So, if you were curious about what was in these boxes, here they are. From top to bottom:
1939: The Last Season, Anne de Courcy - A look at late 1930s British "Society".
The Last Curtsey: The End of the Debutantes, Fiona McCarthy - McCarthy traces the lives of the young girls who were amongst the last to formally curtsey to the queen. I had no idea women did this--it should be an interesting read.
In the Dark, Deborah Moggach - A Novel set in London during the Great War.
Lock 14, Georges Simenon - I've been wanting to read more of Simenon. This is one of his earlier novels. I won't necessarily read them all, but I would like to read them in some sort of orderly fashion.
Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories, M.R. James - This and the book below is an annotated collection of James's ghost stories. He's supposed to be the master of the genre.
The Haunted Dolls' House and Other Ghost Stories, M.R. James - I hope to be reading a few of these in the upcoming weeks.
The Night Villa, Carol Goodman - I still haven't read her last book, The Sonnet Lover, but I generally enjoy her work so I had to get this one. Her books usually have some sort of academic setting. This one has two storylines set centuries apart in Texas and Italy.
Growing Up, Angela Thirkell - I'm being optimistic with this one. It is a later Barsetshire novel. I'm trying to collect the nicer Moyer Bell editions that are in print as they seem to be hard to come by.
The Blackstone Key, Rose Melikan - I read about this first via Bookgirl's Nightstand. It's set in 1795 and includes "ruthless smugglers, secret codes, and a dangerous network of spies and traitors."
The Second Ruth Rendell Omnibus (contains: To Fear a Painted Devil, Vanity Dies Hard, and The Secret House of Death) - I probably don't need to explain about this one. These are three of Rendell's earliest works.
By the way, I finally ordered my new computer this afternoon. Hopefully I will have it by next Monday. Although I have been budgeting for this for a while, it was a little more than I anticipated spending (I swear that always happens--I never stay under budget), so I may not have any nice new book piles to share for a while as I pay it off. It should be quite slick, however, compared to what I am working on now. Anything has to be better than what I have now, and I am hoping that it will be so fast and efficient I will spend half the time doing twice the work, therefore allowing me more reading time.