Yet again, June has seen me busily sorting out wedding things; every time I think we’ve got it all done someone thinks of something else that we need to organise.  On top of that, we’ve been battling against the church beaurocracy which is making things unnecessarily difficult for us for a number of reasons, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed and holding our thumbs that it all works out.

June has been a mixed month for books, there being a fairly even spread of books that were great, books I really enjoyed and books that were just ok.  As in May, I only managed 13 books this month, totalling 3,968 pages.  Although I read some pretty chunky ones, this was balanced out with some much smaller volumes in between, averaging out at 305 pages per book.   This month I read:

1. Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg
2. Black Butterfly by Mark Gatiss
3. Anderby Wold by Winifred Holtby
4. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
5. Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Maugham
6. Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey*
7. Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism by Natasha Walter
8. Mapp and Lucia by E. F. Benson
9. Penguin Lost by Andrey Kurkov
10. The Pleasures of English Food by Alan Davidson
11. The Jane Austen Handbook by Margaret C. Sullivan
12. Wessex Tales by Thomas Hardy
13. The Sixth Wife by Suzannah Dunn

Rather surprisingly, the best book I read this month was the first one: Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg.  I picked it up expecting something light and entertaining, but while it was definitely entertaining it was actually rather insightful and the narrative voice of Daisy Fay is just captivating.  I also really enjoyed Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey although that was no surprise as I’ve read it before in 2009.  It’s a huge, sweeping fantasy book set in a world which is an alternative middle ages Europe and I found it just as absorbing on the second reading as it was on the first.

Additionally this month I’ve enjoyed American Gods by Neil Gaiman, which was good but not as good as I wanted it to be; I returned to Winifred Holtby’s Yorkshire in Anderby Wold which shows the beginning of the themes and ideas which are so beautifully expressed in South Riding; I continued watching the antics of E. F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia which was delightful, if not my favourite of the series; and, although I don’t think he’s ever likely to become a favourite author, I conquered my fear of Thomas Hardy by reading his Wessex Tales.  The short story format and very pretty Folio Society edition that I read might have helped with that last one.

As in any month, there were some books which I found less appealing.  In fact, it was a month of disappointing follow up books as three of the duff books were by authors that I’ve really enjoyed in the past.  The Black Butterfly by Mark Gatiss was nowhere near as entertaining as his previous novels about the camp, roguish spy Lucifer Box; Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Maugham was rather a let down after how much I liked my first book of his, Up at the Villa; and I loved Andrey Kurkov’s Death and the Penguin last year but the sequel Penguin Lost unfortunately left me cold.  The top of the list of shame is The Sixth Wife by Suzannah Dunn, a historical novel about Catherine Parr but written in a bizarrely modern idiom.  I couldn’t get into it at all, and it’s saved me buying any of her other books, some of which had seemed quite tempting before so at least it’s done a service to the TBR pile.

Speaking of the TBR pile, I’ve been really rather restrained (for me) in my book buying this month: just 13 new books have found their way into the house, 4 of which I’ve since read.  I was given a copy of Virago’s reissue of Anderby Wold by Winifred Holtby at the Virago Book Club meeting discussing South Riding and I started reading that almost as soon as I got it.  I bought Living Dolls by Natasha Walter from Amazon and read it immediately, in anticipation of last night’s Virago Book Club event with the author.  Swiftly after that, I bought Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey (also from Amazon) to act as a sort of reading antidote for Walter’s book.  Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami came from Amazon in anticipation of a new book club which is being started up near where I work.  Sadly I can’t make the first meeting, but it’s introduced me to a really interesting new-to-me author as I think I’ve benefitted in the long run.

Then there’s the books that I haven’t yet got round to reading.  I purchased Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons from Amazon as I want to read it quite soon after reading the terrible House in Dormer Forest by Mary Webb, which it satirises, so the original is still fresh in my mind.  From one of the second hand book shops along Charing Cross Road I have picked up The Land of Green Ginger by Winifred Holtby, as the more I read of her the more I want to read; New York Mosaic by Isabel Bolton which I’d never heard of but looks rather interesting; and Peter Abelard by Helen Waddell, who I didn’t know wrote anything other than medieval scholarship until I spotted this little novel.  From charity shops for the princely sum of £1 each I bought Rasero by Francisco Rebolledo (a Spanish novel of 18th century France), The Stone Boudoir by Theresa Maggio (a book about the little villages in Sicily that tourists never visit) and My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin (a Virago; need I say more?).  The bargain of the month has to be a brand new hardback copy of Sunnyside by Glen David Gold, author of Carter Beats the Devil which I loved, which I snapped up for a mere 49p in The Works.  It’s too heavy for train reading but I can’t wait till I have time to pick it up.

