Haul

I’ve been away in Hay-on-Wye for a couple of nights, staying in a lovely airbnb cottage with some friends. I’ve stayed overnight in Hay once before, but I’ve never done two nights. It was lovely to have a whole day without having to worry about driving there or back.

Friday was a beautiful day, and then The Storm hit. I’ve never seen Hay so empty on a Saturday as it was today! But I did my bit to keep the bookshops going – though, having gone in February, there wasn’t as much turnover as there would usually be between my visits. Some of the books below are ones I’ve picked up more than once in the past, and finally succumbed to…

Country Boy by Richard Hillyer
My LibraryThing catalogue told me I didn’t have this Slightly Foxed edition, which turned out not to be the case. Indeed, I even reviewed it back in 2013. But it will make a nice present for someone!

Modern English Fiction by Gerald Bullett
I wouldn’t normally pick up this sort of pocket intro to English literature, even one coming from 1926, but I was intrigued by his very personal take on the big names of the period – and the chapter ‘Eccentricities’, which I see includes May Sinclair.

Doctor Serocold by Helen Ashton
Rachel often talks about Ashton’s novels on Tea or Books? podcast, and so I was really pleased to stumble across this fairly hard-to-find copy of one of her early novels.

A Gentleman of Leisure by P.G. Wodehouse
Do I need more Wodehouse novels? Arguably no, given how many unread I have on my shelves. But I was in a shop where the paperbacks were £1 each and… you see my predicament.

People in the Room by Norah Lange
Someone recommended Lange’s childhood memoir to me, which put her name on my radar. This one is about a women spying on three women in the house opposite – unsure what their relationships are or what they’re doing. It sounds fascinating, and I hope it lives up to the intriguing blurb.

Twice Round the Clock by Billie Houston
A British Library Crime Classic that I don’t have was on the £1 shelves. Again, you see my predicament…

Confessions of Mrs Smith by Elinor Goulding Smith
Mrs Smith is apparently the wife of Robert Paul Smith, a humorist I have not heard of – flicking through this, it looks like a comic take on being a wife and mother, and for some reason that is totally my jam.

The Friend in Need by Elizabeth Coxhead
Barnham Rectory by Doreen Wallace
Out of Tomorrow by Stella Morton
Love Thy Neighbour by Sally Benson
Hush, Gabriel! by Veronica Parker Johns
I’ve grouped these because I basically don’t know anything about them, and they’re all mid-century novels (or, with Benson, short stories) that I’ve decided to chance my arm on. I’m particularly interested by The Friend in Need, which the blurb says is about social work – so could be one of the earliest novels about the modern social care system.

Ammonite and Leaping Fish by Penelope Lively
I’ve not enjoyed Lively’s non-fiction as much as her fiction, but I thought I’d give this one a go – Lively says it’s not a memoir so much as a book about old age.

Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri
Jhumpa Lahiri was the only author I went hoping to find, after loving her stories Interpreter of Maladies earlier in the year. I thought there would be armfuls of Lahiri books about but I only found a couple – and the other was such a massively tall hardback that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to hold it. So it was these recent Roman Stories that came home with me – translated from Italian by Lahiri herself.

Man With A Blue Scarf by Martin Gayford
And finally, one that’s been on my wishlist for a long time, though I don’t remember where I first heard about it – a diary about sitting for a Lucian Freud portrait. I think it also looks at his work more broadly, but there’s something I find fascinating about recording the process that leads to the still image.

Ok, there we have it! As usual, I’d be interested to know if you’ve read any – or where you’d start. I’m doing my restricted book buying Project 24 next year, so finishing 2024 on a haul high.

As mentioned, I spent a couple of nights in beautiful Malvern – sadly I felt pretty ropey with a cold, but it didn’t stop me popping into the excellent Malvern Bookshop, and Amnesty secondhand bookshop and the Malvern Book Collective. For a small town, it is well-served with bookshops! On my way home, I stopped for chips in Tewkesbury and a pop-in to Cornell Books, which has a very well-selected range of fiction. And I had a nice chat with the lady there about Virago and the Provincial Lady.

Here’s what I picked up over the weekend…

The Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield
Look, I’m well aware that space is limited in my flat and I don’t technically NEED lots of editions of the Provincial Lady series. But it’s my one indulgence in duplicates, and I couldn’t leave this lovely cover behind.

