It’s TBR time again, and it’s TBR-ta-dah for me – look how svelte it’s looking!! Your eyes are not deceiving you – there are only THREE books on the front row, and even the Pile is short enough to let the books behind it peep over the top! Wow! This was helped by reading 14 books in August (a bit of a record for me, and very much helped by having my journeys from Cornwall and to and from Iceland), and my DNF happened to be a substantial volume, too, which helped.
Unfortunately for my TBR, however, I’m soon going on a trip to the Astley Book Farm, which is a wicked, evil largest second-hand bookshop in the Midlands type place. So expect me to be bursting at the seams again soon. Oh well.
I’m currently reading Edith Wharton’s “Hudson River Bracketed”, about which I have heard good things from other reviewers. It’s a great big book but very intriguing so far, with a central character who wants more, more things to learn, more words to describe the ideas in his head. That’s the last of All Virago / All August (which, truth be told, I didn’t do very well with, although I did get four in. You’ll see below the ones that didn’t make the cut last month, though!) and it’s also Book 18 in 20BooksOfSummer, so I should get that done as summer lasts until 5 September. Next up will be the next Dorothy Richardson volume, which I know is another short one …
And this picture isn’t of a book; it was time to start a new written reading journal, and I was frantically casting around for a new one of the same size. I like an A6 size hardbound notebook, preferably with lined pages (or squared ones, I think I know where my next one will come from, the rather naughty Bureau Direct website). I like A5 notebooks for holiday diaries etc. but all these are the same size and that’s what I like to use. Fortunately, I found the last of my lovely oriental-patterned notebooks bought from the late lamented Neal Street East (that’s the only link I could find for it – sob) shop in Covent Garden. I used to LOVE that shop, all the things you could buy, so good for gifts, and was very upset when it closed just after I’d moved in with Matthew in the block of flats opposite it, way back in 2003! And there’s the little label to prove it.
Anyway, for this coming up next photo, I shuffled some more books forward. I have a feeling I’ll be alternating those lovely Viragos with other books in the list. There’s a nice easy Debbie Macomber, two books set in Iceland, finally the Wendy Cope autobiography my friend Andy has, too, and FINALLY, the book about Mark Twain in California that my photo-a-day Secret Santa, Tedd, gave me last Christmas (it’s worked its way from its position in the photo at the bottom of my April TBR post and should be reached this month!).
I will be taking part in #Woofalong Phase 5, Non-Fiction, and I might have just bought lovely new paperbacks of Woolf’s The Common Reader 1 and 2 essays (what’s the betting I find them for 50p at the Book Farm?) but I have a perfect time in October for those, so it’s pretty much what you see here, plus the one Icelandic book I have left for 20Books.
How are your (dare I say it) Autumn reading plans going? Are you going to make your 20BooksOfSummer? Are you Woolfing along?
Rebecca Foster
Sep 01, 2016 @ 14:15:13
The Book Farm looks amazing! I hope one day to be passing through Warwickshire so I can go to that and the George Eliot site.
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Liz Dexter
Sep 01, 2016 @ 14:22:14
Amazing or Totally Evil – there’s a WHOLE BARN OF BOOKS for 50p each, and that’s always the kind of random place I find books i like. Eeps!
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Rebecca Foster
Sep 01, 2016 @ 14:38:07
Wow, and I thought Book Barn in Somerset was good value at £1 a book!
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kaggsysbookishramblings
Sep 01, 2016 @ 15:04:10
Well done – beautifully skinny TBR! Good luck at the Book Farm – sounds fab!
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Liz Dexter
Sep 01, 2016 @ 15:05:55
I fear it will be back to its bloated self after the visit! But it’s only books, right!
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Tredynas Days
Sep 01, 2016 @ 16:18:08
Took a look at Bureau Direct via your link: some good products and prices. Mustn’t buy any more notebooks, though. Simply mustn’t.
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Liz Dexter
Sep 01, 2016 @ 16:19:50
I will actually need to buy a new notebook in about a year’s time when I’ve finished this one … anyway, they are a great site, competitions every Sunday, lovely offers on Wednesdays, I ordered a Twsbi pen from them and the service was great …
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Tredynas Days
Sep 01, 2016 @ 16:23:04
Mustn’t buy any more pens…
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Liz Dexter
Sep 01, 2016 @ 16:25:00
Esp not a Twsbi Eco which fills up direct from the bottle into the barrel and has a see-through barrel so you can see your ink colour. None of those, for example.
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Tredynas Days
Sep 01, 2016 @ 16:28:40
Exactly. None of those. I am hoping to buy my second Nakaya from Japan shortly – works of art, they are. But I’ve long admired the Twsbi range. Don’t you just love stationery…
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BookerTalk
Sep 01, 2016 @ 16:30:25
I’ve heard other people mention reading journals but am not very clear what the purpose is. How do you use yours?
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Liz Dexter
Sep 01, 2016 @ 16:33:04
It’s basically a paper version of this blog, and one which I started way before my original LiveJournal blog (that started in 2005 and I have paper journals back to 1997). I review each book that I read, and include round-up statistics per month, including highlight reads, then stats for the year. The reviews tend to be a little shorter, and sometimes they are a little less guarded than they are on here, but are basically the same stuff. So yes, I do it all twice!
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heavenali
Sep 01, 2016 @ 19:32:08
I’m terrified of our trip on Saturday because my tbr is already gravitating toward the floor. Your tbr is so teeny!
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Liz Dexter
Sep 02, 2016 @ 11:45:15
It is pretty teeny at the moment … not for long. That 50p barn has my name on it …
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heavenali
Sep 02, 2016 @ 11:49:24
Ha ha – you might have to whisper ‘bookshelves ‘ at me from time to time.
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