May has been yet another very busy month in the non-reading world, and June looks as though it’s going to be equally packed.  This month’s exciting news is that the Old English Thorn and I have put down a holding deposit on our first rented flat together!  With no particular requirements other than a decent commuting time from London it took us a while to settle on a location that we really liked, but this month we went to visit a lovely little town in Sussex and the very same day found the perfect flat.  A morning off work later in the week and another trip back there made it ours and we’re both really happy.  It even has a second bedroom that (naturally) is going to be a library.  The landlords want to refurbish it after the previous tenants vacate (how terrible for us!) but it should be ours by mid July, although I won’t move in until after the September wedding.  Speaking of the wedding, I’ve also just heard that our flowers are now all sorted, so things are moving along apace.

And now back to more bookish concerns.  In May I read fewer books than usual, totalling fewer pages as well, which is an indication of how busy I’ve been.  I managed 13 books this month, comprising 3,480 pages in total, making each book an average of 268 pages long.  However, unlike in previous months when I’ve found reading shorter books a bit unsatisfying, in May it was exactly what I needed: nearly all of the books that I read were enjoyable and some are among my favourites for the year so far.  Unusually for me, I’ve done quite a bit of rereading this month, three out of the thirteen books (marked with an asterisk) being ones that I’ve read and enjoyed before.  This month I read:

1. The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
2. Wild Swans by Jung Chang
3. Ballet for Drina by Jean Estoril*
4. Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim
5. Song of Sorcery by Elizabeth Scarborough
6. Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson
7. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
8. Drina’s Dancing Year by Jean Estoril*
9. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen*
10. The House in Dormer Forest by Mary Webb
11. The Sack of Bath by Adam Fergusson
12. My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time by Liz Jensen

I’ve had three stand out books in May.  Pride and Prejudice was the next book on the pile for my rereads of Jane Austen and a guaranteed winner as I already knew I loved it.  In fact, it was even better than I remembered and I enjoyed it even more than before, if that’s possible.  Wild Swans by Jung Chang was also one that I expected to find interesting and it didn’t disappoint.  The story of three generations of women growing up in China, from the author’s grandmother in the days of emperors and warlords to her own experiences during the Cultural Revolution, was absolutely fascinating and made the historical events of which I was vaguely aware seem real and personal.  I cannot recommend this enough if you haven’t read it already.  The surprise of the month came in the form of Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson.  I had no particular expectations of this book, but the way in which the author played with fairytale tropes and with language just clicked with me, making it another five star read.  I also particularly enjoyed Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim (a good thing considering how many of her other books I have awaiting my attention) and My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time by Liz Jensen.

This month’s dud was yet again a Virago title, I’m sorry to report.  The House in Dormer Forest by Mary Webb, my lucky dip book for this month, proved to be absolutely atrocious.  Thankfully it was terrible to the point of being amusing, so I at least had some enjoyment out of it, even if it was a very long way from what Mary Webb intended.

May saw the start of a fresh influx of books following the end of Lent’s (mostly successful) book buying ban.  The first book I ordered was My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time by Liz Jensen, which I’ve already read and really enjoyed.  The remainder of my order from AwesomeBooks arrived, providing me with seven new Viragos to add to the teetering stack in my room: The Wind Changes by Olivia Manning, My Next Bride by Kay Boyle, Olivia by Dorothy Strachey, Rumour of Heaven by Beatrix Lehmann, She Knew She Was Right by Ivy Litvinov, Phoenix Fled by Attia Hossain and Never No More by Maura Laverty.  Virago books were also very much the order of the day when I visited the Oxfam bookshop in Richmond while waiting for a train.  I ducked in to avoid the rain and somehow emerged with The Matriarch by G.B. Stern, Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty and The Persimmon Tree by Marjorie Barnard.  They all sound really interesting so I feel spoilt for choice!

My two rereads besides the Jane Austen were books that I bought this month from Amazon and then read immediately: Ballet for Drina and Drina’s Dancing Year by Jean Estoril.  These are books that I used to own prior to the disaster with the leaking shed, and throwing away all my damp and mouldy old copies had made me nostalgic to read some of them again.  This is a series that I’m going to continue to collect and read for when I need some simple, pleasant light relief.  Another book which I bought and read instantly was The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.  Reviews of these will follow eventually, I promise.

I’ve picked up some more books to add to my selection pool for the Victorian Literature Challenge.  I managed to complete my Folio Society Barchester set by picking up the final three books in the series from Ebay, meaning I now have Framley Parsonage, The Small House at Allington and The Last Chronicles of Barset waiting for me when I finish those I already have.  I also couldn’t resist a copy of East Lynne by Mrs Henry Wood in an Odhams edition which matches my Dickens set, particularly as she’s a new author, helpful for my additional aim to read all fifteen challenge books by different writers.

