The Books I Bought in Scotland
I did not intend to do much book shopping on this trip because it was a graduation gift for my daughter. While she likes to read and enjoys a good bookstore she is not as obsessive about it as I am. I planned to keep a tight rein on my book buying but my daughter knows how I am and actively encouraged me to visit a few book shops. She is definitely my favorite (and only) daughter.
The photo above was taken inside Voltaire & Rousseau Bookshop. I have very mixed feelings about this place. As you can see, it is an absolute maze. I do enjoy a good treasure hunt but, at the same time, I kept thinking about all the books under those stacks that would never see the light of day again. We stopped here on our way to the Hunterian Museum. I knew I would have to carry any books I bought for the rest of the day so it would make sense to pick up a paperback or two. Did I do that? Of course not.
In case you can’t tell, those two books on the left are absolutely massive 600-page tomes. My daughter also bought a hardcover book of nature drawings. Our bag weighed a ton and we kept trading it back and forth until we finally made it back to the hotel right before we went to dinner. This is why I shouldn’t be allowed in bookshops on vacation.
One morning when my daughter slept a little later I ran down to an Oxfam Bookshop I had seen one evening when we were walking around. I just noticed you can see my reflection in the door in the photo above. I had a lovely time browsing through the shelves and I found these:
I bought the first book in this series on a previous trip to the U.K. some years ago. I don’t remember much about it but I enjoyed it so I was happy to find the sequels. Now I’ll have to reread the first book before I move on to these.
The rest of the books were bought when I would pop into various charity shops as we were out and about. My daughter knew that if we walked past a charity shop then I was going to go in and check out the books. I still think regretfully of one charity shop that had an entire wall of books but I couldn’t go in because we were running to catch a train.
I went to Scotland with the intentions of buying just one or two books and I came home with twelve. I don’t know whether to be embarrassed or proud. Considering how little time I actually spent browsing through bookstores I think I did remarkably well. We simply won’t talk about how heavy my luggage was.
10 Comments
Lucinda
Proud, you should be proud. And that you stopped at 12! Good job. I see that as restraint.
jllee656
Ah! I like the way you think!
Lisa
For a second, I thought the first photo was showing the books you had bought! I think that bookstore would have make me anxious, I would have wanted to start tidying the books into stacks.
You ended up with some lovely books! I have the Linda Lear (in paperback), which has sat unread for too long on my shelves. I have never heard of Gervase Phinn, an author to explore.
jllee656
I did really want to start organizing!
Peggy
You can be both! Be happy to have such lovely reminders of your mother-daughter trip!
jllee656
Books are always good souvenirs!
Nicola
Good haul. I would certainly have bought the Beatrix Potter book!
jllee656
I am very happy with that find!
Katrina
Well done, you did really well. It is years since we have been to Voltaire and Rousseau, I think they HAVE tidied up a bit since then! We were in that Oxfam shop in December and neither of us found anything we wanted to buy – very strange. I hope that you didn’t have to pay too much for the excess luggage.
jllee656
Believe it or not, I didn’t have to pay anything extra! I packed pretty lightly so all was good.