Sunday Salon: New year, new books

The Sunday Salon

Every year when my family asks what I want for Christmas and my birthday (they’re pretty close together) I give them a wishlist that is 90% books and every time I have to reassure them that yes, books really really are what I want. You’d think they’d learn. Thankfully, they know me well enough to buy me said books, in addition to a few useful things.

Even though I already own 120 or so unread books and a couple of thousand read books that I have kept because I want to re-read them some day, it makes me super happy to see this stack of new books.

Christmas books

If you can’t quite read those spines, the books are:

Cairo: My City, Our Revolution by Ahdaf Soueif
The Wine of Solitude by Irène Némirovsky
The Birds and other stories by Daphne du Maurier
The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler
The Most Remarkable Woman in England by John Carter Wood
No Surrender by Constance Maud (that’s the pretty Persephone edition)
Burmese Days by George Orwell
The Dark Side of Love by Rafik Schami

And despite already having all of those lovely new books, I tripped and bought a book yesterday – the first trade paperback volume of Sandman by Neil Gaiman (and if I like it there’s 11 further volumes to buy!) – while Tim was picking up his latest comics and earlier this week I ordered a book from Abe Books to complete my collection of the Claudine series by Colette. Can I help wanting to give a loving home to all the books?

Oh, and I also received a belated Christmas card via the Book Bloggers Holiday Card Exchange. This one is from Vasilly and came in a very pretty shiny envelope and contains a great quote about reading.

Card exchange prettiness

Yay, I love Christmas and birthdays! Just eleven and a half months to go to the next time. Did you get any great books lately?