Thursday 15 July 2010

the book of dreams

last weekend, my mother & i went to barter books, which is a huge second-hand bookshop in alnwick (about a 45 minute drive from my house). it's a beautiful building, the bookshop is located in a listed victorian railway - i would have taken pictures both inside & out, but as they sell very old, very rare books they have a no photography policy. so i'm afraid you'll just have to imagine the lovelyness!
the reason we were going was for me to buy books to read for my english literature course. personally, i adore buying old books as i love the history they have, & also it's pretty good for the environment! they're usually a lot cheaper too - although while browsing their online catalogue we saw several seriously ancient books for thousands!
these are the books i bought, some of these i have wanted to read for a very long time but have never had the money to buy them new.
in case you can't see the titles, they are;
the virgin suicides - jeffrey eugenides
mrs dalloway - virginia woolf
plays - oscar wilde
the kite runner - khaled hosseini
the crucible - arthur miller
the picture of dorian gray - oscar wilde
war & peace - leo tolstoy
not a bad haul for £20 in my opinion! as soon as i finish reading pride & prejudice i will start on the virgin suicides, which i have wanted to read for quite some time. i also bought the dire straits' first album on vinyl, but forgot to take a photograph!
i had a huge list of books to buy, & sadly the majority of the ones i wanted weren't there. the four books i wanted the most were anna karenina by leo tolstoy, the great gatsby by f scott fitzgerald, selected poems by sylvia plath & lolita by vladimir nabokov. i need the first two books for my coursework this year, so i think i will have to search amazon for these later. i don't really like searching for books there though, as i prefer browsing through bookstores.

9 comments:

  1. I just bought the virgin suicides yesterday xD And i also really wanna read Lolita. Lovely finds! x

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  2. that bookshop sounds so lovely!the virgin suicides is one of my favorite books, as is the kite runner, lolita and the great gatsby :) oh and, i just finished reading 'the hotel new hampshire' today, i remember you said you had read it and i already had it so i said i'd let you know what i thought :') it was certainly a bit strange but quite good after all (: xx

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  3. thank you! i can't wait to read them (:
    ahh i thought the same!

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  4. Wow so lucky to have all those nice books.

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  5. this sounds terribly lovely, i love dusty old bookshops! and what a great selection of books :)
    glad i found your blog, dear ♥

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  6. Great buys! The Great Gatsby is a good read too. Try the Penguin Popular classics for a few of those titles - they're usually pretty cheap. Happy reading!

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  7. Awesome books! Kite Runner was amazing and I have been wanting to read Virgin Suicides and Lolita too. I haven't ever seen a copy of Lolita, so good luck hunting!

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  8. oh wow - have fun reading them. Nice blog !

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  9. Just did a bit of backstalking and clocked that one of these books, and one on your list are ones I've had to study this year! Damn Gatsby & TKR x

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the wrote and the writ.