A Few New Books

If you have read this blog for any length of time, then you are aware of my slightly unhealthy obsession with life in the U.K. during WWII. I have a large collection of books on the subject (obviously), and I am always on the lookout for a new one. In this case, however, my husband gets the credit for the most recent addition to my shelves. He received an ad for Oxford’s War in some email or another. He immediately showed it to me. I thought it looked very interesting but it was also on the pricey side so I didn’t buy it. One day last week I picked up my phone and saw a delivery notification for the book. My husband had decided I needed it anyway and ordered it. He is a good man. The same email advertised a new book about Jane Austen. It isn’t released yet in the U.S., but from something he said, I think he might be planning on buying that as well.

Last week I had an appointment in a nearby town that I have never visited before. Of course I checked to see if there were any bookstores. The only one I found was a Goodwill Bookstore. It was a bit of a disappointment at first but just as I was ready to leave I saw a vintage book section behind the counter. I struck gold there. I realize the photo doesn’t show all the titles but I wanted to show the end papers of two of the books. Don’t worry; I’ll tell you all about them. I was very excited to find The Queen’s Book of the Red Cross. I read a review of it in some blog recently, I can’t remember which one, and tried to get it from the library. It wasn’t available to check out and all the copies online were expensive so I resigned myself to never reading it. Imagine my joy when I found this copy for $3.56. What a steal.

The top book in the photo is Tammy Out of Time by Cid Ricketts Sumner. It is about a girl who lives on a swamp in the Mississippi Delta with her grandfather. A plane crashes nearby and she nurses the pilot back to health. A series of movies based on the book were filmed in the 1950s and 1960s.

The book with the pen and ink is called Author’s Gold. It is a collection of stories edited by George Eaton. “The editor set out to find pure gold in the writings of some of the world’s best-loved authors.” The volume includes such authors as Willa Cather, Helen Hull, and Booth Tarkington.

I’ve got a lot of good reading in front of me. Of course, that assumes I don’t put these on my shelves and not get around to them for a year or two. Do you read all your purchases as soon as you buy them?