I hope you all had a great Easter! I had a very restful time on my holiday, and glad to be back to blogging now.
I’m enjoying looking back at my monthly purchases – it helps keep me honest, and it also makes each month either a Read More Than Bought or a Bought More Than Read month. And it’s good to know which is which. March is… Bought More Than Read! Which I’m going to count as a victory… though it was a pretty close-run thing. Here are the seven books I bought in March…
Flesh and Blood by Michael Cunningham
I popped into a charity shop on the way to a course, with only about two minutes to spare – and luckily that two minutes included spying a Cunningham novel I don’t yet have. I’ve only read four of his books, but I really love his writing – this one will be great one day.
A Book of Book Lists
Impulse buy! Well done, Waterstones and whoever stocks the piles near your till. This is all sorts of lists of books – from those that are most likely to be left unfinished, to the books Scott took on his trip. I can’t resist this sort of thing.
None Like Him by Jen Wilkin
My small group at church is reading this one, and I’d better get a move on because they’ve read two chapters and I’ve read… none.
Trespasses by Paul Bailey
We popped into Bakewell on my holiday – I’ve just been away for a week in the Peak District with dozens of others – and came upon a little bookshop. Somebody else got the signed Debo Devonshire book before I could get to it (it’s ok – he’s a big Debo fan too, so I let it slide) but I grabbed this Paul Bailey, after loving At the Jerusalem.
Love, Courtship, and Marriage by Thomas Herne
I’m already kinda incensed because this guide to marriage and sex from the 1920s would have been PERFECT for chapter 3 of my DPhil thesis. Oh well. I’ll still enjoy reading it – I find these sorts of books completely fascinating. Also from the Bakewell bookshop!
Albert and the Dragonettes by Rosemary Weir
Albert’s World Tour by Rosemary Weir
I’m going to write about Albert the Dragon properly one of these days. But I realised I didn’t have the whole series, and should rectify that…
Like the sound of the book of book lists. Every time I see a list I mentally tick off which I have read or purchased as if at the end of it I will get a prize!
Ha, me too! There is personal satisfaction, if nothing else :)
I hope you had a blessed Easter, Simon.
I certainly did — & for the first time in my life, ‘provided a foot for the washing’ on Maundy Thursday. Quite a strange feeling having one’s priest on his knees before you, imitating Christ’s action on Holy Thursday night!
I, too, am a total devotee of lists of books to read, whether they appear as whole books, sections of books, in magazines, or handed out by enthusiastic librarians & their ilk. Imagine, then, my joyous surprise when, after several months of heroic sorting, dusting & (where necessary) repairing my entire, very large library (a whole new Labour of Hercules!), I discovered as a reward for my labours, a brand-new, totally unopened-by-human-hands, copy of Clifton Fadiman’s The Lifetime Reading Plan, a book I had completely forgotten I had ever bought, & the name of which was currently near the top of my list of those books I chiefly covet! Nobody now can teach me anything about the rewards of virtue! QED.
How wonderful! I’ve only read books by his daughter Anne, but this sounds wonderful – and enough to make me want to start tidying…
And that Maundy Thursday experience sounds very poignant. We found a great church in the Peak District for Good Friday, though it did feel odd not to be at home for Easter.
Are you loving your book-buying freedom this year, now that Project 24 is over? I’ve not heard of any of these before, which is always my favourite sort of bookish pile to admire. I do have a query though: once a DPhil is completed, do you spend the rest of your life cursing every book you come across that would have been perfect for your thesis? Or do you think you eventually make peace with it? Many of my friends are in the same boat and, a decade on, they are not ready to make peace yet when they unearth perfect material. A few more decades are probably required…
I am! Mostly because I can go into bookshops without worrying too much that I’ll be tempted to distraction.
And I’ll have to keep you posted on the DPhil question… if there is an end to it, it hasn’t come yet! Though luckily I’ve not found any primary fiction texts that would have been perfect – which would be much worse.
Oh, Flesh and Blood is brilliant, that was the first of his I read, and Matthew loved it, too. Good buys! And glad you had a lovely holiday.
Oh great! I haven’t seen as much about it as some of his, so I’m really glad it’s a good’un :)
Oooh, nice finds. I’d like to read some Paul Bailey at some point, if for nothing else than the connection to Elizabeth Taylor! :)
That’s certainly why I started!!
Glad to know you had an enjoyable break and you bought books!
I want that Book of Book Lists. :D Also, I would feel no guilt in that kind of purchase because it isn’t a book one reads but rather refers to!
It’s basically a non-book, in terms of guilt, right? There was no world in which I would have left it there.
Great book buying there. I really want to read more Paul Bailey, and I’m reminded I do have one hiding somewhere on my tbr bookcase. I have been buying too.
Thanks for the kind words about my A Book of Book Lists. I’m really glad you enjoyed it. At the very genuine risk of sounding like I’m trying to sell you my latest book, I think you’ll be interested in my latest book, Book Towns, which is all about all the places around the world which are like Hay-on-Wye.
Well I’ve just added that to my wish list, having added Book Lists to it when Simon mentioned it …
I spotted that in Waterstones the other day, and it’s definitely on my wishlist! And, now I’ve looked at your site, also the bookshelf book…
Large thanks. I think you will enjoy it!
I bought more books in March than any reasonable person could ever need in a single month, and I don’t want to post a picture of all of them because then I’d have to confront the choices I’m making. Dear oh dear, perhaps I ought to do a book-buying ban on myself for at least the summer. Except then would I have to say no to asking for books for my birthday? What a woeful existence that would be.