FABULOUS FINDS NINETEEN

I don't have any to report, but the other thread was well over 300 messages.

I also visited Henry Pordes on my last visit to London in March, with another big haul to bring back. I know it's insane, but I haven't found any green Viragos around home, so I always go a little crazy when I'm on Charing Cross Road and buy pretty much every Virago I see...

I picked up a bunch of green VMCs and new(er) VMCs. The green VMCs included My Antonia, Song of the Lark and A Lost Lady by Willa Cather, Without My Cloak by Kate O'Brien, Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles, Fireworks by Angela Carter, The Fly on the Wheel by Katherine Cecil Thurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Illyrian Spring by Ann Bridge and The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall.

One green-spine VMC, Mary Lavelle by Kate O'Brien.

And the newer VMCs included The Land of Spices by Kate O'Brien, The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield, Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns, All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West, The House on the Strand and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, At Mrs. Lippincote's, A View of the Harbour and In a Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor, A Glass of Blessings and Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym, The Sin Eater by Alice Thomas Ellis, The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy, South Riding by Winifred Holtby, The Group by Mary McCarthy and The Yellow Wallpaper and Selected Writings by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

To top it off, I picked up a dozen non-VMC Viragos and one World Classic...

What a fabulous collection - how did you manage to carry it all?

I had brought a small extra bag, and was able to stuff them all into that bag and the rest of my luggage. I've learned to plan for this now...!

Lovely scores there Lisa. You have found some of my favorites and several that I have not yet found. Very nice.

Wow! That's quite a haul! I picked up 4 VMCs today plus a couple of other books and was thinking I really must invest in a strong rucksack or a shopping trolley - but that lot must have weighed an awful lot.... some marvellous titles there.

>5 LisaMorr:: smart move Lisa!

>6 rainpebble:,7,8 - Thanks!

kaggsy it was heavy, but I balanced myself with a heavy linen shopping bag in each hand, and luckily I didn't have too far to walk.

I'm not sure if I'll have another great opportunity like this again this year, so I'm glad I was able to take full advantage!

Exciting! Nothing like finding a huge haul of Viragos to brighten one's day.

Another book off PBS from Deb - The Men's Room. The cover makes it sound like it might be erotic. An erotic Virago? I'll be reading that for AV/AA!

As I mentioned above (7) I did pick up a few interesting volumes yesterday and some pictures are here:

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/05/05/a-slight-loss-of-control...

11: Hmm, I read this in my teens but don't remember anything erotic about it. Though don't give up hope as I don't really remember anything about it at all except it made me give up eating polos!

ETA: Actually I think I've confused The Men's Room with another of Ann Oakley's. The one I'm thinking of was an autobiography. I also read From Here to Maternity which put me off having children for a good while. Though twenty five years on, I have two boys and am happily eating polos again!

12: Lovely books, lovely pictures Karen. I love the idea of a book cave! I'm sorry to hear your OH has been in hospital though. It must have been quite a week for both of you and I'm glad you found those treats to lift your spirits.

13: Thanks Dee - yes, it has been a bit of a week but hopefully things will continue to improve.

Karen, I hope OH is doing well. What great finds; I especially love the two you bought with the pretty dustwrappers. I probably couldn't have resisted either!

Thank you Claire, he is improving and for once doing what he's told and keeping his feet up to convalesce!

I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't resist lovely dustwrapper...!

Well, my Book People order arrived today - the Winifred Holtby and Rumer Godden sets - and when I entered the books into my LT catalogue every one came up with 'there is another copy of this work in your catalog'. Fortunately most were in my Read but Unowned collection but I have two titles for the Duplicates thread...

I received a copy of Quartet in Autumn from the reprint company, Bello, part of Pan Macmillan, today. They contacted me after seeing my discussions of Pym here and on my blog, and gave me a choice of books that they could send me. As Quartet is the only one I haven't got or read, I selected that, and here it is! Are we meant to be reading it in November or something? I may do so earlier, to thank the publisher with a review!

17: Yes I ordered the Holtby too - I already had a copy of South Riding but gave my copy which was unread as a birthday gift! I don't think I have the other two but if I do there is another birthday coming up..... I would prefer green but at such a bargain price I'm not complaining....

