New Books!

My current read is going quite slowly, partly because I also started something else and abandoned it after 100 pages, but also because it's a book to savour. It's In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor, edited by Charlotte Mosley. It's one of those books that you can sit down, read a few letters over a cup a tea and a biscuit, go and sort the laundry, tidy up after your husband, come back, read a few more letters. I love it. PLF travelled a lot and some of his European trips he wrote to Debo about. Wonderful descriptions of the Balkans, the mountains of Greece and Spain and so on. And Debo is so funny. She wrote to Paddy:


THE INTERNATIONAL PRIMATE PROTECTION LEAGUE

'This came, usual thing asking for money. Poor Archbishops, I thought, feeling the pinch. But it turned out to be monkeys'.


I laughed so much, sitting up in bed, that the headboard kept knocking against the wall and I was afraid I would wake my husband up.

Anyway, more about this book when I've finished it.

Last year was a year in which I stinted myself where buying new books was concerned. Every time I saw or read about a book I wanted to read, I checked the library first to see if they had it. I probably saved myself a lot of money. All this is leading up to a confession of course. And that is, *coughcough*, that over December and January I went a bit mad. In my defense some were either gifts or charity shop buys. (Honest!) But altogether nine new books have come into the house over the last 6 to 8 weeks. These are they:




Thames - Peter Ackroyd. I have to say that I've covetted this book for several years. Seen it in book shops, wanted it and resisted. But I bought myself My Mutual Friend by Dickens a while back and it struck me that the two books would be compatible... so I caved in and bought Thames. And I love it of course. Such a beautiful book.

Passion and Principle by Sally Denton. A book about John and Jessie Fremont and American politics. A friend recced it as a good one to read for my US challenge so I sent for it along with Thames. Call them my Christmas presents to myself. It's another very beautiful book.

The House of Silk - Anthony Horowitz. The writer of Foyle's War and the Alex Rider books of course. I didn't know he'd written a new Holmes book until I saw it in Tescos. In the trolly it went.

The Glitter and the Gold - Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan. American heiress, Consuelo Vanderbilt, married the Duke of Marlborough in 1895 and came to live in England. This is the story of her life... real-life Downton Abbey sort of thing I gather. Christmas gift from my eldest daughter.




The New Springtime by Robert Silverberg. The sequel to At Winter's End which I reviewed recently. Amazon Marketplace came up with a nice hardback copy of this.

Classic Ghost Stories compiled by Vic Parker. Nabbed from a charity shop, beautifully illustrated. Good find.

A Short Residence in Sweden - Mary Wollstonecraft and Memoirs of the Author of 'The Rights of Woman' by William Godwin. Random charity shop grab, thought it looked interesting.

The Langhorne Sisters - James Fox. Possibly the American equivalent of the Mitfords, I'm told. Another charity shop purchase for my American books challenge.

And last but not least:




I was talking with my lovely brother about Cornish books and saying that my copy of Frenchman's Creek is a bit tatty and I ought to get another. Next thing I know this arrived in the post from him. Thrilled to bits! I shall be rereading this soon as I read it several times as a teenager and not once since. So it'll be interesting to see what I think of it now I'm in my er... fifties (just over a year and I won't even be able to say that!)

Anyway. Pleased as Punch with my lovely haul of books and plan to ease off a bit now until I've read some of them. Happy reading!
~~~oOo~~~