This month I paid my first visit (but definitely not my last) to the Notting Hill Book and Comic Exchange, much loved among bloggers.  It’s a bit of a jumble sale and probably somewhere to go only when you have plenty of time for browsing through the rather haphazardly arranged books rather than on your lunch hour as I did.  Still, I went with a large bag of books to get dispose of and came out with a considerably lighter, less stuffed bag containing nine exciting books as it was considerably more lucrative to take book vouchers in exchange for my unwanted books than cash.  I was pleased to come across a selection of Virago Modern Classics down in their bargain basement where all books are £1.  Thankfully for the groaning TBR pile, I already had most of them, but I still managed to come away with four: The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy, A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor and The Land of Spices and That Lady, both by Kate O’Brien.  I also picked up two other Virago books that aren’t in the Modern Classics series: Life Before Man by Margaret Atwood (one of those authors I seem to be more interested in collecting than actually reading; I must rectify this next month) and The Paris Wife by Paula McClain in the gorgeous hardback ARC edition I’ve seen floating around on various blogs.  My remaining purchases were The Burning Stone by Kate Elliot, part of a fantasy series I want to start soon, Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg of Fried Green Tomatoes fame, and a curious looking little hardback book entitled Jocasta and the Famished Cat by Anatole France.  Although it has a dust jacket there’s no indication of what the book is about, but I was so intrigued by the name that I had to take it home with me to find out!

I also did a bit of book shopping when I had the pleasure of meeting some friends from LibraryThing in person.  I was only able to go along and join their outing at lunchtime, which rather fortuitously coincided with their visit to the Persephone book shop.  Of course, it’s impossible to come out of that shop with fewer than three books, and after much initial narrowing down of titles through browsing the website I plumped for Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey and Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson, which I’ve been looking forward to reading ever since I read Miss Buncle’s Book in February.  There was just time for a quick visit to Lamb’s Bookshop further down the street, where I picked up The Fire Gospel by Michael Faber, one of the Canongate Myths books, before I had to head back to my office.  It was lovely to put some faces to names and have a quick, bookish chat, not to mention it makes my book acquisition feel far less unreasonable when shopping with people buying just as many books as I am, if not more!  I hope it’s an experience that will be repeated soon.

So, which of these books should I attack first?  Have you read anything particularly good in May that I should add to my list for next month?

1) The book I’m currently reading:

Wild Swans by Jung Chang – I’ve had this book for years and I have no idea why it’s taken me so long to get round to reading it.  The story it tells is absolutely fascinating and I feel as though I’m learning a lot about China.  I’ve got about a quarter of the book left to go and I’m wondering what more can happen to Jung and her family and how they get to a stage where she’s living in the west writing books.

2) The last book I finished:

The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon – I picked this one up brand new for a change from a Waterstones in Bournemouth when I shockingly found myself without a book.  It’s short but atmospheric and, though I think The Shadow of the Wind was better, I tore through it in a day and rather enjoyed it.

3) The next book I want to read:

I’m hopeless at deciding in advance what I want to read next and by the time I’ve finished Wild Swans I’ll probably plump for something completely different, but at the moment possibilities include Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson, Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood and Black Swan Green by David Mitchell.  Any thoughts on which I should try?  Or perhaps something completely different.  Who knows?

4) The last book I bought:

Wedlock: How Georgian Britain’s Worst Husband Met His Match by Wendy Moore – I picked this up in a charity shop yesterday as it’s a book I’ve been after for a while and it will help with my aim of reading more non-fiction this year.  And it’s vaguely wedding related, although I have much higher hopes for my husband than this, it has to be said!

5) The last book I was given:

The Jane Austen Handbook: Proper Life Skills for Regency England by Margaret C. Sullivan – I was recently sent a copy of this book by Quirk Books and it’s a beautiful little volume, containing such invaluable advice as ‘How to buy clothing’ and ‘How to avoid dancing with an undesirable partner’.  It has lovely illustrations too, which makes it even more attractive.  I can’t wait to get started and learn how to be a proper Regency lady.

I also mostly kept to my resolution to read larger books this month (though a bout of feeling sorry for myself did mean that some smaller books snuck in here and there), and although I read a 4,387 pages this month which is a similar figure to last month this was spread over only 13 books, averaging 337 pages each (362 if you don’t include the tiny 46 page poetry book that I read).  I decided to do this last month in the hopes of reading meatier books that would be more absorbing, and that’s by and large been successful.  Although I haven’t had a five star read in April I’ve had a lot of books that have been worth four stars and the rest have been three stars, so it’s been a very good month in terms of bookish enjoyment.  In reading order, the books I read in April are:

1. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
2. Perfume from Provence by Lady Winifred Fortescue
3. Dawn Chorus by Joan Wyndham
4. The Circle Cast by Alex Epstein
5. Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney
6. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
7. The Pigeon by Patrick Suskind
8. Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons by Gerald Durrell
9. Wedding Tiers by Trisha Ashley
10. Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas
11. Alexander’s Bridge by Willa Cather
12. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
13. The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

The Mill on the Floss is a book that I’ve tried to read twice before now several years ago, but somehow I’ve never managed to make my way through to the end.  When I picked this one up again there was a bookmark at page 139 marking the furthest I’d ever got with it and I was determined not to let it defeat me again.  My decision to persevere turned out to be a fortuitous one in this case, as I fell in love with George Eliot’s writing which was so engaging it almost (but not quite) made up for the horrible way the plot developed.  I have Middlemarch waiting on my shelves and hopefully I’ll be able to knock it off the TBR pile and into the main library by the end of the year.

