I'm a great fan of The Book Depository lately. I think I order more often from them than from Amazon these days. I tend to read a lot of British fiction, and I usually am not patient enough to wait for whatever title I happen to be looking for at the moment to be published over here, or not willing to wait for it in paper. I've had a few books arrive on my doorstep over the past week or so and thought you might like to see them. Most are recommendations:
The Morville Hours by Katherine Swift -- Litlove wrote about this not once but twice. It sounds like a gorgeous book. Litlove calls it " a subtle treatise on living in harmony with the real, seasonal, material world, on regaining a primitive, profoundly satisfying relation to our basic selves, in a way that explains why the word ‘nature’ can refer to both the inner world and the outer one. It’s a meandering journey through the course of the year, reflecting on the traditions, religious and pagan, that structure it, and the wisdom, both of mythology and of good sense, that informs the way we organize our lives." I can't wait to start it!
Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons -- This has been much discussed in my online reading group (all positive comments) and it's another one that sounds right up my alley. I've yet to read Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm (though I've seen the movie). This is a retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale, and since Virago published it, it must be good.
London Belongs to Me, by Norman Collins -- This is another book for my London in the 30s binge. It came as a recommendation from a reader here. Sarah Water has a quote on the cover: "One of the great city novels: a sprawling celebration of the comedy, the savagery, the eccentricity and the quiet heroism at the heart of ordinary London life". I love sprawling. I think this is the sort of book where not much happens, but it's heavy on atmosphere, and I love atmosphere, too.
The Water Horse, by Julia Gregson -- And this is my impulse buy. I've heard good things about her East of the Sun (soon to be published in the US, and I'll be getting it then), and thought her earlier book sounded appealing too--it's set during the Crimean War. I'm always up for good historical fiction.
The Book Depository recently revamped their website, and in honor of the new design there are eighteen bookmarks that can be collected. As much as I love bookmarks (and I do love cool bookmarks), I'm really not just ordering books so I can collect all the designs. However it's a nice added bonus, and these are the bookmarks that have come with my orders so far (they send one book per mailer and there is a bookmark in each mailer). The bookmarks are by (L-R): Matt (my favorite so far--love the little reading dog), Dave Brown, Nick Sharratt, and Vivian French. Of course I want all eighteen!