Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Buying books in Somerset

I've got surprisingly little reading done down in Somerset so far - still on my first book, Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley, which seemed to get the most enthusiasm when I mentioned it the other day. And, indeed, I am really enjoying it. Here it is, in situ, on the beach at Lyme Regis.


More on that another time. Today I'm going to tell you about the various books I've bought down here in Somerset so far - I've been to two secondhand bookshop in Crewkerne, two in Bridport, and two in Lyme Regis. Alongside a few books I bought for other people, not pictured, I have bought eight for myself...




The Pursuit of Laughter - Diana Mosley
The Making of a Muckraker - Jessica Mitford

Two non-fic books to fuel my love of all things Mitford.

This Real Night - Rebecca West
The Gipsy's Baby - Rosamond Lehmann
The Victorian Chaise-Longue - Marghanita Laski

And my love of Virago and Persephone! I have read the last, but didn't have a Persephone copy.

The Foolish Immortals - Paul Gallico
The House That Wouldn't Go Away - Paul Gallico

Bridport and Lyme Regis seem full of Gallico books! These seem like they'd be up my street - one about a conman who claims to sell immortality, 'but [to quote the blurb] is he being conned by someone else?' - cue Simon whipping it off the shelf and into his hot little hands. The second is about a previous house haunting the house built in its place. I love books about houses with bizarre powers (yes, what an odd taste to have, but... I do!)

The Book of Indoor Games - Hubert Phillips & B.C. Westall
I'd have bought this for the cover alone, but inside seems fun too. Lots on cards, chess etc. but - more to my liking - lots on parlour games! Interesting to see the precedents of games like Scrabble, Boggle, Scattergories etc. all included there. Will probably write more about this later...

A couple of photographs to finish with. This is one of the bookshops I went to in Bridport (the other, called Bridport Old Books, was being run by a woman reading A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor, so we had a nice little chat about that)


and here is the little lady who has brought me to Somerset, looking her adorable self:



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