Last week's arrivals

I had a bumper week last week with some lovely books arriving on the doorstep. It looks as though I've broken my no book buying vow with a vengeance, but it's actually not as extravagant as it looks. All but the last book in the pile were bargains from my favourite remainders bookseller, Clouston & Hall in Canberra.

The first five books are part of the Turnham Malpas series of village novels by Rebecca Shaw. They were packaged as a  boxset at a fraction of the price they would have been individually - they worked out to about $6 a book. I believe this series is a little like a modern version of Miss Read. I've taken a chance on buying five at once, has anyone read them?

Devoted Ladies & The Rising Tide by Molly Keane - Several members of my online book group have read & enjoyed Molly Keane recently & these are lovely Virago editions.

Body Parts by Hermione Lee - I've read this book of literary essays & reviews twice already but I love Hermione Lee's writing & I didn't own it. It was remaindered so I had to have it, didn't I? There are essays here on Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, May Sinclair, Penelope Fitzgerald & Rosamond Lehmann. Just wonderful.


The Last White Rose by Desmond Seward - I've read a lot about the Tudors but I'm always eager to read a book taking a different angle on that most written-about family. Desmond Seward has written many books on medieval history. My favourite is The Wars of the Roses where he looks at that conflict through the lives of five men & women involved in it. This new book is a sequel to The Wars of the Roses looking at the lives of the Pole family. The Poles & de la Poles were a Yorkist family who were involved in many of the rebellions against the Tudors in the reigns of Henry VII & Henry VIII. I'm looking forward to reading about their lives in more detail.

Confession over, now I just have to find time to read them all.