I can't really say that I needed any of these books, but I most emphatically wanted them. I'm very lucky to be in a situation where I could buy them. This is certainly one thing I can give thanks for next week--being able to give in to bookish temptations. I do have a few other things to look forward to in the mail, but I think I will try hard not to buy anything else new until after the holidays now (and I swear I don't have my fingers crossed behind my back).
Surely these (and plenty of others) should keep me busy for a while. They are all from the Book Depository, and they are books I've accumulated over the last month or so (I really didn't buy them all at once!).
After reading The Flowers of the Field I knew I would eventually want to read the sequel, A Flower That's Free. The next book begins in 1936 and is set in Kenya and England. It continues the story of the next generation of Kingsleys and covers WWII.
Not too long ago I read a short story by W. Somerset Maugham and thought how much I would love to read more of his work. So I picked up The Merry-Go-Round, which is three connected short stories (well, long short stories) "that portrays a wide spectrum of life in the backstreets, suburbs, and society of Edwardian London." I also liked the sound of Liza of Lambeth (his first published novel), which is meant to be a very realistic portrayal of slum life. I still need to find a proper collection of his stories.
Cornflower's Book Group is reading Margery Allingham's The Tiger in the Smoke for December, though am still working on the last book, Sue Gee's The Mysteries of Glass (am still thoroughly enjoying it, just taking my time with it). I've heard the Allingham is a bit on the dark side, and I'm looking forward to it.
Jane Gardam is another author who I have read a short story by (and then had to find more of her work). God on the Rocks was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Lilla's Feast by Frances Osborne sounds really good. Lilla was interned in a Japanese civilian camp in China during WWII. She apparently passed her time by writing a cookery book of sorts. It now is part of the Imperial War Museum's collection. She lived quite a long life, so I imagine this will be rich in history as well as personal narrative.
Black Diamonds: The Rise and Fall of an English Dynasty by Catherine Bailey is another nonfiction title (I've been racking them up lately). It's a true story--one that I suspect will read better than fiction. It tells the story of one family's "spectacular decline: of inheritance fights, rumors of a changeling and of lunacy, philandering earls, illicit love, heroism, a tragic connection to the Kennedys, violent death, mining poverty and squalor, and a class war that literally ripped apart the local landscape." Sounds like a page turner, doesn't it?
You do see why I always have a stack of books going at once?