Susan Spray by Sheila Kaye-Smith
I’ve still only read her non-fiction, but have a couple of her novels. I’m a bit scared they’ll be Mary-Webb-style yokel rural novels, but I flicked through and didn’t see any excruciating dialect, so hopefully I’m safe

Open the Door! by Catherine Carswell
You might have spotted that the British Library Women Writers series recently reprinted her novel The Camomile – it’s one of the handful of BLWW titles that I didn’t recommend, so she was a new author to me. She only had two novels published, and this is the other one

Antarctica by Claire Keegan
I’ve enjoyed but not loved the two Keegan books I’ve read – I hesitate to call them novellas, as they are clearly short stories packaged as individual books. So I thought getting a collection of short stories could be a good next step… and I think perhaps it was mentioned on A Good Read recently?

This Could Be Everything by Eva Rice
LOVE Eva Rice and have been meaning to pick this one up ever since it was published.

Rhine Journey by Ann Schlee
The only book in my haul that was in a new-books bookshop – I have a personal rule that I buy at least one book if I’ve gone into an independent bookshop, and you can imagine how HARD it is to keep to that rule. Firstly, I trust Daunt Books to pick gems; secondly, a fair few people highlighted how good it was during #SpinsterSeptember.

The Second Mrs Ellyot by Jennifer Mannock
I don’t know anything about this 1947 book or author, and the internet doesn’t seem to provide any further details – but I am always intrigued by a name in the title, and this one has got me asking questions. Are we in for a Rebecca situation?

Prelude by Beverley Nichols
“Nobody buys him any more!” said the lady in the shop, when I came away with this novel and a couple other Nichols titles for a friend who also loves him. She’s right, and that’s why I always manage to snap them up!

Osebol: Voices from a Swedish Village by Marit Kapla
This chunkster might be familiar if you listen to Tea or Books? podcast, because it was one of Rachel’s favourite reads of 2022. She made it sound so interesting that I couldn’t resist when I found it in a charity shop.

Quite pleased with my eclectic mix, and spoilt for choice with where to start. Anything that you’d recommend, or particularly interests you?

Gosh, July has been busy. I spent a week up in the Lake District with work, and I’m just off on holiday for a week shortly – unusually for me, since I usually only take holidays during the cheap, unpopular winter months. While I was up in the Lake District, I did the 1.5 hour round trip to Bookcase in Carlisle.

People often talk to me about Barter Books in Alnwick, and they are much-loved. For my money, though, Bookcase is a far superior northern secondhand bookshop – albeit the other side of the country. It is rather ramshackle and doesn’t have the same polish, but it is a wonderland for true book hunters.

You enter a largeish room filled with bookcases, and it seems like a good sized bookshop. But, friends, that is just the beginning. The bookshop expands over four floors, each one a warren of rooms and corridors. There’s no real hope in knowing where you are at any one time. I just kept walking until I found a staircase. You’d never be able to see every room properly, let alone every shelf. Last time I was there, when I thought I was done, I stumbled across a room filled with thousands of paperback novels. It’s such an amazing place. And, as you can see above, they also have a lovely little cafe with a courtyard garden.

ANYWAY, having said all that, here are the books I bought. They had quite a few amazing hardback finds that I didn’t buy, simply because I’d bought them already – which is why I’ve ended up with more paperbacks than I might have expected.

Sunday by Kay Dick
An Affair of Love by Kay Dick
Solitaire by Kay Dick

I haven’t read They by Kay Dick, which everyone was raving about last year, but I do very much like her interviews with Ivy Compton-Burnett and Stevie Smith. I’d also heard that her novels were quite hard to track down – and so, finding each of these for £3 or £4, I thought it was worth the gamble. I think they’re very different from the dystopian world of They, but I’m interested to discover more about her as a novelist.

Casualties by Lynne Reid Banks
Children at the Gate by Lynne Reid Banks

I’ve recently read one of Banks’ young adult novels (review coming… soon, hopefully?) and remembering how much I absolutely love her. I’ve often left her novels behind on shelves, in the theory that I should read the ones I have first – but when has that every truly stopped me? I decided not to miss the opportunity to buy these (though it’s a shame that very few of her books have ever appeared in pleasing editions).

Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck

When I posted the pic on Instagram, this was the title that surprised a friend. But I’ve discovered a real love for Steinbeck in his quieter, domestic-fictiony moments. When he’s not trying to write the Great American Novel, he is brilliant at gently showing small-town life. Cannery Row and Winter of Our Discontent were both wonderful, so I have high hopes for this novel – which I hadn’t heard of before.

Fear by Stefan Zweig

I’ll pick up any Pushkin Press edition of Zweig.

The New Providence by R.H. Mottram

I collect Dolphin Books whenever I stumble across them – more on that here – and this is the first one I’ve found in the wild with a dustjacket.

