Sept 2016 book farm 2

On Saturday, I had a lovely trip to Astley Book Farm, near Bedworth, with three booky friends. We had a lot of fun rummaging around, forcing books onto one another and finishing off with a cuppa, a bun and a comparison of the book piles. What a lovely place – although it does require driving, which I don’t do, I still can’t quite believe I haven’t been there before in the 11 years I’ve lived in the Midlands!

As you can see in the picture, there’s a 10 Bob Barn, where all books are 50p and there’s a family of birds nesting in the rafters! The main barn seems to go on for ever and ever and ever, with lovely fiction and non-fiction sections and a super children’s literature loft up a small flight of stairs.

So … what did I get? I think I was quite restrained …

Sept 2016 book farm 1

Joanna Cannan – High Table (1931) – she’s a Persephone author, and this is a book set in Oxford University in the 1920s, so nothing not to like there. Once belonged to Reva Brown. Fills in a year in A Century of Books.

Maurice Baring – Landmarks in Russian Literature (1910, this edition 1960) – I saw this and thought of Karen from Kaggsysbookishramblings – please let me know if you’d like me to send it on! Owned by Janet Floyd who bought it x.iii.72.

G. S. Fraser – The Modern Writer and His World (1953) – note the “his”, yet this opinionated-looking Pelican (I love Pelicans and have to stop myself collecting them) mentions Iris Murdoch on the front cover and within the book. Looks great. Simon Thomas would like this one, I bet. Once belonged to S. Havell.

Adam Nicolson – Atlantic Britain (2004) – in which he sails around the British coast. New.

Lord Kinross (Patrick Balfour) – The Innocents at Home (1961) – Brits travel America. There are line drawings! No names but the flap has an offer for a fountain pen from the Readers Union.

D. E. Stevenson – Mrs Tim of the Regiment (1940) – one of those nice, pretty Bloomsbury reissues for this perennially sweet and entertaining author. Fills in a year in A Century of Books.

Halliday Sutherland – Lapland Journey (1938) – irresistibly pretty dust jacket and stories of the northern lands. RS Feb 1959 in the back (date stamped).

Dave Haslam – Adventures on the Wheels of Steel: The Rise of the Superstar DJs  (2001) – because I can’t resist a book on music.

Deborah Devonshire – Wait for Me (2010) – memoirs of the youngest Mitford sister, not sure how I didn’t already have this.

Here’s a view inside the Ten Bob Barn … maybe you won’t get past the pic to see MORE CONFESSIONS …

Sept 2016 book farm 3

So, have you read any of these? Are you amazed by my restraint??

Actually, talking of “restraint”, I have also ordered the two volumes of Virginia Woolf’s “The Common Reader” (for Ali’s #Woolfalong AND my research, don’t you know), and Edith Wharton’s “The Gods Arrive” (because I want to know what happens to the people from “Hudson River Bracketed”, which I have now finished), aaaaaand, Brian Hayle’s “The Moon Stallion” (the novelisation of a frankly terrifying 1970s children’s TV series, which I thought about, found had been reissued but settled for the original TV-series-picture-on-the-front paperback, suddenly available again).

Oops.