The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

Yes, I have read Tolkien. Yes, I own the book. However, I unfortunately own the movie cover and the entire rest of my (quite substantial) Tolkien collection is of the design of the first book you see above, and I wanted them all to match. I’ve been wanting to read Into the Wild for a longass time, but (and I’m slightly ashamed to admit this) I really hated that the only cover I could find was a movie one, so I refused to buy it. Today I finally found a beautiful, simple cover and snapped it up immediately. The Fowles I’m looking forward to, but is a book for a module I’m doing. The Maureen Johnson’s an iffy one, because I’ve heard really good things about this book, but I to say I strongly disliked 13 Little Blue Envelopes (by her) is to put it mildly. But in the UK this book was chosen as one of the World Book Day books, so it’s only £1 at Waterstone’s. I figured I could risk a quid.

Birthday present books!

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
Love and Garbage by Ivan Klíma
Arabia by Jonathan Raban
The Apothecary by Maile Meloy
Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver 

A few new books from the last few weeks that I forgot to post.

Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, translated by Lydia Davis
Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Wednesday is Indigo Blue by Cytowic and Eagleman 

I caved and got a Keri Smith book. I want to see what it ends up like. I have three editions of Madame Bovary, this is the fourth. I’m really looking forward to seeing what Lydia Davis did with the translation. I’ve finished reading Miss Peregrine, and the jury’s still out on a set decision, but it’s certainly a beautiful book. Wednesday is Indigo Blue is neuroscience book about synesthesia, which I’m absolutely fascinated with.

A great surprise birthday present in the mail this morning (almost exactly on time, too!) from my dear Zoë. It’s a collection of essays by writers, including Zadie Smith, Jeanette Winterston and Mark Haddon about reading and its importance. 

I was having a crappy day a few days ago, so I sauntered into Waterstone’s. I had no business being there, but I wanted to say hello and stop for a chat with a couple of my favourite workers. I ended up stress-buyingbooks. You know, instead of stress-eating. It’s a thing, okay? IT’S A THING.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Wish I Was Here by Jackie Kay
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver

I’ve been meaning to read American Gods for a long time now, so I decided to just go for it. I’m meeting/photographing Jackie Kay next month, so I wanted to read something by her. I already own The Secret Garden in an old Puffin paperback, but this Penguin Thread edition has been tempting me for a long time. Really, it’s just amazing I’ve managed to restrain this long and that I didn’t also buy the gorgeous Black Beauty. Liesl & Po (which is junior fiction if I remember correctly) I bought purely because Zoë really loved it, and it’s beautifully illustrated and was half off.

I’m going to try and hold off from more book purchases but I make no silly promises. And by silly, I mean prudent, considering I’m (hopefullyfingerscrossed) graduating in four months and I have no fucking clue where I’m going. How I’m going to figure that out and then figure out a way to lug ~400 books with me I really don’t know. Shh. We’re not thinking about it.

I went into my favourite secondhand shop to look for a couple of books for uni, and to talk to owner, who I regularly go in to chat to. Two hours later (for you to fully appreciate that you need to understand how small this shop is), I was running late to a dinner with a friend, and I spent significantly more than I intended.

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Love Object by Edna O’Brien
Fantasia of the Unconscious and Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious by D. H. Lawrence
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

I already own A Portrait of the Artist and To The Lighthouse, but I needed editions I could scribble and highlight in for uni, since my copies are with a friend and a beautiful hardback respectively. The two unnecessary/gift-to-self purchases are Leaves of Grass and Cold Comfort Farm, which are beautiful editions. Cold Comfort Farm is a Folio Society edition. If you don’t know who they are, they’re making some of the most beautiful editions of books on the market today.

New books, i.e. the damage done by shopping with this girl, and a couple from a separate visit with this girl. There’s also a couple missing, a flipback of Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey and a book I’ll share in a separate post.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
Orangers Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Possession by A. S. Byatt
My Ántonia by Willa Cather
Good Behaviour by Molly Keane
A Partisan’s Daughter by Louis de Bernières
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Doctor Zhvigao by Boris Pasternak (translated by Peaver & Volokhonsky)

It’s all good though because Waterstone’s has been awesome recently and every single one of these was bought marked down! And they’re all ones I wanted (although My Ántonia was because Chloe not-so-gently nudged me toward it). I’ve been wanting the Peaver & Volokhonsky translation of Zhvigao for ages. The Niffenegger is because it’s a beautiful edition of a book I love, and was marked down outrageously. The de Bernières was 99p! The rest were all half off.  *book dance party*

What is Art? by Leo Tolstoy
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

I’ve been wanting to read What is Art? for a while, but I actually ended up buying it because it could be really useful for an essay I’m writing if I have the time to read it. I kept my Dec 1st promise and bought a (RED) Penguin. It’s a beautiful book and I can’t wait to read it. I wanted to read Forty Rules of Love in Istanbul (to carry on my tradition of reading native authors in their countries when I travel), but alas, I had to read uni-related books when I had the free time. As for the Oscar Wilde, I of course own and have read Dorian Gray. My copy happens to be ugly/plain, though, I love this beautiful Penguin clothback edition, so I forked out a few quid to get it. 

Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
1Q84: Book One and Book Two and 1Q84: Book Three by Haruki Murakami 

Look at how wonderful this pile is! It’s torture not to be able to dig into them (although I may have taken an evening off working a couple of nights ago in order to read Blue Nights).