Oh dear! I was wittering on in my last State of the TBR post about how “good” my TBR was looking and how I was re-reading this month and would try not to acquire many more new books.  Then I went on holiday. Now, I do recall that I bought a number of books last time I went on holiday, and so it happened again. Except that that time I came home with three new books and had released some via BookCrossing that I’d read on the trip: this year I came back with a whole bag of 11 books, plus the ones I’d been re-reading on holiday. Oops!

July 2013 3The first lot – Simon Reynolds’ “Rip it up and Start Again”, “The J.M. Barrie Ladies’ Swimming Society” by Barbara J. Zitwer (noticed after a brisk discussion about “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” in which Paul and I discovered that we liked and disliked the book respectively for pretty well the same reasons) and Patrick Hamilton’s “The Slaves of Solitude” were bought on a trip to Fopp in Manchester with Paul and Jeremy. I didn’t know there were any Fopps left and I could have bought loads of CDs. I’ve certainly looked at the Reynolds book a few times, so it was time to pick it up.

The two F.M. Mayors, “The Rector’s Daughter” and “The Third Miss Symons”, E. Arnot Robertson’s “Ordinary Families”, Ellen Glasgow’s “Virginia” and Jane Aiken Hodge’s “The Double Life of Jane Austen” were bought in the delightful Beckside Books in Penrith. I had a lovely chat about hayfever, TBR piles and all sorts with the bookshop lady, and I couldn’t resist these Virago Greens (and one in a different edition) and a book about Austen when I was reading “Emma” at the time. Again, I could have bought more there. Many more.

Matthew had run out of books, even after reading one of my Barbara Pyms, so wanted to go to the charity shops to get a new one. And that’s where I found a Persephone! (Noel Streatfeild’s “Saplings” which I already have) with a bookmark, now earmarked for a friend, and another Virago Green, George Gissing’s “The Odd Women”. One last charity shop and I found the interesting looking “Waterloo” by Roger Deakin, all about wild swimming. I know someone who might like this once I’m done with it, and of course Iris Murdoch loved what wasn’t yet called ‘wild swimming’ when she was dipping into odd pools and bays.

All well and good, but then I got home and ran into our neighbour, who had a parcel for me. I’d forgotten that the kind people at Bello Books had offered me the pick of their catalogue of print-on-demand reprints: I’d mentioned a few authors and they generously sent me these three lovelies!

July 2013 4Gillian Tindall wrote a marvellous book about a village in France, so her short stories, “Journey of a Lifetime” should be good, and Vita Sackville-West should need no introduction to readers of this blog, and here are her first novel, “Family History”, and “Heritage”, which a few of my friends have read.

So, 14 books, although one will pass straight out of my hands and at least two others will be passed along … Do you do this kind of terrible thing on your holidays, too? And have you read any of these new acquisitions?