The First Time I… ed. Theodora Benson

Theodora Benson (whose name you might recall from writing the British Library Women Writers title Which Way?) edits a collection of different authors sharing memoirs about the first time they did various things. And the contributors really are a who’s-who of 1930s writers. In fact, why not, here’s the full list: Louis Golding, Howard Spring, William Gerhardi, Beverley Nichols, Betty Askwith, Antonia White, Evelyn Waugh, Arthur Bryant, Dorea Stanhope, Hugh Kingsmill, Rose Macaulay, Prince Leopold Lowenstein-Wertheim, P.G. Wodehouse and Theodora Benson herself. Benson also illustrates with drawings of each author, and her gifts perhaps lie elsewhere.

My Sister’s Keeper by L.P. Hartley

Hartley deserves to be known for far more than The Go-Between, and I continue to add to my Hartley shelf. I hadn’t heard about this one before – have you?

Mosaic by G.B. Stern

And, finally, a Stern novel – I believe it is the third in a series starting with The Matriarch, and I have all three and haven’t read any. The bookseller could tell by a mark on the inside cover that it had been there ‘years and years’ – I wonder how many? The price wasn’t quite in shillings…

Where would you start? Anything I should leap towards?

I’ve just been away for a week to a lovely cottage on the Dinefwr National Trust estate with some friends. It’s in Wales, and only just over an hour away from Hay-on-Wye… so naturally we took the trek to the UK’s foremost book town.

It was nice to see, this time, that one or two bookshops had opened since we were last there – and I don’t think any had closed. That’s against the trend of Hay visits – and it will probably never reach the highs of 20+ years ago, but while the Cinema Bookshop is still there, it’ll always be worth a visit. I went to eight bookshops, and bought something in all but one of them. Most excitingly, I held a copy of Two People signed by A.A. Milne! I didn’t buy it, because it was £350, but it was very exciting to hold a book that AAM had held. (Speaking of Milne, I’m on the latest episode of the brilliant podcast Lost Ladies of Lit talking about One Year’s Time by Angela Milne – check it out wherever you get podcasts.)

Ok, without further ado, here is the exciting haul of books that I brought back with me from Hay-on-Wye…

Strangers May Kiss by Ursula Parrott
After really enjoying Ex-Wife (reprinted by McNally) I was so pleased to come across another of Parrott’s novels. There aren’t any cheap editions on abebooks, so this was a bit of a coup for a few pounds.

No Peace for the Wicked by Ursula Torday
To be honest, I picked this up because Ursula Parrott had put ‘Ursula’ in my mind – turns out Ms Torday wrote a lot of books, and No peace for the Wicked includes scenes in a boarding house: yes please! It’s also very scarce, so another good spend of £3.

The House of Defence by E.F. Benson
Limitations by E.F. Benson
The Princess Sophia by E.F. Benson
The Weaker Vessel by E.F. Benson
Benson was so very prolific that I haven’t even heard of these books, despite having been a fan for years. I’ll always snap up an EFB, and he is at that perfect level of scarcity – where his books probably will turn up at some point, but it’s a delightful surprise when they do. A couple of these are little Everyman-style editions, and I’ve long learned the wisdom of checking those shelves of small hardbacks – it’s often just endless sets of Forsyte Sagas, but sometimes something more unexpected shows up.

The Artless Flat-Hunter by Joanna Jones
Since one of my favourite things in fiction is house-hunting, I was never going to ignore this satirical non-fiction about the chaos of flat hunting. So up my street that I can barely believe it exists.

A Late Beginner by Priscilla Napier
Anytime I find a Slightly Foxed edition I don’t own, you know it’s coming home with me.

The Professor’s Legacy by Mrs Alfred Sidgwick
I seem to have quite good luck finding Mrs Alfred Sidgwick in the wild. I’ve read a handful now, and Cynthia’s Way remains the most fun – but I’ll keep getting more.

John Dene of Toronto by Herbert Jenkins
You might know I adore his frothy novel Patricia Brent, Spinster, so I couldn’t resist another of us – especially one with a Canadian connection.

The Handyman by Penelope Mortimer
For an author who is so renowned and respected, there are a lot of her novels I know nothing about. The Handyman was her final novel, from 1983.

Spinsters in Jeopardy by Ngaio Marsh
I enjoy Ngaio Marsh’s books, but anybody at all could have written a novel called Spinsters in Jeopardy and I’ve have snapped it up.

My Arnold Bennett by Marguerite, his wife
What a decorous way of putting your name on a book! I’ll always go for a personal memoir over a scholarly biography, so this is right up my street.

Those United States by Arnold Bennett
Speaking of Bennett, I couldn’t resist a little volume of essays with his take on the US. Having read some of his other essays, I suspect it won’t be the most balanced or complimentary.

