Well that is the budget blown…

The Wolves if Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken

… for this month. After my post last week about the new Fox, Finch and Tepper books, and my failure to buy a winter coat at the weekend, we now have the Folio Society Christmas Collection. I love Folio Books. They are the kinds of books I dreamt of owning when I was little and would imagine what my very own library would look like when I was all grown up. 

I have a little collection of Folio Society books which is slowly growing, and yes dear readers, I weakened and have ordered some from this new collection. To be fair, I didn’t really put up much resistance, just enough for The Delightful Mr F to encourage me to order them, so I didn’t feel too guilty at the massive book binge I have been on over the last seven days. But, as The Delightful Mr F says, there are far worse things I could be spending my money on, so why on earth not order a book or two?*

The first book to catch my eye was The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken. This would make a wonderful gift for a child (or a grown-up for that matter). Go to the link and look at the illustrations. Aren’t they wonderful? Talking of illustrations, the ones in the new edition of Casino Royale by Ian Fleming are stunning. It looks as though this might be the first in a series of Bond books to be published.  Finally I was sorely tempted by A Wizard of Earths by Ursula K Le Guin. 

A Wizard if Earths by Ursula K Le Guin

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

When my order arrives I will reveal what I bought, but in the meantime, head over to the Folio Society website and have a look around. The books are beautiful, the selection fantastic and would make a change from the standard Jamie Oliver as Christmas presents for your nearest and dearest (or hard to buy for) this Yuletide. 

* I may yet regret not having a winter coat in due course, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. 

Winter Is Coming…

…and I need a new winter coat. The Delightful Mr F and I went to Bath to meet some pals yesterday for lunch and also to hunt down suitable cold weather attire for me. After trying on just about every coat in Bath we came to the conclusion that I was rather annoyingly half way between two sizes. Unlike Red Riding Hood, all the coats were either too big or too small, no sign of the one which was “just right”.

The result of this unfruitful search was that I now had pennies, previously reserved for coat purchases, burning a hole in my (summer) coat pocket. So we went to Mr B’s. Why is it my clothes shopping efforts so often end in a visit to Mr B’s? As always, retail therapy was much more easily forthcoming than in the previous shops we had gone into.  I picked up a couple of the new Pushkin Press Vertigo series. I have become slightly obsessed with Pushkin Press over the last year or so. I can feel a blog post coming on extolling their virtues.  I also picked up some other books which caught my eye, most notably The Evening Chorus by Helen Humphreys which I am planning on reading next weekend.  

Happy, if somewhat chilly, days.