Thursday Bookshelf - WH-ZO

Almost this whole shelf is devoted to Edith Wharton, one of my favourite writers. I spent one summer reading as many of her novels as I could get my hands on & I still have a few more to read. I've probably read more Australian history than I think I have & this two volume history of bushrangers by Charles White was first published in 1900. T H White's Once and Future King is another old favourite.

 

P G Wodehouse & Georgette Heyer are two authors I've only started reading in the last few years. I don't know if I ever would have read them if it hadn't been for the blogs I read & reading groups I belong to. Wodehouse always makes me smile & luckily I have lots more Wodehouse to read. Who Was the Man in the Iron Mask? by Hugh Ross Williamson is a book I read over & over again when I was at school. This copy is a later reprint but I was fascinated by his theories about the Iron Mask, the Casket Letters, the Princes in the Tower & the murder of Amy Robsart. First published in the 1950s, some of the chapters have been superseded by later research (does anyone still think Mark Smeaton was the father of Elizabeth I?), but I loved this book & it sent me off on many reading trails.

Michael Wood is another favourite historian. I had only read his book In Search of the Dark Ages until very recently when the series was finally released on DVD. Made in 1979-81, the 8 documentaries about Boudicca, Alfred, Athelstan etc are wonderful. I don't like the music (very much of its time, too much synthesizer) although at times it's very atmospheric but MW himself has never been better. His enthusiasm as he traces the boundaries of an Anglo-Saxon estate or looks at coinage from the time of Ethelred is great & that sheepskin coat is very stylish. Virginia Woolf takes up the rest of this shelf. I always want to like her fiction more than I do but I am a fan of the letters (see next shelf), diaries & essays.

I rescued the Woolf letters from a library booksale. I've shelved WWI & WWII stories & poetry here. I think I only kept John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids because it's the TV tie-in edition with John Duttine on the cover. I loved Charlotte M Yonge's Daisy Chain, but have yet to read any more of her books. Delphi Classics are releasing the Complete Yonge in their next series of ebook compilations so I really will have no excuse then.

 

Finally, Zola - & a wooden chook. There is no connection between Zola & chickens (that i know of) but I'm leaving space on the shelves for the tbr books & I found I had quite a bit of room at the end. The Zola titles aren't very clear. They're Pot Luck, The Ladies' Paradise, Germinal, The Kill & L'Assommoir. Lots more Zola on the tbr shelves so I needed to leave some room.

Well, that's it, the tour of my bookshelves. Don't forget to click on the photos to make them larger.