Testaments Betrayed by Milan Kundera
I love Kundera and have almost all his books – I hadn’t come across this non-fiction book before, so have added it to my teetering pile of unread Kunderas.

The Holiday Friend by Pamela Hansford Johnson
Important to Me by Pamela Hansford Johnson
I have mixed success with Pamela Hansford Johnson but am certainly happy to try another. I don’t remember hearing much about The Holiday Friend – do any PHJ fans know if it’s a good’un? Important to Me, meanwhile, is non-fiction about things PHJ likes, and that can only be charming.

Family by Susan Hill
Susan Hill’s non-fiction is always engaging. I’ve heard a lot about Family, about losing her very young daughter, and will be keen to read when I can steel myself for it.

Return Journey by Beatrice Kean Seymour
Ending with one I know nothing about – but the Cinema Bookshop had a handful of Beatrice Kean Seymour novels inscribed to a friend, and I thought I could take a gamble on one.

I’m delighted with my haul – one of the most exciting Hay hauls I’ve had for a while. Where would you start? Anything you are particularly interested in, or recommend?

It was a couple of weeks ago, but I thought I’d share the books I got for my birthday – some from my wishlist, and others surprises. I might be missing some, but these are the ones in a pile… (not pictured: a great recipe book from some colleagues, following recipes through time)

Consolations of the Forest by Sylvain Tesson
From my friend Clare – this was on my wishlist, though I don’t remember why I added it. It’s non-fiction about Tesson spending six months alone in Siberia. I have a feeling I googled ‘books like…’ – but what could it have been like? May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude, perhaps? I suspect it’s not especially Sartonesque, but it does look great.

Death and Mary Dazill by Mary Fitt
Another from Clare, and I probably put this on my wishlist from the title alone. This 1941 novella looks like it’s a murder mystery of sorts, with various other ingredients that make it exactly my cup of tea.

The Bloater by Rosemary Tonks
From my friend Malie, and no mystery why this is on my wishlist – the Backlisted crew and their enthusiasm for it made it a must.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
As one of the few readers who hasn’t read this, I’m glad my friend Mel got me a copy.

The Forward Book of Poetry 2024
Mel is rightfully sceptical of me reading the books that people buy me, so thought (wisely) that a collection of poetry might get to the top of my tbr more easily. I’m not very familiar with poetry from any era, but it’ll be fun to read some new verse and see what’s going on in contemporary poetry.

The Collected Works of Jo Ann Beard
Colin got me this, from my wishlist – someone wrote something glowing on a blog or social media, and I’m sorry that I can’t remember who. I thought Beard was an essayist, but maybe she’s an essayist and a short story writer and something in between? Col admitted to knowing nothing at all about her, but I will soon…

Reach For The Stars by Michael Cragg
From my parents: I’ve started this one and I was SO excited about getting it. I don’t expect all that many blog readers to get giddy about a book subtitled ‘1996-2006: Fame Fallout and Pop’s Final Party’ but this is very much my jam. I always complain about music being considered in decades, because my musical taste was formed from the mid-90s to the mid-00s. This book couldn’t fit me more perfectly.

Twinkind by William Viney
And finally, one from my friend Lorna – which would have been on my wishlist if I’d known it existed. Subtitled ‘the singular significance of twins’, it’s a beautifully designed book with essays and pictures looking through the cultural and historical notability of twins. Made for me!

What a lovely selection – any you’ve read?

I am now back from two jam-packed, sunny, lovely weeks in Canada. Naturally I did not see all of Canada in that time, but my brother and I spent a week in Vancouver and a week in Toronto – both of which have plenty of bookshops that were eager to send a British man back over the Atlantic with luggage full to the brim of Canadian literature.

I didn’t buy entirely Canadian authors, but I did focus on books that aren’t as easy to find here in the UK – and I think I bought entirely North American authors. One of the things I did discover is how loose and broad the definition of ‘Canadian’ is to literary circles. Born in Canada and spent most of your life somewhere else? Canadian. Born somewhere else and then moved to Canada? Canadian. Passed through Canada among many other countries? Canadian. Authors I’d always considered other nationalities – who turn out to be Canadian – included Brian Moore, Michael Ondaatje, and Ned Beauman, though I think the last of those must have simply been mis-shelving?

My wishlist wasn’t extensive, but I had two books I was particularly intending to buy: A Bird in the House by Margaret Laurence and Road Ends by Mary Lawson, both of which I found on the first day! As you’ll see, there was no limit to the amount of Margaret Laurence I was willing to buy.

