Library Latest

So many terrific books have arrived at work all at once that I don’t quite know what to read first. I shared the results of my recent splurge at the Book Depository here just a couple of weeks ago & I also have groaning tbr shelves as you can see below (I took these photos a few months ago. It’s too dull this morning to take a decent photo, but I’m sure you get the general idea!). And, it’s almost November so I’ll be choosing some Remembrance reading from the tbr shelves as I do every year. Luckily I have a week’s holiday coming up in the middle of the month & I’m looking forward to getting lots of reading done then, as well as my Christmas baking & some gardening if the weather is fine. Here’s what I’ve brought home from my library over the past couple of weeks,

The Small Hand – Susan Hill. This is her new ghost story & I always enjoy these. Nothing has ever scared me as much as The Woman in Black but I love a good ghost story.
The Attenbury Emeralds – Jill Paton Walsh. A new Lord Peter Wimsey story is a real treat. Jill Paton Walsh completed a couple of Dorothy L Sayers’s manuscripts some years ago & now she’s written a wholly original story. The theft of the Attenbury emeralds was Wimsey’s first case & there have been recent developments that send Wimsey, his wife Harriet & Bunter off on the hunt again.
The Magnificent Spilsbury and the case of the Brides in the Bath – Jane Robins. Edwardian true crime about the famous forensic scientist & the case that made his name.
All the hopeful lovers – William Nicholson. Dani at A Work In Progress has reviewed another of Nicholson's novels & it sounded enticing so I've now borrowed both of them from the library.
 

A Royal Passion – Katie Whitaker. A biography of Charles I & Henrietta Maria, concentrating on their relationship. The author found a cache of their passionate letters to each other, written when they were separated during the Civil War.
And furthermore – Judi Dench. I started flipping through this the other night & I could hear Dame Judi’s voice as I read. Lots of familiar stories but I love her work & I’m looking forward to more of her stories of stage, screen & famous co-stars.
Romantic Moderns – Alexandra Harris. The subtitle is English writers, artists & the imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper. A beautifully illustrated & produced book from Thames & Hudson about that between the wars period I love.
Revealing King Arthur – Christopher Gidlow. Arthur is another of my passions. This book combines history & archaeology to look at the evidence for Arthur.
Domestic soldiers – Jennifer Purcell. Women on the Home Front during WWII. The book uses the Mass Observation diaries of five women (including Nella Last) to tell the Home Front story in a very personal way.
Margaret Beaufort – Elizabeth Norton. Mother of Henry VII & a woman who led a fascinating life. Married & a mother by the age of 13, Margaret Beaufort was an ambitious woman who spent her whole life scheming to put her son on the throne of England.

At the moment I’m reading Kerry Greenwood’s new Phryne Fisher mystery, Dead Man’s Chest, but, after that, my choices are infinite.