Book binge

I'm at it again. After a few weeks of relative austerity, I'm buying books once more.

On Saturday, we went to Waterstone's to buy a book for Jo, Cynical Ben's long-suffering spouse. It wasn't there, but I came away with Persepolis and The Spirit Level, which explains why equal societies are more successful. I also ordered a few books online last week. Like a proper addict, I can't even remember what they are. It's the ordering that's important, not the reading. And now I need another fix.

Today I received two wonderful books: The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories, and Nancy Mitford's very funny satire of 1930s fascism, Wigs on the Green in a handsome Penguin edition. It was only previously published once because she withdrew it under family pressure: one of her sisters (Diana) was the second wife of Oswald Mosley, leader of the Blackshirts, known in the book as the Union Jackshorts. Another sister, Unity, stalked Hitler until they became friends, and (unsuccessfully) shot herself with a gun the Fuhrer gave her on the day war broke out. Despite being dead, she appears to be on Facebook and Twitter…

Today, I've ordered Owen Sheers' White Ravens and Russell Celyn Jones's The Ninth Wave - part of lovely Seren Books' series retelling tales from the Mabinogion, the great collection of Welsh legends. Oh, and Mitford's The Blessing, just to be completist. And Delillo's latest, Point Omega. And Gottlieb's The Culture of Fascism: Visions of the Far Right in Britain for something I'm thinking of writing.


Oh dear.