Anyway, here is a break down of what I got – I’d love to know your thoughts on any and all of them:

A Bird in the House by Margaret Laurence
This Side Jordan by Margaret Laurence
The Tomorrow-Tamer by Margaret Laurence
The Prophet’s Camel Bell by Margaret Laurence
Heart of a Stranger by Margaret Laurence
The Manawaka World of Margaret Laurence by Clara Thomas
Margaret Laurence: A Spiritual Biography by Noelle Boughton
And would you believe there are still some Laurence books I didn’t find? I do have all her fiction now – I went looking for A Bird in the House, the only one of the Manawaka Sequence that I didn’t have, but was pleased to scoop up any number of other ones. I somehow don’t seem to have included Heart of a Stranger in the picture – her essays, which I was reading on the plane.

My Financial Career and other follies by Stephen Leacock
Model Memoirs by Stephen Leacock
Leacock is one of my other most-loved Canadian authors – I’m not entirely sure if these are new collections to me, or if they are simply gathered from other existing collections, but I took a risk.

Road Ends by Mary Lawson
The only Mary Lawson novel I didn’t already have – she has only written four, sadly – and it’s not that hard to find in the UK, but it felt right to get it in Canada. And it was there, for two dollars, in a sale at the Vancouver Public Library! If you’re ever in Vancouver, head up to their rooftop garden – it’s lovely. I read Road Ends on the four-hour flight from Vancouver to Toronto and definitely recommend something this captivating and wonderful for a plane journey.

Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill
One evening, I had the fun of meeting up with Debra – a listener to the Tea or Books? podcast who got in touch when she saw I was coming to her hometown. She recommended lots of Canadian authors as we browsed a BMV Books – by this point in the holiday I had bought SO many books that I was trying to restrict myself a bit, but I couldn’t resist her recommendation of this novel about discovering a doppelganger. Debra said she read it three times! And the cover is beautiful.

Brother by David Chariandy
This was the other book I bought on Debra’s recommendation – I forget exactly why now, but she must have sold it well!

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
And this book was a kind gift from Debra – one of those authors I have long intended to read, and now I have one of her books on my shelf ready to go.

Show Boat by Edna Ferber
When Claire/Captive Reader made a guest appearance on a recent podcast episode, she mentioned how much she was enjoyed Edna Ferber – and this lovely edition of Show Boat had to come home with me.

Barometer Rising by Hugh MacLennan
Stories from the Vinyl Café by Stuart McLean
Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay
Speaking of Claire, while in Vancouver I had a lovely evening going book shopping with her, then having some dinner. What fun to hang out on her home turf! These three books are ones I bought because she mentioned they were good’uns.

Love and Salt Water by Ethel Wilson
Having enjoyed a couple of Wilsons, I was pleased to find her final novel – and it’s one of the books I read while I was there.

One of Ours by Willa Cather
I hadn’t heard of this Cather – and, no, I probably didn’t need more unread Cather books on my shelves, but it is a lovely edition. I’m such a sucker for the floop of a North American paperback.

Killing Yourself To Live by Chuck Klosterman
Chuck Klosterman IV
I hadn’t particularly thought to look out for Klosterman, but turns out his books are much easier to find in Canada than here in the UK. He’s an American author I’ve mentioned a few times – I haven’t tried his fiction, but his non-fiction is brilliant at bringing together links and connections between pop cultural moments that many commentators would consider too trivial.

Good-bye and Amen by Beth Gutcheon
I only know Gutcheon her Persephone title Still Missing, but this one looked really interesting.

Frequently Asked White Questions by Ajay Parasram and Alex Khasnabish
This one was just among some books on someone’s lawn in Toronto. The Annex neighbourhood is a lovely leafy suburb with lots of independent shops, and the sort of place where people might have ‘little free libraries’ and the like. Indeed, I left one of my holiday reads – Tin Man by Sarah Winman – in one of those little libraries. (I enjoyed it, but the absence of speech marks meant it wasn’t going to be a keeper.)

May Sinclair by H.D. Zegger
This American series of critical works seems to have largely been about lesser-discussed British writers – I have the books on E.M. Delafield and A.A. Milne from the series, and was pleased to find the May Sinclair one.

Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby
I haven’t actually read the Irby essay collection I was given a few years ago, but that’s not the sort of thing that need impede me buying another.

Nocturne by Helen Humphreys
Humphreys was one of the Canadian authors I’d seen recommended by a few people. I did come across some of her fiction, but almost all of it was set in the UK – and I wanted to have the proper Canadian experience of reading Canadian authors writing about Canada. So I bought her memoir about her brother dying – and read it on the plane. Beautifully written and, of course, very sad.

Something I’ve Been Meaning To Tell You by Alice Munro
Who Do You Think You Are? by Alice Munro
Well, you can’t go book shopping in Canada and come back without any Alice Munro, can you?