This month has been a good one in general for the Victorian Literature Challenge, as I also read Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Victorian writers rather lend themselves to my aim of reading longer books), both of which I enjoyed.  I’ve discovered that, while Dickens is verbose and his characters tend towards caricatures, I usually enjoy him more than I think I’m going to, and that I vastly prefer the Sherlock Holmes Short stories compared to the full length novels that I’ve read about the character before.  He’s far less irritating in small doses.

Other favourites from this month included the charming memoir by Lady Winifred Fortescue Perfume from Provence which has me longing to visit the south of France and Dawn Chorus by Joan Wyndham which is part family history and part memoir.  Both books have me wishing that I kept diaries, but then I remember that a) I don’t live in the south of France or a stately home, b) my diary would read “Woke up stupidly early, spent two hours on the train, went to work, spent two hours on the train, went to gym, came home” for five days out of the seven, and who wants to read that? and c) it would only be another thing to have to keep up to date with writing.

In terms of book acquisitions, this has been a very modest month, mostly thanks to the tail end of Lent which, unlike last month where I had a few slips, I managed to adhere to properly.  I put in a book order online on Easter Sunday to celebrate, so no doubt I’ll have plenty of new books to talk about in May as they start to trickle in.  However, one book somehow got separated from the rest of the order and made it through before England shut down for the bank holidays, so I have a very speedy copy of They Tied a Label on My Coat by Hilda Hollingsworth waiting to be read now.  It’s a memoir of a girl who was evacuated during the Blitz and promises to be a good read.

My copy of the latest Persephone The Sack of Bath by Adam Fergusson which I had pre ordered for £1 back in February arrived at the beginning of the month.  I haven’t read it yet, but it looks interesting and very short, if quite different from a lot of the other Persephone books that I’ve come across.  I’m saving it for a time when I’m in the mood for some non-fiction.  Also arriving out of the blue was a review copy of the latest Scarlett Thomas novel, Our Tragic Universe.  I won this from LibraryThing Early Reviewers back in January and had all but given up hope of it arriving when it finally turned up mid way through April.  I got stuck in straight away as I’d been dying to read it since I first saw it in hardback, so a review is already on its way.

Amazingly, that’s it for this month!  No one is more shocked than I am, I assure you.

March’s statistics look very much like February’s in that I have once again read 17 books.  They totalled 4,358 pages, averaging a rather short 256 pages per book.  I found myself enjoying these books a lot more than the previous month’s.  I don’t give star ratings here on the blog but I do on LibraryThing and I’ve given a goodly proportion of my books four stars in March.  However, I’m still finding that although  the majority have been good, enjoyable reads they are still not the sort that stick with me for very long.  This is fine, as I do read primarily for my own entertainment and entertaining these books were, but hopefully my aim to read more chunky books in April might lead to a bit less dross.  March’s books were:

1. April Lady by Georgette Heyer
2. More English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs
3. The Flower Wedding by Walter Crane
4. Filboid Studge, the Story of a Mouse That Helped by Saki
5. The Warden by Anthony Trollope
6. Fables: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham
7. American Ghosts and Old World Wonders by Angela Carter
8. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
9. The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber
10. Far to Go by Alison Pick
11. At Freddie’s by Penelope Fitzgerald
12. Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies: Sex in the City in Georgian Britain by Hallie Rubenhold
13. The Nutmeg Tree by Margery Sharp
14. Miss Mapp by E. F. Benson
15. Up at the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham
16. Alice Hartley’s Happiness by Philippa Gregory
17. The Salzburg Tales by Christina Stead

My two favourite books this month couldn’t be more different if they tried.  An unexpected stand out was The Flower Wedding by Walter Crane, a gorgeous facsimile of an illustrated poem produced by the V & A Museum to tie in with their new exhibition The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 which opened this weekend and to which I’ll definitely be paying a visit sometime soon.  At the other end of the scale is Michael Faber’s novel of the seedier side of Victorian England, The Crimson Petal and the White.  I’ve been reading this one since last year as it’s too big to carry to work with me and so it was read in half hour snatches in the evenings, but it was ever so well written and definitely worth savouring.  Notable mentions are also deserved for The Nutmeg Tree  by Margery Sharp which was just the sort of light, amusing novel I needed to see me through my convalescence, Up at the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham which came from the Vintage Maugham Collection you may remember I acquired last month, Fables: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham which has awakened an interest in graphic novels, and The Warden by Anthony Trollope which promises much exciting reading to come.  I’m sure I’ll be reading more Trollope in April as he certainly fits the requirements of large, slow books.

Less successfully, March also brough about one of only three single star books I’ve read so far this year, and it was a Virago Modern Classic, no less!  Try as I might, I just couldn’t get on with The Salzburg Tales by Christina Stead and I’m sure I’ll rant a great deal concerning why when I come to finish that review.  Has anyone else out there read this one?  What did you make of it?