18: How wonderful! I can't remember the schedule but I'm sure Ali knows... :)))

I hadn't realised - Bello has published all the non VMC Pyms in March 2013 - I have all 4 in paperback and know where they are, but at the moment the Bello Kindle editions are selling for £2.39 each.

21: So..... my Book People order just arrived (yippee!) and I forgot that I had ordered the Muriel Spark set as well as the Holtby and Godden.....

So I may well be posting some dupes later today when I am a little more organised!!

I'm still hoping for a meet up of some sort in the foreseeable future - any ideas? I promise if such a thing happens to attempt to offload as many books on you all as I can carry to the meet up!

>22 elkiedee:: Ooh, yes, I'd love another meetup! Finding a date that most people can manage might be problematic though. But I think we should try.

I'd love a meet up too, and am more flexible about dates now that I have stopped working...

Were we going to try for Stratford one day? Or I'm always up for a Londony one ...

Yes, I'd like meet up but summer holiday time is coming...

I'm keen on this too, although won't be able to commit until OH is a bit better. London would be good for me...

Soooo jealous.

Stratford or London sound good. Of course, being a Londoner, I'd find Stratford more exciting ... I don't mind waiting till August/September when people are back from their holidays.

Back on topic, I was extremely excited to find a copy of The ginger griffin at the Oxfam shop this lunchtime. It's not a Virago, but the author Ann Bridge wrote our much-loved Illyrian spring.

I'll be in Stratford in August for the RSC summerr school.

As I shall be moving south from Newcastle to Birmingham in August/September, Stratford would suit me well if especially if it was not earlier than August.

My holiday is in early August - I'm going to Pertisau in Austria to see the Chalet School sights (and sites) - so that would suit me too.

>32 CDVicarage:: Oooohh, please share some photos with us :-)

Should we set up a new thread to discuss meet up possibilities?

>28 lauralkeet::
Laura, I am soooo jealous as well. I need a rich sugar daddy on the side to fund a good long trip for hubby & I to the U.K. Wouldn't you love to go or have you been?

*sigh* Startford or London? What a choice!
Well, I'll still be happy that I got an unread, original green copy of The Ballad and the Source in the mail today from AMP. Very nice. Very nice.

#18 I recieved three Pym books from Bello - they contacted me via twitter and asked me for other people to contact - I gave them a link to this group - but wasn't sure who if anyone they had contacted. : )

Oh always happy for a UK meet up naturally : )

>35 rainpebble:: Belva, I lived in the UK for 4 years, but it's been 9 years now since I moved back.
HOWEVER ... daughter #1 will be in Exeter for the 2013-14 academic year so I expect to be over there sometime during that period!!!

#39 That's exciting, Laura! What will she be doing?

Genny, she's a university student, studying English/Creative Writing. Her school has a partnership program in English with University of Exeter. It's a full-year program as opposed to most study abroad programs which are only a semester. There will of course also be travel -- some sponsored by the program, some on her own/with friends. She's very excited about it, as you might imagine.

I knew she was studying but wondered what course she would be doing in Exeter. That sounds great. I guess she's especially keen to return to the UK having lived here when she was younger; it will be fun for her to experience the country independently, and revisit places she remembers perhaps as well as exploring new parts of the country.

And great that this gives you a good excuse to come back for a visit during the year - let's hope there will be time to fit in an LT UK meet up when you do come.

Me too!

That is so awesome Laura, both for her and for you. And with a possible U.K. meet up, even better! **jealous**

A lovely, original green, copy of The Gentlewomen arrived yesterday from Lucy/Sybx. Lucky me.

My lovely Middle Child came home for a visit this weekend (mainly to see how OH was doing) but she very sweetly brought me some greens for my collection - pictures here:

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/treats-from-leicester/

46: How lovely of your middle child! It's wonderful that you have your whole family on board in the search for green spines. And I hope your OH is doing well.

47: Thank you - he is improving though very bored (he is not a good invalid!). Middle Child and Youngest Child are now both very eagle eyed at spotting green spines, which is vry lovely!

