Since I am now in maintenance mode with my credit card (I've only had to pull it out recently for a few online holiday purchases), I've been very cautious about my book buying. As a matter of fact for the last couple of months it's been pretty much nil. I have bought a few things, however. I found a few used and extremely inexpensive books at a secondhand store, bought another used book via Amazon and just last week received a small order of books that were mostly paid for with a gift card. How's that for trying to make my money stretch? Since it's been a while since I've had any new books I thought it was time to share.
Let me start with my most recent library stack, though, so I can kill two birds with one stone (or post as the case may be). Although I use the library frequently anyway, I seem to do so more when I impose a book buying embargo. Somehow bringing home library books helps satisfy that desire to handle new books--even if I have to give them back in just a few weeks.
I'd never heard of Rebecca Jenkins until I saw Death of a Radical on the library's shelves. As the book is set in 1812 I think the cover illustration is perhaps a little bit off, but it still caught my eye. She looks far more like an Edwardian than a Georgian heroine (but maybe I'm wrong?). This is a second book in a mystery series featuring Raif Jarrett. My library didn't have the first book so if I like it I'm sure I'll end up going in search of it eventually.
Dead Beat by Patricia Hall is another mystery, though this one is set in 1960s Soho. Apparently this is the first in another new series. The sleuth, Kate O'Donnell, is a photographer trying to find her missing brother. The period and setting appeal to me, and I am finding myself ready for another mystery/crime binge.
I recently watched the first few episodes in the Inspector Murdoch Mysteries, which are based on books by Canadian author Maureen Jennings. She's just come out with the first book, Season of Darkness, in a projected trilogy set in WWII England. I was thinking I might just about be ready to leave the WWII era behind for a while (I've read several books in a row about WWII it seems), but maybe not quite yet after all.
And for something a little different, and with a contemporary setting (I've been thinking I need to read more contemporary literature, too) I have Audur Ava Olafsdottir's The Greenhouse, which I have already started. You can probably easily tell from the name, but Olafsdottir is an Icelandic author who has won numerous awards. This is one of those making sense of life sorts of stories about a young man trying to make his way in the world and figure out his relationships with those around him.
And I have Stefanie to thank for Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life. It's a book about the history of what we call home, but it sounds like so much more than that. The rooms of a house are just the jumping off place to write about so many other things. I can't wait to start it!
I was going to say now for my naughtiness, but I think I've been reasonably good this fall so a few books, okay a pile of books, is nothing to feel too guilty about!
That top book, A Little Dinner Before the Play by Agnes Jekyll, such a pretty little thing is part of the Penguin Great Food Series. Let me read you the blurb from the back: "Whether extolling the merits of a cheerful breakfast tray, conjuring up a winter picnic of figs and mulled wine, sharing delicious Tuscan recipes, or suggesting a last-minute pre-theatre dinner, the sparkling writings of the society hostess and philanthropist Agnes Jekyll describes food for every imaginable occasion and mood." It sounds yummy all the way around--another I can't wait to crack open and start. I might just have to collect the rest of the books in the series now.
Okay, Stefanie, you have a lot to answer for (in a good way of course!). You were also the one who suggested trying Terry Pratchett. Actually I think someone else might have instigated this purchase (someone mentioned this particular title to me), but Stefanie put the idea in my head to buy it now. The book in question is Monstrous Regiment. I have a feeling this is one of those uncategorizable types of books. Aside from wanting another good, solid humorous book in my pile, this one has a heroine who dons men's clothing to go off looking for her brother who is fighting in a war. There's nothing unusual going on here, but I must admit to liking books about women who don men's clothing in search of adventure (why should men get all the good action parts in adventure novels/films?).
I've wanted to own the whole collection of books published in the Bloomsbury Group and am still slowly adding them to those I already own. My newest find is E.F. Benson's Mrs. Ames, which Amazon had very deeply discounted. Benson is of Mapp and Lucia fame so I think this should be equally amusing.
Hmm. Humor and crime seem to be the order of the day. Miyuki Miyabe's The Devil's Whisper was an impulse buy. I just came across her books while browsing. This is a contemporary crime novel set in Japan.
And then we'll go back to WWII England for Laura Wilson's The Lover. Wilson writes a mystery series set during WWII, but this is a standalone crime novel about a serial killer on the loose during the Blitz. It's based on the true story of the "Blackout Ripper".
Now for my used books. Both R.F. Delderfield's The Dreaming Suburb and Eleanor Perenyi's Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden are both secondhand store finds. They each cost all of a quarter! The Delderfield is set between the First and Second World Wars in London about a typical middle class suburb and its inhabitants. I've long wanted to try Delderfield and expect he is someone I would like as he seems to write sweeping dramas. The Perenyi is a book of gardening essays. Why do gardening books appeal so much more in winter? Probably because I don't have a green thumb and like the idea of warm weather when I am freezing outside waiting in a snowdrift for the bus to come.
And last but certainly not least is Rebel Girls: Their Fight for the Vote by Jill Liddington about the suffragettes.
Lots and lots of goodies as you can see. With my winter break less than two weeks away now I'm sure at least one or two of these will end up in my reading pile (my list of books to read during my break has gotten pretty long and probably too ambitious--I'll be whittling it down soon, but I can't help myself)!