Of course B is for Books - it couldn't really be anything else!
I could look through all the Car Boot Bargain and Charity Book Sale posts and find out how many books I've picked up this year but I won't! A few have been bought second hand off Amazon but on the whole most of my reading is books borrowed from the library.
Suffolk libraries are so good - we are VERY lucky. With the running of them being handed over to a Community Interest Group a few years ago things could have gone either way, luckily they found enough volunteers to keep small libraries open and the good sense to find ways to save money and keep reservations free. They've also bought every book I've suggested - wonderful service. This Autumn I asked if they could buy more of the D.E. Stevenson books that Dean Street Press had reprinted and the most recent British Library Crime Classics and they did.
There's just no way I could afford to buy all the books I read.
Way back in 2015, when we were still at the smallholding and I had a hallway full of bookshelves, I took photos of them all for the blog - HERE and counted them all there were 1,482.
Then Colin was ill and we moved to the Very Small Bungalow in Ipswich, several went before we moved and the rest stored in boxes for a year under a bed. More books went again on our move to Clay Cottage and then even more were passed onto charity shops or sold when I moved here.
I've not counted how many books I have now..............they come and go more quickly and I don't keep many fiction once they are read - except for my Persephone collection and a few others that I've really enjoyed.
What I do seem to have more of than ever before are Books for Blogging! They seem to have grown in number. There are Folklore books, the Flower Fairy books, the Calendar of Saints, lots of books about trees and flowers and vegetables. If ever I stop blogging there are loads that could go............but not yet.
Somehow I find it very hard not to go to a charity second-hand book sale. What might I miss? perhaps books never come across before, just doesn't bear thinking about!
These are my finds from the most recent second-hand book sale, it was raising money for village hall funds in Westleton and there was a very good amount of books, thank goodness, as it was quite a trip out.
I picked up this little booklet for Jennie at Codlins and Cream blog or Thelma at North Stoke, both like the West Country and both like old things - not sure how I can split it!
I've been wanting a bigger and better atlas for a while and with all hardbacks at £1 each it seemed a good opportunity (even though it's a bit out of date) it's got huge maps going into good detail. Paper backs were 50p. Had to get the one at the top of the heap - didn't know there was crime set in Southwold on the Suffolk coast. The next is also crime that I've not come across.
A Millstone Round my Neck is by Norman Thelwell - who used to draw all the little fat ponies. It's about restoring a watermill. Col always fancied living in one.
The Book of Pebbles is one of those books that I'd seen around but have no idea what it's about except it has gorgeous illustrations by an artist and printmaker called Angie Lewin who once lived in Norfolk.
Didn't think I'd read the Barbara Pym - but found I had - annoying, straight out to charity shop
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| One of Norman Thelwell's pony cartoons |
I keep adding books to the bookshelves but will move some out too.
Back Tomorrow
Sue
I just finished my umpteenth rereading of a Few Green Leaves yesterday. That would be a keeper around here. Pym, like Delafield, never palls.
ReplyDeleteI don't often read a book more than once as there are always so many more to read
DeleteI love books. I dread to think how many I have. I keep trying to downsize, but there are always more that seem to catch my attention. I am going to try to get it so I only keep my absolute favourites, there are some that I do re-read as they are like old friends. I have a Kindle, but sometimes I just like the feel of books in my hand.
ReplyDeleteAs I always say - too many books - too little time
DeleteThe one thing I have a problem with downsizing are my books. I don't know why, but I think of them all as old friends.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
I know what you mean as I have some I couldn't part with
DeleteIt really is useful to have an atlas - although these days one really has to check the publication date for fear it has already become obsolete! I must admit I was never taught geography. I would have a hard time filling in a blank map with the right countries.
ReplyDeleteI do have a list of the books I own because when I lived in New York and many of my books were at my parents' home in Boston I occasionally bought books I had forgotten I had. I try to check it before purchasing. Sometimes, however, I see a book I like so much I can't leave it behind! I figure someone I know needs it!
I more or less know what books I have now there are less than 400 (I think!)
DeleteStill love Thelwell, his little fat ponies make me laugh. That looks a good find 'Mysterious Megaliths of Dartmoor'. I'm thinking of going to a meeting on Saturday about folklore, even if it is only to get out to a cafe down the road.
ReplyDeleteIf I send it your way would you like it to see it and pass it to Jennie afterwards at Codlins and cream or vice versa! Actually come to think of it I've got Jennies address so could send it there first
DeleteSue, I have a question. Back in the day, you published a picture that featured Hovel in the Hills by Elizabeth West. I was intrigued enough to track down a used copy. Later, I bought Garden in the Hills, and then I bought Kitchen in the Hills. And now my question: were you, or any of your readers, actually tempted to make any recipes in the Kitchen book? I am a simple, plain cook, but even I couldn't bring myself to cook any of those recipes!
ReplyDeleteMrs. West mentions reusing canning lids. I do this, too, and have never had a failure. I especially like jars with twist-off/pop-up lids, but I also reuse regular canning lids.
