Bookish Acquisitions

During our trip to Derby and the Peak District last week, I managed to acquire some great new books!

One of the places we visited was Chatsworth House, Mr Darcy's house in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.  Of course it has many other features too, but from a bookish perspective it was great to visit Mr Darcy's home.  The gift shop had a great selection of Jane Austen books, sequels by other authors and non-fiction books all about the world of Austen. I managed to find Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad.  

Synopsis from goodreads:

May's a tough-talking, hard-smoking, lecturer in English. She's also an Iraqi from a Sunni-Shi'ite background living in Baghdad, dodging bullets before breakfast, bargaining for high heels in bombed-out bazaars and battling through blockades to reach her class of Jane Austen-studying girls. Bee, on the other hand, is a London mum of three, busy fighting off PTA meetings and chicken pox, dealing with dead cats and generally juggling work and family while squabbling with her globe-trotting husband over the socks he leaves lying around the house. They should have nothing in common. But when a simple email brings them together, they discover a friendship that overcomes all their differences of culture, religion and age. "Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad" is the story of two women who share laughter and tears, and swap their confidences, dreams and fears. And, between the grenades, the gossip, the jokes and the secrets, they also hatch an ingenious plan to help May escape the bombings of Baghdad...

I'm hoping it'll be a nice cosy read.

And then we found a nice independent bookshop and my husband bought me two book from the Penguin Classics hardcover series that I've been coveting for the longest time.  They are both beautiful, bound editions with page markers.

Dracula by Bram Stoker.

I already own this book, but it's one of my favourite books and I wanted a nice edition to keep.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.

Believe it or not, I haven't read this one yet.  How gorgeous are the patterning and covers on this book?

What I love about the Penguin editions is that the pages are nice and thick, the font is just the right size and type and there are page markers included.  One day I will have a whole shelf of Penguin Classic Hardcovers....

Have you acquired any great books or bookish treats lately?

The Margaret Mitchell House, Atlanta

My honeymoon hasn't really involved many bookish destinations, so when we decided to visit Atlanta for two days, I insisted that we go to the Margaret Mitchell house.  I first read Gone With the Wind when I was about 16 or 17, and have been a fan of both the book and the film ever since.

Ignore the wonkiness of the photo, but this is the Margaret Mitchell house.  She lived with her second husband in an apartment on the ground floor whilst she wrote the majority of the book.  We had an informative tour by someone who knew a lot about the both the house and Margaret, but unfortunately were not allowed to take any photos inside the actual apartment.  The best part was that everyone on the tour was clearly a massive book geek!

The attached museum has lots of book and film memorabilia.  This portrait is used in the film, when Rhett and Scarlett are living together.

Creating my own masterpiece!

And just for fun! :P

We're leaving for home tomorrow.  As we didn't book the most expensive flight available, we have a midnight three-hour stop over at Toronto before heading on for London.  In 23 days we've visited eight states and I've driven over 2000 miles.  Not bad :)