Very nice, Karen. Very nice. I can't remember --- were you saying on another thread that your OH was enjoying Elizabeth Taylor? Enforced confinement makes everything boring, but a good book is a great boon.

49: No, that was lapassionata! My OH is a film man rather than a bookish type so he is glued to DVDs - but he is finding there is only so much time you can spend staring at a screen!

Do any of you listen to audiobooks? I do, and I've noticed in the past week or so a LOT of new releases by Storm Jameson, Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Monica Dickens. Most of these are novels that haven't been published by Virago and that I haven't heard of before. I've seen them on audible.com (I check new releases daily). Unfortunately, it looks like they are Audible's own releases, which means you can only get them as downloads through the site, not as CDs. But I thought some of you might be interested.

I found a Virago copy of Life before man in the Oxfam shop yesterday. It's one of the early 90s editions which matches most of my other Atwoods, so I was very pleased!

DH and I have just came home from a week's holiday in Exmoor and managed to scoop a few Viragoes and related books from the bookshops there.

We found a lovely second-hand bookshop in Dunster when we visited Exmoor last year so I made sure we had a visit pencilled in this year too. Last year I found a lovely old copy of Talking of Jane Austen by Sheila Kaye-Smith and G. B. Stern. This year I found a lovely copy of More about Jane Austen by the same authors. I've been looking for a copy of this since I read the first book last year so I was thrilled to spot it on the shelf.

I also picked up some lovely original green VMCs:

Tell Me a Riddle by Tillie Olson
Over the Frontier by Stevie Smith
The Wild Geese by Bridget Bolan

Then on our wanderings we popped into one of the local churches to discover this had a small set of bookshelves with books for sale for only 50p. And there were a couple of Viragoes in modern covers so I grabbed them:

Provincial Daughter by R. M. Dashwood
Good Behaviour by Molly Keane

On flicking through the Tillie Olson book when we got home I realised that there are a number of double blank pages throughout the stories in the book. I think it's a printing error rather than some kind of literary device but I'm feeling rather sad about it as it will make half the stories unreadable. It wasn't a very expensive book so I was going to nip online and order a replacement but I didn't know if every copy would be affected or if it was corrected in a later print run. If anyone has the same edition and could check it for blank pages I would be really grateful!

It's the one with this cover and my copy has pages 66, 67, 70, 71, 74, 75, 78, 79, 83, 84, 86, 87, 90, 91, 94 and 95 completely blank.

Heather, what a great haul from your holiday. Especially to find the More About Austen book in the same bookshop as the first volume last year!

How annoying re the Tillie Olson, though at least it was not too expensive. I thought I had that editionm, but it turns out I have an original green omnibus edition which has both the collection of shorter stories Tell me a riddle and the novel Yonnondio. There are no blank pages in my edition.

I too have some fabulous finds to report, following another trip to my favourite bookshop, Barter Books. (I'm making the most of being able to visit there occasionally while I still live in the North East).

Only one original green this time:
Angel - Elizabeth Taylor

But I also found nice editions of
Shadows on the rock - Willa Cather
A sea-grape tree - Rosamond Lehmann
Circles of deceit and The birds on the trees - Nina Bawden

and in the Virago Classic Non-Fiction range:
Selected Letters of Edith Sitwell

and a non-VMC edition of A few green leaves ready for the Pym group read.

Wonderful finds, both! I don't have the Tillie Olsen, but it sounds a real pain to have so many missing pages. Maybe some kind person who does have it could photocopy them for you??

#54 Thanks for checking Genny. I may buy that edition as a replacement as it has Tell me a Riddle and Yonnondio. And your finds sound wonderful too :-)

#56 I did wonder whether the blank pages could be used as a creative writing exercise?

Three parcels from Persephone waiting for me today: Someone at a distance, Good evening, Mrs. Craven and Few eggs and no oranges. I bought them as a combined Thingaversary and birthday present for myself. This has doubled the size of my Persephone collection and leaves me with a dilemma. Up to now my Persephones (all three of them!) have been shelved as part of my Virago collection but six books make a good sized collection and really should be shelved separately, but where am I to find the extra space and shelves?