The list of incoming books is much less intimidating this month (a meagre 34 compared to February’s 59; it’s all relative) thanks to my resolve to give up buying books for Lent.  I have to admit that I have fallen off the bandwagon twice so far, although both in extremely forgiveable circumstances I hasten to add: the first occasion was after consigning most of my childhood books that I had kept stored for years to black bin bags after they were ruined by a water damage and the second was on discovering I had a forty-five minute wait for my train and nothing to read as I had finished my book on an earlier train (sometimes I swear I spend my life on trains).

Of course, a fair few managed to sneak in before Lent began on 9th March.  Books are tricky like that, I find.  As usual, the culprits were mostly Virago Modern Classics which I somehow find myself unable to leave behind in bookshops.  In March I acquired Nobody’s Business by Penelope Gilliat, Mad Puppetstown, The Rising Tide and Two Days in Aragon by Molly Keane (I’ve got quite the collection of her books built up now and I really should start reading them), Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick, The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson, Brother Jacob by George Eliot, Devil by the Sea by Nina Bawden, The Thinking Reed by Rebecca West and a little book which looks like it was given away free at some point entitled No Library Is Complete Without Them containing a list of all the Virago Modern Classics at the time it was published and excerpts from several of them to tempt the reader (as if I need any encouragament).  Also published by Virago, I picked up The Short Stories of Willa Cather edited by Hermione Lee and a memoir by Joan Wyndham called Dawn Chorus which I’ve already read and thoroughly enjoyed.  What good luck I’ve had!

There were only three non-Virago charity shop books this month.  After reading lots of enthusiastic praise for Elizabeth Bowen from Carolyn I had to snap up The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen when I saw it on the shelves.  It’s a bit big to have as a commuting book, but I’m looking forward to diving in when I next have some time to read at home.  The other is The System of the World by Neal Stephenson, the final installment of his Baroque Cycle.  I battled to the end of the first volume, Quicksilver, back in December but decided that it was worth the struggle and would continue with the series.  I also picked up A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell as I’m intrigued by A Dance to the Music of Time and find this slim novella much less intimidating than the larger volumes which contain several parts.  We’ll have to see how it goes.

I also had three books come my way from BookMooch in March.  The first two are Memoirs of a Master Forger by William Heaney and Any Human Heart by William Boyd, and I can’t remember why I wanted to read them or what they’re about at all.  I quite like this though as it means they’ll be a (hopefully) pleasant surprise when I eventually pick them up.  The third book is Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, which I’ve read before but don’t own.  I’m planning to reread Jane Eyre at some point soon and decided it would be an interesting exercise to read this one again afterwards.

Unusually for me, there were also some new books in March.  Walter Crane’s The Flower Wedding was one that I’ve already mentioned and loved.  Additionally, I succuumbed to the lure of the Penguin Mini Modern Classics under the irresistible influence of the Waterstones buy-two-get-one-free deal and so Filboid Studge, the Story of the Mouse that Helped by Saki, The Sexes by Dorothy Parker and the intriguingly titled The Mark-2 Wife by William Trevor came home with me.  They seem a great way to experiment with new authors.  Last but by no means least, I was given a copy of A Life Like Other People’s by Alan Bennett as part of the World Book Night giveaways.  I didn’t have time to participate by giving out books myself, so I was really pleased to see this book left carefully on a bench with a tag saying “Please take me home and read me”.  How could I possibly refuse?

By far my biggest bookish investment this month has been Trollope.  After the success of The Warden I’ve evidently decided that he’s an author I’m going to love and so have bought more of his work.  Recently I’ve started buying lovely hardback editions of classic books when I can afford it, and I was lucky enough to find gorgeous box sets of the Folio Society Trollope within my price range on the second hand market.  So I now have the next two books of the Barchester series, Barchester Towers and Doctor Thorne, and all six of the Palliser novels (Can You Forgive Her?, Phineas Finn, The Eustace Diamonds, Phineas Redux, The Prime Minister and The Duke’s Children) waiting patiently for me to read them.  I’ll definitely be tackling at least one of them this month, probably Barchester Towers.  The Barchester books were bought before Lent began, but the Palliser novels were my weekend slip.  Technically though, they were bought on a Sunday and Lent doesn’t count on Sundays (I’ll keep telling myself this).

My other slip occurred when I found myself at a train station with a long wait and, inexplicably, nothing to read.  I headed off to a charity shop intending to come back with just the one book but somehow managed to return with three of the things all by the same author: Perfume from Provence, Sunset House: More Perfume from Provence and There’s Rosemary…There’s Rue by Lady Winifred Fortescue.  In my defence, they’re the sort of delightful books which are out of print and looked as though they would be impossible to get hold of again.  Besides, it would have been cruel to separate them…

So, it seems as though I may not be sticking to a total book buying ban (that was a little optimistic, I grant you) but at least it’s curbing my acquisitions rather substantially.  We’ll see what April brings.  (One day I swear I’ll get a camera for these posts, honest.)