I've not looked at Kitchen in the Hills for a very long time, think I used some a long time ago. I shall look again
DeleteGosh, yes, I used to make lots of the recipes from Kitchen in the Hills. The soups, lentil nut roast type things and some of the quiches were favourites back in the day. Although I never made any of the weed inspired salads. You've inspired me to have another look through it and perhaps try them again. I wonder if my tastes have changed.
DeleteHow about Q for Quiz?
ReplyDeleteWe've just received an annual one for a local charity.
Some questions will niggle for a while.
It lives on the kitchen counter to distract us. When we go past!
Sue
That's a good idea for a fundraiser. There was similar in one place I lived but not here
DeleteI am with you on libraries. I live on the Suffolk/Essex border and, therefore, have access to both Suffolk and Essex libraries. I use the Essex mobile library which comes to my village every three weeks and a Suffolk library in the nearby town.
ReplyDeleteI read physical books as well as electronic ones, which I can download from both libraries. Like you it would cost me a fortune if I bought all the books I read. Last year I read 178 books and am on track to beat 200 this year.
Hadn't realised you were so far away!
DeleteBecause I work in a used bookstore I am knee deep in books I try to cycle them out of the house as I find more that I just have to have. I love book sales and our recycling centers have bookcases full that are free for the taking.
ReplyDeleteI think found something wonderful this week at a recycling center.
Cathy
I would love to work in a used bookstore and would spend too much time looking at books!
DeleteI like nothing better than searching through used books in thrift shops or book sales. Here ‘little libraries’ are popular ,,a box with a glass door on a pedestal with free books, these are placed on peoples front yards, again it’s the unknown ..what book will I find. Jean in Winnipeg
ReplyDeleteWe have them here as well. it is a nice circle, to walk to the one that take only children's books. And another that takes only gardening/nature books, and then another that takes adult books. I go from one box to the next shedding books as I go.
DeleteThere are a few mini bookshops in old telephone boxes but not many
DeleteWe have had a huge clear out of books and like you I don’t keep fiction. There was a horrible irony last week when I had to buy some big hardback books for a craft class. They cost £2 for 6 books and the charity shop had a notice saying no thanks to any more books. Catriona
ReplyDeleteI have a dilemma with the Furrowed Middlebrow/Dean st press reprints as many have been bought for me from my wish list and i don't like to sell them but might not read again
DeleteI read a lot but I don't buy books at all. I have a terrific library and so I take advantage of it.
ReplyDeleteI love to search through second-hand book shops and sales to find things I wouldn't otherwise know about
DeleteOh, by the way, I did think you have a "Q" already - in the title of your blog!?!
ReplyDeleteOf course - - never thought of that! Q for Quiet it will be.
DeleteI see I'm not alone in my love of all Barbara Pym books and would have trouble parting with one!
ReplyDeleteI love the illustrations from country and folklore books that you use each month - where would we be without books.
Alison in Wales x
I would be lost with nothing to read.
DeleteYour library seems very well run and offering a delivery service must keep library users very happy. This service is unheard of in the US. You'll get lots of use of the large format atlas. When a new remote area of the world is mentioned, I love finding it in my atlas.
ReplyDeleteI use the Mobile library like a delivery service because I've read so much there wouldn't be much for me (that I'd want to read) to find on the shelves in the library van. Many people just go on the van and choose from the shelves. It stops in two places in this village
DeleteOur public library system in central NJ does volunteer deliveries for people who can't get there.
ReplyDeleteThere is a volunteer Home Library Service for housebound people here too - very useful for them
DeleteI am living the dream of working in an antiquarian/secondhand bookshop. The only thing I do not like is when my boss mentions that word beginning with “C”. I do buy books from the shop but nowadays I sell more of my own books than I buy as I strive for balance. After the nightmare of sorting and finding homes for my parents’ books I try and keep tabs of my books so my children won’t have the same dilemma. Life is far too short to count books but I think i have seven bookcases dotted around the house. My husband bought me first editions of Barbara Pym’s novels when she was out of print in the 1980s. I think they are each worth a tidy three figure sum nowadays. I still re-read them and recently gave “Jane and Prudence” an airing, a book I am especially fond of as it was the first ‘adult’ book I borrowed from the library aged 11, having read the entire children’s section. This was in Twickenham town so not a small library. Here in West Sussex I am equidistant between three excellent libraries and when in Chichester I always visit the iconic modernist 1960s-built library and borrow a few more books. I could not live without reading and writing. Currently reading The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst. The “C” word stands for Cleaning - old books generate lots of dust! PS the squirrels ate ALL the apples from my three trees planted as bare root maidens in 2018. Did you have this problem at the smallholding? Any tips? Fortunately people give away lots of apples around here so I haven’t yet had to resort to buying any. Sarah in Sussex
ReplyDeleteI find it is much easier to buy books (especially at bargain prices) than it ever is to dispose of them!
ReplyDeleteIf a book catches my eye, I buy it, straightaway.
ReplyDeleteI somehow knew that B would be for Books. It just has to be doesn't it ... and H is for Hardbacks and P is for Paperbacks. :-)
ReplyDeleteI've just passed several books on, but there are already more creeping across the threshold. Some at least are on loan so won't end up on the shelves. Arilx
ReplyDelete