I’m up at the Keswick Convention this week, in the Lake District, and one of the things on my list was to visit Michael Moon’s bookshop in Whitehaven. It’s perhaps not as well known as nearby Bookcase in Carlisle, but it’s almost as wonderful a treasure trove. A warren of rooms, very reasonable prices, and a huge amount of older books – many of which seem to be the sort of books that were read by the masses (piles of Warwick Deeping, Ethel M. Dell etc.).

I went last year but was doing Project 24 – this year, I could be a lot less restrained. I bought one to give away (a compilation of Cornelia Otis Skinner’s best sketches in That’s Me All Over), and this lot for myself… I leant towards authors I’ve heard of but not read, and would be particularly interested in any recommendations from this haul.

Cleo by Mary Lutyens
A very 1970s cover for this (signed!) novel about a 15-year-old and her first romantic experience – and how her understanding of it changes in the years that follow. I don’t know if this will be insensitive or ahead of its time – time will tell.

The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice by Stephen Leacock
Only the other day I was wondering which Leacock books I was still missing – and then I stumbled across this one, which looks like it is Leacock in serious rather than comic mode. The opening line, ‘These are troubled times’, reminds me that every period feels more or less like that.

The Inn at the Edge of the World by Alice Thomas Ellis
One of my favourite tropes is a group of strangers gathering together – And Then There Were None and The Enchanted April being two excellent examples. This novella by Alice Thomas Ellis seems to do the same thing – five people at a remote Scottish island at Christmas.

Young Claudia by Rose Franken
I don’t know why I know the name Rose Franken, but it hovers on the peripheries of my knowledge. This one caught my eye, and I was sold by the opening line – ‘Half-way through the job, Claudia knew she was a fool to have begun with the hedge in the first place.’ I now see from Scott/Furrowed Middlebrow that she wrote a lot of novels about Claudia, so I’m not sure where this falls in that series.

The City of Pleasure by Arnold Bennett
There’s always room for another Arnold Bennett on the shelves.

So Many Loves by Leo Walmsley
Having loved Walmsley’s autobiographical trilogy of moving to Cornwall (or at least the first two, as I have yet to read the third), I was happy to pick up a book that I don’t know anything about. It turns out that this is straight autobiography, particularly about his childhood.

A Porch At My Door by Rex Matthews
The bookshop had quite a lot of books from The Country Book Club (which, rather thrillingly, say they must not be sold to the general public – what a maverick I am!). I bought a couple – I don’t know anything about Rex Matthews, but the lure of a book about house-hunting was enough for me.

Village in the Sun by Dane Chandos
This was the one Country Book Club choice, and an author I have read – only one book, Abbie, but I enjoyed it a lot. If memory serves, Dane Chandos is the pseudonym of a pair writing together. I rather expected this book to be about England, but it turns out it’s set in Ajijic, Mexico.

Lady Living Alone by Norah Lofts
I get Norah Hoult and Norah Lofts confused. The latter is predominantly a historical novelist, but she wrote four suspense novels under the pseudonym Peter Curtis – at least one of them, Lady Living Alone, was reprinted under Lofts own name in the 1980s. I’m intrigued by the story of a historical novelist with a phobia for being alone, and how she gets involved with a man who may or may not help…

A Cat in the Window by Derek Tangye
The bookshop had quite a few books by Tangye, all apparently about moving to Cornwall and life there – I toyed with buying the lot, but chose instead just to get the small volume dedicated to a cat.

No Lady With A Pen by Ursula Bloom
Bloom was the incredibly prolific writer (500+ books) among whose output was the British Library title Tea Is So Intoxicating, under the name Mary Essex. I’ve bought a few of her non-fiction titles, and this book about her early career on Fleet Street looks interesting.

Quorum by Phyllis Bentley
Another name I’ve seen around a lot, I certainly had plenty of Bentley books to choose from in the bookshop. In the end I chose Quorum because it looks like an interesting structure – it’s about a committee, and the chapters are dedicated to different committee members and then different matters (minutes, finance, analysis of project etc.) It could be successful or not, but it looks like an innovative and unusual approach,

And all that for £30! I’m excited to see what gems are among them – I think the Norah Lofts will be my first port of call. Any recommendations – and where would you start with this haul?

I’ve been buying some books online and in-person over the past few weeks – quelle surprise – and I thought I’d talk you through the recent arrivals Chez StuckinaBook. Here we go, from the top of the pile…

Things I Didn’t Throw Out by Marcin Wicha
I saw someone mention Things I Didn’t Throw Out on social media, I now forget who, and ordered a copy – it sounds so up my street. It’s non-fiction, about the books and other things that are left over after Marcin grieves his mother, and uses objects as a way of looking through the past. And it’s published by Daunt Books, which is a guarantee of something good.

