books

You may have seen me on Twitter bemoaning the fact that I only received one book as holiday giftage. (Technically, I got two. I received one after the bemoaning.)

Obviously, two is still not enough books. So despite the sorry state of my to-read shelf, I bought myself some pretties.

I have coveted the Coralie Bickford-Smith-designed Penguin Classics since I first saw them, so this is the beginning of what I’m certain will end up being a fairly large collection. They are so pretty, and there are so many classics that I’ve really wanted to own but lost the beat-up high school English class copies years ago. These are much better.

(Also featured in these photos is one of the marvelous bookends my sister gave me.)

I already want more because they don’t fill the whole shelf, even though the elephant is doing an admirable job of keeping them upright. And I’m annoyed that the Fitzgeralds don’t seem to be easy to find in the US, because they are swoon-worthy.

I had been planning on posting these today, so I was amused when they turned up on Doubleday’s Tumblr today as well. And then I turned up on Doubleday’s Tumblr, too. Hee.

I like books. A lot. This is likely obvious.

I recently bought myself a book that I’d had my eye on for awhile. I wanted it based on title alone (Magic 1400s-1950s!), but then I saw pictures and made grabby hands at my computer screen and then I kind of had to have it.

I think I can safely say that it is now the biggest book I own.

It is the only book I have ever purchased that arrived in its own case, complete with convenient handle for carrying.

Here it is out of its box, with some regular-sized books for comparison:

And open:

It is gorgeous and I haven’t had the time to go through it page-by-page yet, but I’m very much looking forward to it. I kind of want to get a podium for it to sit on, like in a library. When I have the space for a podium. And a proper library.

I also got the not-quite-so-large but still rather big The Circus Book. I’m going to need more shelves.