Skip to main content

The Sunday Salon

Sunday, Sunday! It’s been very busy for me since I wrote that obscenely large check for the down payment on my condo, and because I’m having the kitchen and bathroom redone I spent yesterday morning and this morning thinking about cabinets and other things. Honestly, I don’t really care about refurbishing and decorating; I just want to move in! At the rate things are going, after the closing date on October 1st, it’ll probably be about November before I can fully move in. But I’m very excited about all of this.

I also spent a part of this weekend figuring out my camera and uploading pictures on there that have been taking up space since September… 2009 (that was when I went to Mecca London). And then I had some photos on my camera from Labor Day weekend, when I went to visit my college roommate up in New Jersey. So below is a selection of photos…

From the top: the book haul from the trip; the South Bank Book Market (it doesn't look like much, but I found some great deals there); the historical fiction section at Hatchards bookshop in Piccadilly; Sunday afternoon on the Thames; Westminster Abbey; Hampton Court Palace; the Persephone bookshop in Lambs Conduit Street; the Traitor's Gate at the Tower of London; Houses of Parliament; and the last is a shot of me last Sunday sitting in some tree in Tewksbury, NJ. When I went to London I took a lot of photos of the old Roman wall outside the Museum of London, and lots of shots of mosaics in the Tottanham Court Road tube station; sadly, none of them turned out all that well (I take pictures of the most random things!)

Comments

The book haul looks wow! Congratulations. I'm so envious... despite living in London, I only have all of three Persephone books! Isn't that wrong?

Looks like you had a fantastic time in London, and enjoy the reading that results from the trip! :)
Amanda said…
Great photos! I love the book haul stuff. I've been to that book sale under the bridge in London as well. Very cool.

Popular posts from this blog

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars

Six Degrees of Barbara Pym's Novels

This year seems to be The Year of Barbara Pym; I know some of you out there are involved in some kind of a readalong in honor of the 100th year of her birth. I’ve read most of her canon, with only The Sweet Dove Died, Civil to Strangers, An Academic Question, and Crampton Hodnet left to go (sadly). Barbara Pym’s novels feature very similar casts of characters: spinsters, clergymen, retirees, clerks, and anthropologists, with which she had direct experience. So it stands to reason that there would be overlaps in characters between the novels. You can trace that though the publication history of her books and therefore see how Pym onionizes her stories and characters. She adds layers onto layers, adding more details as her books progress. Some Tame Gazelle (1950): Archdeacon Hoccleve makes his first appearance. Excellent Women (1952): Archdeacon Hoccleve gives a sermon that is almost incomprehensible to Mildred Lathbury; Everard Bone understands it, however, and laughs