Virginia Fly is Drowning by Angela Huth
The first of a couple books I bought on a trip to beautiful Canons Ashby National Trust – I haven’t been before, at least not since I was a child, and I absolutely loved it. I don’t know this author, but the title caught my eye.

Choose by M. de Momet
This novel was advertised on the back of a 1940s novel I was reading the other day, and it looked very intriguing – about a woman whose husband is missing presumed dead. She marries again, and then the first husband turns up. I can’t find any information about the author, so I don’t know if it’s short for Monsieur or a name beginning with M.

A Deputy Was King by G.B. Stern
We popped into a lovely bookshop in Brackley – new and secondhand books – and I bought a couple of G.B. Sterns, including this novel which is a sequel to The Matriarch. Which I’ve owned for many years but haven’t read, but now I can read both in a row.

The Judge’s Story by Charles Morgan
I’ve read a few Morgans over the years, and I’ve bought and given away others over the years, but here’s another. Does anyone else read Charles Morgan nowadays?

Trumpet Major by G.B. Stern
And here’s the other Stern – one of the 10 autobiographical/essay/pondering/meandering books she wrote – I’ve read Benefits Forgot and A Name To Conjure With, and have a few others. They’re odd and really enjoyable.

Elephant by Raymond Carver
I’ve never read any Raymond Carver, and this slim little volume seems a good place to start – another one from The Old Hall Bookshop in Brackley.

Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar
This Marathi novel was turned into a film that I enjoyed, so doing things the wrong way round, I thought it would be good to read the book too.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
Like a lot of us, I loved Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris, one of the first books-about-books that did really well. This is something quite different – a non-fiction book about a Hmong refugee family in California, and their interactions with the health care system when their son is diagnosed with epilepsy.

A Slanting Light by Gerda Charles
The winners of the James Tait Black Memorial prize are always worth a shot – I bought this one partly because of that, but also because there are so few mentions of its content online, and the three reviews of it I found are all completely contradictory about the plot. Like, they talk about different casts of characters. Very confusing, so I guess I’ll find out.

Plant Dreaming Deep by May Sarton
I’ve loved a few May Sarton journals this year, and a few people recommended this one as being one of the best – so naturally I had to have it.

Mrs Hart’s Marriage Bureau by Sheena Wilkinson
And, finally, one I haven’t bought – this is a copy from the author. I tend to say no to review books most of the time, but this is the description that sold it to me:

Sheena Wilkinson’s Mrs Hart’s Marriage Bureau is a riotously funny novel with hints of Noel Coward and PG Wodehouse. It’s 1934 and Northern Irish April McVey is the new manager in the marriage bureau of the title. She’s intent on updating this failing business, much to the initial consternation of its owner. But Mrs Hart takes to April, just as April takes to Yorkshire and her newfound freedom. April’s landlady has a widowed brother, Fabian, a solicitor with a nightmare teenage daughter. Fabian lives in the shadow of his wife, now dead three years; April, for all her no-nonsense disposition and persistent sunshine, has a ghost or two of her own.

Have you read any of these books? Which would you start with?

When I was on holiday recently I took a trip to Treasure Chest Books in Felixstowe, Suffolk – one of my all-time favourite bookshops, though I’ve only been there three times, each time about ten years apart. It initially looks like one little room, and then it just goes on and on in a warren of increasingly exciting rooms. There’s a great range of stock, very reasonably priced – and even two shelves of Persephone Books! I had almost all of them already, of course, but came away with a couple. The first photo is the pile I bought there – the second photo is a smaller pile that came from various places.

Defy the Wilderness by Lynne Reid Banks
I do have a couple of unread books by Lynne Reid Banks on my shelves, but my abiding love for The L-Shaped Room trilogy means I will always pick up more by her. The books she set abroad haven’t dated brilliantly, but I’m happy to keep trying.

A Bookshop in Algiers by Kaouther Adimi
I should have mentioned this one during the recent Tea or Books? discussion of novels set in bookshops – because I bought this one entirely on the strength of the word ‘bookshop’ in the title.

The Fell by Sarah Moss
Summerwater by Sarah Moss
So many podcasters and bloggers and others have mentioned Sarah Moss as someone I should be reading. It was great to find these two cheaply, and maybe I can finally start disentangling the various literary Sarahs in my head.

Dance and Skylark by John Moore
I’ve read one or two of Moore’s autobiographies set around Bredon Hill (where I grew up), but haven’t read any of his fiction yet. I did mostly buy this one because of its beautiful dustjacket, but I’m also intrigued by the contents.