It’s been a very long time since I gave something up for Lent.  Not since the disastrous year when I attempted to give up coffee and had horrible caffeine withdrawal symptoms.  This year, however, I have decided to give up buying books.  I know, I know, it may come as something of a shock and, I assure you, no one will be more surprised than me if I manage to make it for forty days and forty nights without slipping up and accidentally buying one or two, but it’s a finite challenge with a definite goal and so I should be able to at least give it a good shot.

Wish me luck.  I’m going to need it.

With a few notable exceptions, February has been a distinctly unremarkable reading month.  I’ve read 17 books this month, a lot of which have been enjoyable at the time but largely forgettable.  There’s nothing wrong with reading books like this, but I’m hopeful that March will contain more books which are better than ‘quite good’.  February’s books are:

1. Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town by Paul Theroux
2. The Crystal Prison by Robin Jarvis
3. Wolfwatching by Ted Hughes
4. A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr
5. The Final Reckoning by Robin Jarvis
6. Marie by Madeleine Bourdouxhe
7. Elfland by Freda Warrington
8. Up the Junction by Nell Dunn
9. The Rivals by Sheridan
10. How Obelix Fell into the Magic Potion when He Was a Little Boy by Goscinny and Uderzo
11. Lucia in London by E. F. Benson
12. The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith
13. Tam Lin by Patricia Dean
14. The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marghanita Laski
15. City of Glass by Paul Auster
16. Miss Buncle’s Book by D. E. Stevenson
17. Through England in a Side-Saddle by Miss Celia Fiennes

The stand-outs by far were A Month in the Country and The Victorian Chaise-Longue both of which I loved, although they’re very different books: one is cosy and nostalgic and the other is claustrophobic and intense.  Although I didn’t manage to participate in Persephone Reading Weekend, this publisher was well represented in February’s reading, as Miss Buncle’s Book was also very enjoyable and I look forward to reading more by D. E. Stevenson in the future.  I read 12 new authors this month, everyone but Robin Jarvis, Ted Hughes, E. F. Benson and the fantastic duo of Goscinny and Uderzo being people that I had never read before, so it’s good I’m trying new things even if they’ve proved to be a little underwhelming at times.

Now onto the scary bit: the incoming books.

From Amazon: I buy books from Amazon quite rarely; as a rule I only tend to buy a book from here when I want/need (and you know how easy it is to confuse these two when it comes to books) to read it immediately, and then it’s usually from the Marketplace.  The Rivals by Sheridan was a book I needed in a hurry as I booked last minute tickets to see the fabulous production at the Haymarket and wanted to read the script first.  I ordered Prospero Lost by L. Jagi Lamplighter as the March read for the Women of Fantasy Book Club.  Andrew Lang: A Critical Biography by Roger Lancelyn Green isn’t one that I want to read right now, but I know I’ll want to read this book as I’m currently working my way through the gorgeous reissues of Lang’s Fairy Books from the Folio Society and the man is so interesting.  It’s out of print and Amazon only had a few copies so rather than wishlisting it, I went ahead and ordered it already.

From Ebay: This year I’ve decided to revisit the Asterix books as I enjoy them so much, reading them in series order for the first time.  I already own most of them, but I picked up How Obelix Fell into the Magic Potion when He Was a Little Boy, the prequel to the series, and Asterix and the Golden Sickle to go towards completing my collection.

From BookMooch: Despite having over 700 books on my wishlist, it went very quiet towards the beginning of the year, but it’s picked up again this month (unfortunately for my TBR pile).  Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories by S. O. Jewett was one I only listed this month after seeing it recommended on LibraryThing, but a copy was available straight away.  Geek Love by Katherine Dunn turned up courtesy of a lovely newbie BookMoocher.  I finally managed to get hold of a copy of Riddle of the Seven Realms by Lyndon Hardy, the third part of a trilogy that I’vehad on my shelves for ages.  Sex with Kings by Eleanor Herman is added to my pile of non-fiction books for the year.  I obtained a copy of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat entirely because I want to read Connie Willis’ books and get the inside jokes.  The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman joins my small collection of books in the marvellous Canongate Myths series.  I periodically search for Virago Modern Classics just to see if any have been listed and this month I was able to mooch a copy of Precious Bane by Mary Webb.

From charity shops: I’ve done incredibly well from charity shops this month, partly because I have to walk past the Bloomsbury Oxfam bookshop once a week and partly because I had to go into a nearby town at the weekend to do boring bank stuff and it was only fair to reward myself with a nuff in the charity shops.  I struck gold in the Bloomsbury Oxfam though, as I not only did I obtain my £2.99 copy of The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marghanita Laski (which I read instantly) there, I managed to pick up two particularly special copies of books for £3 each: a copy of Penguin Lost by Andrey Kurkov signed and with a penguin drawing by the author, and a copy of A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor with a dedication inside from Nicola Beauman to Ismael Merchant!  From my own town I obtained The Woven Path by Robin Jarvis, Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote, Ivy by Julie Hearn and The Lagoon by Janet Frame from the shop where books are 2 for £1.  Also for the princely sum of 50p each I acquired The Science of Harry Potter: How Magic Really Works by Roger Highfield and a 1923 hardback of a book called The Winding Stair by A. E.W. Mason (I have no idea what this one is about but I look forward to finding out).   In the slightly more expensive shops, I paid £1 each for a lovely old hardback edition of Village School by Miss Read, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, W. B. Yeats: The Love Poems, a pristine copy of Tove Jansson’s A Winter Book and the Persephone edition of Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski which I’m especially looking forward to after my first experience with this author.  See, I may acquire a lot of books but I’m far from profligate.

