November purchases

A quiet month on the book buying front as we head towards Christmas; the Book God and I have exchanged wish lists and are both under strict instructions not to buy anything between now and the day itself. So only a handful to talk about really. Anne Fadiman’s At Large and Small looks fascinating; I enjoy reading essays, (Gore Vidal’s various collections are particular favourites) and I really loved Ex Libris, so looking forward to this. Nigel Slater’s Eating for England has already been dipped into; I heard him interviewed about this on the radio and it brought back so many memories of my own childhood that there was no way I wasn’t going to get this, and I bored the Book God by reading out bits and pieces over lunch one Saturday; I have been made to promise not to do it again. Dream Angus by Alexander McCall Smith is part of the Canongate series re-telling myths; I have a couple of these but haven’t been buying the series religiously, but thought that this looked interesting.

The Georgian period isn’t one that I have been particularly attracted to in the past; regular visitors will know that the sixteenth century is more my thing, but over the past year or so I have accumulated a small quantity of books about the period, of which The Gentleman’s Daughter and High Society are the two most recent.

But my big treat this month is Posy Simmond’s new graphic novel Tamara Drewe; I have loved Posy since I was a student and used to read her weekly cartoon in the Guardian, and have have quite a few of her books including her children’s works; I love her drawing style so much (she has also done the cover for this month’s Slightly Foxed); this is definitely going to be one of my Christmas holiday reads.