Paper Lives by Compton Mackenzie
I keep telling myself that I have to read more of the unread Mackenzies on my shelves before I buy more, and thus I keep lying to myself.

Moonraker by F. Tennyson Jesse
Unrelated to the Bond movie, this is a little story of pirates? I’m not sure if it’s for children or not, but always happy to stumble across more by the brilliant FTJ. I believe it was a Virago Modern Classic at some point, but not one I’ve ever seen in the wild.

A Lady and Her Husband by Amber Reeves
Emmeline by Judith Rossner
The two Persephones I didn’t have are both quite recently published ones, I think, though published initially about a hundred years apart. They’re also not Persephones that I’ve seen many people mention… anybody read these?

Next To Nature, Art by Penelope Lively
I probably don’t need more Livelys since I have several unread, but I couldn’t leave this one behind because it is signed by the author. When I got home, I also spotted that it is from the library of Jill Paton-Walsh, so maybe given to her by Lively?

And these books came online, from a charity shop, and from a remainder shop.

The Castle on the Hill by Elizabeth Goudge
After loving The Bird in the Tree, I’m keen to read more Goudge. She turns up in charity shops a lot, and that’s where I found this delightful edition. I’m told it’s a bit more grim than some of her other works…

Humiliation by Wayne Koestenbaum
Found and Lost by Alison Leslie Gold
A remainder shop in Bristol had quite a few Notting Hill Editions, and these were the two that really drew me in.

Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott
I’m very excited by this reprint – the first McNally Editions book that I’ve bought from their eclectic list. Ursula Parrott is someone I’ve wanted to try for a long time but she’s not been easy to find – so thank goodness this one is now available. I’ll let their description tell you more.

When in French by Lauren Collins
As soon as I read Beth’s Instagram post about When in French, I had to have a copy – it sounds so very up my street. Click the link and you’ll see why!

I haven’t started any of these books yet, though would happily dive into any of them. Have you read any, and where would you start?

I went to Draycott Books in Chipping Campden today – a bookshop I first visited last year. That was during Project 24, so I had to be very restrained. And it was just the sort of bookshop where I didn’t want to be restrained at all. Not a massive stock, but a large amount of interesting and unusual titles in their 20th-century hardback fiction section – which, naturally, is the first place I head in any bookshop.

And, yes, I came away with quite a pile.

Arundel by E.F. Benson
Climber by E.F. Benson
Always great to find more EFBs in the wild. I don’t remember anybody ever mentioning these books, which are both from the middle of his long and prolific writing career. Even at his worst, Benson is enjoyable – and at his best he is sublime, so I’ll have to wait and see where these fall on the Benson spectrum.

Colonel Blessington by Pamela Frankau
Frankau’s final novel, and apparently a thriller? Again, I don’t remember seeing anybody writing about this one – and, again, Frankau can be quite a variable author in my experience. But certainly happy to add to my shelf of unread Frankaus.

Best Stories of Theodora Benson
This is the book I reluctantly left behind last time, so I was pleased (though not entirely surprised) to find it was still waiting for me in Draycott Books. Of course, I love Which Way?, the title that British Library Women Writers reprinted, and have had mixed success with her other books. It will be interesting to discover what she is like as a short story writer.

Little Innocents by various
I bought this collection of childhood memories on the strength of E.M. Delafield being included in it – though she is far from the only name I recognised. Others include Vita Sackville-West, Ethel Smyth, Harold Nicolson… I couldn’t work out whether the contributions had been written specially for this book, but it does look rather like they were.

When My Girl Comes Home by V.S. Pritchett
I’ve only read Pritchett’s autobiography, but now have a couple of his novels to try. This was one of many titles from ‘Contemporary Fiction’ – a series I didn’t recognise, but which had a lot of intriguing and lesser-known mid-century books in it. Anybody know this imprint?

The Expensive Miss du Cane by Miss Macnaughtan
I don’t know anything about this book or author, but that’s the sort of title I certainly can’t resist. I flicked to the opening paragraph, and found myself even less able to resist:

As a country-house visitor Miss Du Cane was altogether desirable. She had her place, and that a high one, in the world of house-parties. And many people wondered at this, for not only was she very little known in London society, but there was about her an absence of that self-assertiveness which is generally supposed to militate against the acquirement of small privileges. There was nothing of the expert guest whose remarks may be said in their entire aptness and suitability to border upon professionalism. Nor was she even one of the useful guests who can be depended upon by tired hostesses to take a good deal of trouble off their hands, and to play games good-temperedly, and to become enthusiastic about taking some rural walk, or to laugh a great deal over small country-house jokes.

Indeed, even though it’s the book I know least about, I think The Expensive Miss du Cane might be the first book I read from this haul.

Where would you start?