From The Book People: This company proves fatal to the sternest of resolves not to buy too many books (and my resolve was always a long way from being stern) because their books are just so cheap!  I acquired The Vintage Maugham Collection of ten beautiful books from an author I’ve been meaning to read for ages.  I also bought the lovely Penguin English Journeys box set, containing twenty slim volumes all of which I’m dying to read (and one of which I succumbed to right away).  Finally, I bought the complete eight book set of the Penguin Pocket Sherlock Holmes.  I’ve already read the first two and I owned another three of them but it was still cheaper to buy the entire set of eight books than to buy the remaining volumes that I needed to complete the set.  This company is going to be dangerous, I can tell.

Finally, in non-bookish but most exciting news, February also saw the purchase of a wedding dress!  That doesn’t make me look and feel like either a tragic heroine from a Victorian novel or an extra from My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding!  I can’t post any pictures or give any hints as to what it looks like, but suffice to say that it is beautiful and I love it and I cannot wait to marry the Old English Thorn while wearing it.  It’s only six months to go now and I am so excited!

For one reason or another (chiefly not being home at the weekends) I’ve not done one of these for a month now.  Consequently, the book haul looks rather horrendous, I know, and I’m going to have to put a stop to my acquisition habit this month.  This mammoth pile is the combined result of books requested on BookMooch and books from charity shops as usual, with a few thrown in here and there from ebay or Amazon marketplace.  This time around the biggest culprit was a charity shop I passed when I was out pottering during my lunch break which had a sign in the window bearing the fatal words “All books 50p”.  Now how was I supposed to resist that?  At least I can ease my book guilt by the knowledge that I’m not spending much money and other people are benefiting from my habit.

I think I’m just going to list these because there are too many of them for me to comment on them all and this would become an incredibly long post.  Now that I’ve caught up I’ll try not to leave it so long next time (oh, and to cut back on the books too, honest).

From BookMooch:

• Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
• The People of Lavender Court by Kathleen Dayus
• The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• 98 Reasons for Being by Clare Dudman
• The Witching Hour by Anne Rice
• The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy by Tim Burton
• The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Armin
• The Courage Consort by Michael Faber
• Gould’s Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan
• A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr
• The Outcast by Sadie Jones
• Winter Rose by Patricia McKillip
• Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier
• Marie by Madeleine Bourdouxhe

From charity shops:

• Desdemona – If Only You Had Spoken by Christine Bruckner
• Novel on Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith
• Two for the Lions, Last Act in Palmyra and Dying Light in Corduba by Lindsey Davis
• Prodigal Summer and The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
• Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson
• In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant
• The World my Wilderness by Rose Macaulay
• Hours Before Dawn be Celia Fremlin
• Try Anything Twice and Mrs Miniver by Jan Struther
• The House in Dormer Forest by Mary Webb
• Diana of the Crossways by George Meredith
• The Turquoise and The Mistletoe and the Sword by Anya Seton
• Miss Mapp, Lucia’s Progress and Mapp and Lucia by E. F. Benson
• White Swan, Black Swan by Adrienne Sharp
• Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada
• The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
• Affinity by Sarah Waters
• The Eleventh Plague by Darren Craske
• Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Stardust by Neil Gaiman
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• The Masterharper of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
• Blood on the Dining Room Floor by Gertrude Stein
• The Lifted Veil by George Eliot
• Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary E. Braddon
• The Shutter of Snow by Emily Holmes Coleman
• The Golden Child, The Blue Flower and At Freddie’s by Penelope Fitzgerald
• The Wedding by Dorothy West
• The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and The Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
• Henrietta Brandon by Sonia Prentice Clary
• A Place of Secrets by Rachel Hore
• The Shadows of Elisa Lynch by Sian Rees

From Amazon and Ebay:

• William: An Englishman by Cicely Hamilton
• The Warden by Anthony Trollope
• A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (both read now)

Received for review:

• Flowers for Alys by Irene M Redpath

So, in summary:

Books off the TBR pile in the past four weeks – 6

Books on the TBR pile this fortnight – 67 (shhh, don’t tell)

Change – +61

TBR pile stands at – 584 books (oh dear)

Once again, this is a fortnightly edition for me, thanks to a very busy weekend last week.  I have a feeling this is not going to be good news for the TBR pile, particularly as the cold weather has evidently triggered my winter hibernation mode, making me keep falling asleep on the train to and from work and hence nearly eliminating my reading time.  To add to that, my two current reads are both quite chunky and so my paltry reading efforts aren’t translating into removing books from the pile at the moment.

