Thirkell raffle results and a trip to Powell's

My Angela Thirkell raffle

As I mentioned in my post about Angela Thirkell's The Brandons last week, I had an extra copy of it and one of Wild Strawberries to share.  While I was at Powell's this past Saturday (more on that in a minute), I found another copy of The Brandons, a bit battered but so inexpensive that I couldn't resist adding to the stack.  After a completely random drawing, the copies are going to these folks:

• The Brandons (1st copy) to Debbie of ExUrbanis
• Wild Strawberries to Jane of Fleur in her World
• The Brandons (2nd copy) to Alex of Thinking in Fragments

I'll be contacting you to get mailing addresses, or you can send them to me at maylisa66[at]earthlink[dot]net



A long-deferred visit to Powells

I was visiting family in Portland over the weekend.  Of course the very best part was seeing my family, particularly my beautiful nieces and nephew, who are all growing up too fast (we have coined the term "niblings" as a collective for nieces and nephews, the children of siblings).  Loading up my sister's van with another sister, a sister-in-law and three nieces for a trip to Powell's City of Books was definitely a highlight.  An entire city block filled with books, new and used, everything under the sun - it is one of my very happy places.  The bookworm gene runs strongly in my family.  Collectively, the six of us came away with over 30 books (I lost track of some of the chapter books for the youngest reader).  Though I took a list of 17 authors with me, in the end I myself was relatively restrained.  Apart from the extra Thirkell, I only ended up with seven books.  Here they are, stacked on the TBR shelves, which have no room for them:

From the bottom,

• Anthony Trollope, The Vicar of Bullhampton  (one sister commented, "Don't you already have all the Trollope novels?")
• Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Seasoned Timber  (her last novel, published in 1939)
• Charlotte M. Yonge, The Clever Woman of the Family  (an irresistible Virago and technically a second copy so it hardly counts)
• Ada Cambridge, The Three Miss Kings  (a new author to me, but an 1891 tale of three sisters left orphans in an Australian seaside resort in 1880 also proved irresistible, particularly in a Virago edition)
• Elizabeth von Arnim, Vera  (one of her bleaker novels, I understand) and All the Dogs of My Life
• Baroness Orczy, Lady Molly of Scotland Yard  (normally I avoid print-on-demand books, but this is a Powell's reprint - the machine is right in the store - a facsimile copy that includes the original illustrations)

Fortunately, I had packed carefully, so there was plenty of room going home.  Now I just have to make room on the shelves - and decide what to read next.