These are most of my vacation book purchases. You might recall that I was on a book-buying ban till vacation. I think I fulfilled my quota, although I didn't find a couple titles I was looking for, which is fine. One of them is The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan, which I heard about on Twitter over a month ago. It's apparently already available in the U.S. and I'm still eager to read it, but I've placed myself back on a book-buying ban, indefinitely. I have far too many books to read and need to stop buying them. Vacation was special. Enough for now.
Above:Outside In by Maria V. Snyder
Operation Heartbreak by Duff Cooper
A House in the Country by Jocelyn Playfair
Manja by Anna Gmeyner
Doreen by Barbara Noble
Consider the Years by Virginia Graham
Above:
Tea at Fortnum & Mason
A Fighting Spirit by Paul Burns
Forgotten Voices of the Blitz and the Battle for Britain by Joshua Levine
Voices from the Titanic, ed. by Geoff Tibballs
The Great British Book of Baking
Not pictured:
Fever by Lauren DeStefano (which I bought because it was available in paperback in the UK)
Dr. Who: Step Back in Time by Dungworth & Rayner
Oh, sorry. I didn't even mention where we went. We were in London. A tremendous opportunity to stay in the flat of a man my husband works with was offered to us and we jumped at the chance to spend a week in our favorite city with no lodging costs (except, of course, for the thank you gift we left our host). I'll tell you a little bit about each day because it was definitely an interesting trip. We chose the less expensive tickets with 3 legs, each direction, to save a few hundred dollars. That turned out to be a bit of a problem as we didn't have a lot of layover time between our second and third flights and when the first leg was delayed by over an hour, it meant we were going to miss our flight to Boston. Husband ran back and forth, getting the full pat-down in security twice, to make alternative arrangements and we ended up going from Jackson to Atlanta, Atlanta to D.C.'s Dulles and finally Dulles to London via British Airways, rather than our original carrier. We had to hustle through Dulles to catch the international flight.
As it turned out, British Airways was not expecting us and warned that they had to ask permission to board us. We were also told they might possibly not have enough food to feed us meals. Nor would we be able to sit together. No problem, we said. We just wanted to get there. It took them less than 5 minutes to say, "You're fine; still not sure about the food. Here are your new boarding passes." From then on, all was well and we were even fed. Except . . . our luggage didn't make it. More on that, later. I think I'll just share stories here, since I seem to be unable or unwilling to maintain a separate travel blog, at the moment. Obviously I went to Persephone Books:
The photo is out of order, chronologically, but since this post is mostly about the books, I figure it fits. I'll plan on mixing travel stories and book reviews for a while. This blog can stand a change of pace, don't you think? ©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.
Oh my gosh, I would have jumped on that opportunity faster than you can blink! How fun!
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, I did jump that fast! I will never, ever pass up an opportunity to go to the UK and we had a fabulous time.
DeleteI am more than happy to read about your travels here! To be honest, your flights sound a bit stress-filled but that happens sometimes! Jealous that you got to spend a week in London.
ReplyDeleteOh, good, thank you for saying that, Marg! The flights weren't perfect but Hubby is a frequent traveler, so he's able to work things out easier than most when there's a mess-up. And, I'm pretty laid-back because I'm always so very thrilled to get away from the house!
DeleteI can't wait to hear about your trip! I'm so jealous you get to go there so often. I haven't been since 2003 and I really want to go again! :(
ReplyDeleteJenny,
DeleteWe've been really fortunate getting to go to England 3 years in a row! London is such a wonderful town to explore. Hubby actually came home, washed his favorite travel outfit, repacked and went right back to the UK, this time on business. The cats and I are having an almost uncomfortably quiet week after last week's rushing around crowded London.
Enjoy your new books!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kelly! I am! I was iffy about Operation Heartbreak till the ending. The ending is really something.
DeleteI would love to visit Persephone some day... It sounds like it was an excellent trip, and I can see that you brought home some real treasures!
ReplyDeleteZibilee,
DeleteYou would love Persephone! It's an adorable little store and they're incredibly polite and helpful. I asked specifically for WWII titles and planned to limit myself to 3, but there were so many that I went a little overboard. :) We had a wonderful time and especially lucked out on the weather. It was absolutely perfect!
Wonderful that you were able to go to London and get a bunch of books. Any trip as fun as that justifies buying lots of good books! :)
ReplyDeleteNaturally, I agree with you, Alyce. :) Persephone is an especially wonderful little store, but I think we ended up going into at least 5 bookstores, total. The book business seems pretty healthy in the UK, near as I can tell!
DeleteLovely. Thanks again for the superfast postcard from Persephone! I think I might have to frame it and hang above the bookcase...
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome, Carrie. That was a little bit of payback for all the wonderful cards you've sent. It is definitely suitable for framing. We actually went back at the end of the week and bought a few more of those Persephone postcards.
DeleteGlad you were able to secure scads of books, Nancyroo, although it looks like quite the stressful trip right there at the beginning. Looking forward to reading more!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Andiloo! It really wasn't all that stressful to me, although I think Huzzybuns was frustrated. He's a frequent flier so you'd think he'd be used to the occasional snafu, but he gets kind of uptight. He did take care of the minor flight fiascos, though. I'm just always so happy to get away that I don't let little things like luggage not showing up bother me, although I wasn't thrilled that I'd forgotten to pack emergency makeup. Still, I was in London, so I just decided I was going to keep having fun and not let looking pasty bug me. :)
DeleteWow. What a fiasco to get to London, but how nice that your hubby is so well-traveled and knows all the ins-and-outs. Three years in a row?! Yes, I'm jealous! While I enjoyed parts of my trip to Hawaii, I think I'd rather go back to Europe. England, Italy, Germany, Amsterdam, Spain, Greece, etc! :)
ReplyDeletePersephone looks like a fun little shop to peruse. Glad you found some "souvenirs" to bring back and add to your stacks. ;)
Les, it seriously wasn't all that bad. It sounds awful but I don't stress over messed-up flights. Huzzybuns did not care for being patted down twice in order to fix things, thought. LOL I am very lucky he knows what he's doing!!! Three years in a row is pretty awesome. I would like to see more of Europe, though. All I've seen is . . . well, Paris. And, that was a weekend trip from London, the first time I went. The rest of my travel has been to the British Isles (and Japan, of course). I'm hoping we'll make it to Italy in the fall, to celebrate our anniversary. Any European country would do, though. I'm not picky.
DeletePersephone is very fun. They're extremely kind and helpful. I'm lucky I got out of the store without breaking the budget, honestly. It's cute and they have a lot of neat little things like paper and fabric that match the endpapers, bookmarks, postcards. Every book appeals to me, to be honest. I don't know that I'd have thought to go there, last year, if not for Bellezza's love of the books. But, it's one of our regular destinations, now. We actually went twice. If I'd had your address, I would have sent you a postcard. I'll have to take it with me, next time. I'm certain there will be a next time. :)