Hopefully in the coming week I’ll be able to make better progress.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

From BookMooch:

• Offbeat Bride: Taffeta-Free Alternatives for Independent Brides by Ariel Meadow Stallings – I love the Offbeat Bride website and was thrilled when I discovered there was a book too.  Looking forward to reading this one.
• Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire – This retelling of the Snow White story was included by a very kind moocher with another book as a lovely surprise.
• The Innocent Mage, The Awakened Mage and Empress all by Karen Miller – I had to pick up all three of these when I saw them in someone’s inventory.  I’m always on the look out for new fantasy writing and I’ve only heard good things about this writer.
• Her People: Memories of an Edwardian Childhood by Kathleen Dayus – Another interesting looking Virago Modern Classic to add to my little collection.
• The Great Stink by Clare Clark – I’m leaning towards Victorian novels at the moment, and this one was recommended to me as a good story about that era.
• Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins – A story about mythology and perfume owned by a janitor which is actually the essence of the universe.  How could I resist a book which sounds quite this bizarre?

Gifts:

• The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon – The Shadow of the Wind was one of my favourite books of this year, and my fellow long-suffering work friend passed this one on to me once she was finished with it.  I hope it’s as good as the first book.

Books for review:

• False Friends, Faux Amis by Ellie Malet Spradbury – I always enjoy books about eccentricities of language, so I have high hopes for this one.

Books bought brand new (yes, I actually purchased a new book from a real shop):

• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, translated by Julie Rose – When I found this is the tempting remainders bookshop opposite the British Library it seemed like fate.  Not only was it the only copy and a brand new hardback of the latest translation for only £2, I stumbled across it the day after going to see the fantastic 25th anniversary concert of the stage show of Les Mis at the O2.  I had to buy it.

So, in summary:

Books off the TBR pile this fortnight – 2 (oh, the shame)

Books on the TBR pile this fortnight – 11

Change – +9

TBR pile stands at – 523 books

Father, forgive me, for I have sinned.  It has been two weeks since my last confession.

Oh dear.  Oh dear, oh dear.  Well, it seems I do nothing by halves.  Not only have I succeeded in going over my 500 book limit for the TBR pile, but I have done so in spectacular fashion. 500 books is now a mere speck in the distance.  Oops.  For me it seems, book limits are like deadlines for Douglas Adams: I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly past.  I think I may have to declare next week ‘short book reading week’ in order to try to reduce this mountain, at least superficially.  Please bear in mind that this is a fortnight’s worth of books, not just one week, and try not to judge me too much.

From local charity shops:

• Black Swan Green by David Mitchell – I have shamefully not yet read any David Mitchell, and feel I need to rectify this
• Good Behaviour by Molly Keane – I’ve been enjoying books set in the early 20th century and this one was published by Virago, which is always a pretty good recommendation
• The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne – When I worked in a bookshop, I would often have people coming in to ask for this book so I’m interested to read it myself
• Lucia in London by E. F. Benson – I keep hearing good things about these books.  Now to find the first one
• I’ll Never be Young Again by Daphne du Maurier – A Daphne du Maurier that I don’t own.  Do I need another reason?
• Tales from the Country Matchmaker by Patricia Warren – Another wedding book to add to my pile of fluff reading
• Small Island by Andrea Levy – The Long Song hasn’t yet made it into the charity shops near me, so I thought this might be a good alternative
• The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden – I’ve always thought that this was a beautiful book, so I couldn’t resist this hardcover copy for a mere 50p

From BookMooch:

• Sorceress by Celia Rees – I enjoyed the prequel to this book, Witchchild, and so was pleased to receive a lovely hardback of this book.
• Perfume: The Story of a Murdererby Patrick Suskind – I had this book recommended to me when asking what to read next
• The Keep by Jennifer Egan – More gothic goodness
• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson – This book sounds fascinating and I’ve only heard good things about it
• Middlesexby Jeffrey Eugenides – I acquired this book after copious recommendations on LibraryThing
• In Search of an Impotent Man by Gaby Hauptmann – Another Virago book for the collection, and the story sounds amusing
• Mistress of Mellynby Victoria Holt – Still more, yet further gothic goodness

Gifts:

• The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick – I was given this lovely book filled with gorgeous pictures for my birthday.  It looks really good and I’m looking forward to reading it.

Bought in a big box from Ebay (After realising that almost all of my favourite books this past quarter have been published by Virago, I’ve become a little obsessed with this publisher, so how could I pass up a box of eleven [well, ten I don't have] Virago Modern Classics for £8?  I’ve not heard of any of these before, but they all look to be good reads):

• Mary Olivier, a Life by May Sinclair
• The Birds on the Trees by Nina Bawden
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• Poor Caroline by Winifred Holtby
• All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West
• Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann
• The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann
• A Wreath for the Enemy by Pamela Frankau
• The Return of the Soldierby Rebecca West
• Frost in May by Antonia White

So, in summary:

Books off the TBR pile this fortnight – 7

Books on the TBR pile this fortnight – 26 (gulp)

Change – +19

TBR pile stands at – 514 books