been selected from the six volume edition published some time ago. I started reading it last night & I'm loving it.
Vicky married Fritz, a Prince of Germany, at 17 & mother & daughter wrote thousands of letters to each other over the next 45 years. Even in these first two years of the correspondence that I read last night, Queen Victoria has talked about what she called the "shadow side" of marriage - pregnancy & childbirth. Vicky has complained about her new German family & made some very sharp, brutally honest comments about various German princesses being considered as brides for Bertie, the Prince of Wales. It's just luscious. The only problem is that the book is very heavy so I need something lighter in weight to pick up when Lucky decides it's time to sit on my lap or when my neck starts aching.
I also visited one of my favourite secondhand bookshops last week. I had gone to Camberwell to look for a dress to wear at a wedding I'm going to in June. I don't enjoy shopping for clothes so I promised myself a look in
Sainsbury's after I'd been to three clothes shops. I didn't find an outfit but I did find two treasures. This lovely Folio Society edition of Mary Russell Mitford's
Our Village with woodcuts by Joan Hassall. It's one of the Folio Society designs I especially like. Small & square with faux-marbled covers. I also bought a Penguin Deluxe edition of Edith Wharton's
Ethan Frome. This was really silly as I already have two other copies of Ethan but I love this series & couldn't resist. It was in perfect condition & half the price of the copy I saw in another bookshop the same day.
I've also discovered some news of forthcoming publications that I'm very excited about.
This enthusiastic review of
Illyrian Spring by Ann Bridge at Book Snob made me wish again that I owned a copy of this book which has been recommended by every blogger I know. So, I was thrilled to discover at the end of the review that Daunt Books are reprinting
Illyrian Spring next month. I've ordered it already, I couldn't resist. Then, Dani at A Work in Progress mentioned
forthcoming reprints of Helen Macinnes's spy thrillers. I haven't read any of her books but Dani likes them & that's good enough for me.
I know that Elizabeth Von Arnim is hardly a new name to most of you who visit this blog but Penguin have just reprinted
Enchanted April as a
Penguin Modern Classic. The rest of the world does catch up to us eventually! I wonder if they have plans for any more Von Arnim reprints? I've also almost finished cataloguing my tbr shelves on to Library Thing which has become just as addictive as I feared it would. I have almost 1000 books on LT although not all of them are from the tbr shelves. All my Persephones are on there but most of that 1000 are tbr. It's a sobering thought & I've made a holiday resolution to stop buying books for a while. Apart from that preorder of
Illyrian Spring, obviously. I wonder how long I'll last?
We're all in holiday mode here. I know it's not Phoebe's most attractive angle but she looks completely relaxed, doesn't she?
This is a more dignified shot. She does love that purple velvet bed.