I can’t call this “book confessions” because it’s not confessing a terrible clicky-clicky naughtiness to celebrate having lovely friends who buy you super books. So, lucky me instead.

jan-2017-birthday

Look at them in all their glory! So, what do we have? Top to bottom …

Lynsey Hanley – “Class” – I read her “Estates” in 2015, which was a story of housing estates wound around her story of growing up on one in the Midlands, and this is her musings on class itself. An off-wishlist buy which is very welcome indeed.

Simon Armitage – “Walking Away” – I enjoyed his “Walking Home” recently; this is his one about walking around Cornwall, which I stupidly didn’t buy in Cornwall because it was ‘the wrong bit’ (he walks on the north coast and I was on the south at the time). Then I realised I REALLY wanted it.

Alexei Sayle – “Stalin Ate my Homework” and “Thatcher Stole my Trousers” – I love this left-wing comedian and his autobiographies are supposed to be classics, so I was really chuffed to open a parcel and find what I expected to be a loan as a gift.

Gladys Huntingdon – “Madame Solario” – a lovely big Persephone; this is the one set in Cadenabbia on Lake Como, a place where I and Mr Liz have actually stayed ourselves! I know from reading reviews that the characters do some sightseeing, so I’m very much looking forward to reading about the places I saw a hundred years later than the time of the book!

Edmund Gordon – “The Invention of Angela Carter” – this is quite a new publication and I hadn’t put it on the wishlist yet but was straining to acquire it as I know a few people who have read it. I can’t wait to read this, either.

“How it Works: The Cat” / “The Ladybird Book of the Zombie Apocalypse” – two of those amusing re-uses of the classic Ladybird illustrations. The cat one includes the wonderful fact that cats read through their bottoms and that’s why they always sit on our books and paperwork.

David Goldblatt – “The Games” – another off-list one that I was very thrilled to open; it’s a history of the Olympic Games, which I love watching.

Alan Powers – “Living with Books” – wonderful photos of glorious bookshelves in a book I’ve had on the wishlist for AGES.

What treats these all are. Have you read any of them? I even have an Amazon voucher, a full Oxfam Books stampy card and a book token to buy yet more. I feel very lucky to have found these treasures among my lovely birthday parcels.