I do have the Olsen, and liked it very much, but probably didn't read the same copy I know own. Not sure where it is, I'm sure I saw it recently.

58: It's difficult isn't it - Persphones look lovely together but shelving is definitely an issue......

I put all my Persephones in one bookcase (I have about 70) and was disappointed. I thought they did not look good together. It was just a sea of grey with no individuality so I re-shelved them back into my main bookcases. I use my bookcases as a form of wall art and rather like the muddle of colors and covers.

I have found a few lovelies myself.
Janina Bauman's Winter in the Morning off PBS,
She Knew She Was Right by Ivy Litvinow,
Over the Frontier by Stevie Smith,
Everything is Nice by Jane Bowles,
Never No More by Maura Laverty,
Afternoon of a Good Woman by Nina Bawden and my prize:
The Other Woman by Colette.

I also found a wonderful book of Jewish short stories at a little
shop in Philly recommended by CurrerBell. The shop is Who Done It, I think, and the book is: Lost Tribe: Jewish Fiction From The Edge edited by Paul Zakrezewski. I read over three hundred pages of it on my flight home last night and it is some the best reading I have found this year. I fly very light and was lucky to be able to fit even one book in. **shrugs**

Lovely books Belva - some real finds there, well done!

Barbara, I guess I haven't got enough Persphones to make a block of grey!! I can see your point though - and I'm not too pedantic about shelving as I have non-green Viragos in with classic greens, and even a couple of Elizabeth Hardwick NYRBs next to her Virago titles!!

51 - I rarely listen to audiobooks, but I'm intrigued that you've seen Ivy Compton-Burnett releases recently - I love her, and have often wondered how her books would work as audiobooks...

I love my block of grey! :)

Wonderful finds Heather and Belva.

Heather, doesn't a bookshop filled with treasures really make a holiday? I'm really pleased you found the other Jane Austen book.

As with the others, my Tillie Olsen is the omnibus version. It sounds as if you have a rare and unusual edition - but a shame you can't really read it!

Heather,

I checked my copy of Tell Me A Riddle and I have all those pages with print on them. Do you want me to scan the pages and email them to you so you can at least insert them when you read the book? Or I could copy them and drop them in the mail to you when I am in Stratford this August.

elaine

#67 Elaine, that is such a kind offer - thank you. I think instead I will buy the omnibus edition Genny mentioned as that will have all the stories in plus another novella and gives me an excuse to grow my Virago collection :-) Thanks for thinking of me though!

You're welcome. And you can keep the VMC for its nifty cover!

Genny, you talked me into The Selected Letters of Edith Sitwell which I just ordered used for 1¢ + shipping from AMP. THANKS! And while I was thinking about letters, I went back and ordered a copy of In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor. So there.

Peggy; was that a neener, neener I heard there?
Surely not from you. lol!~!

#70 Peggy, I don't remember doing much talking about the Edith Sitwell... Surely all I did was mention it? I guess that's enough of a red rag to a VMC bull though!

#69 And you can keep the VMC for its nifty cover! Exactly :-)

Belva, I certainly wouldn't neener neener! I was just saying.......
Genny, a mention was all it took. I have a 33 1/3; record of ES reading her poetry, and the bare mention of her name brought back "Said the navy blue ghost of Mr. Belaker, the allegro, Negro cocktail shaker..." in that deep, posh voice. I'd listen to it now, but I don't have a working turntable. I've never thought of myself as a bull before; I kind of like it.
Anyway, I came to say that Lisa sent me a duplicate of Two Serious Ladies which arrived today, and now I get to READ it and mark it off my wish list here. THAN YOU, Lisa!!!

This is a fabulous find of a different sort: it's an online exhibit entitled "What Jane Saw." It replicates an 1813 exhibition of Sir Joshua Reynolds paintings that Jane Austen attended. Really, really interesting!

This is very nice Deborah. I had heard of it before but never visited. Thank you for the link.

I just saw your link on FB, Deborah - and immediately forwarded it to all my Austen-y friends. What a fabulous site!

Not VMC, but rather thrilled to find obscure Dorothy Whipple novel Young Anne in a London Oxfam yesterday -and to have a nice chat with the man behind the counter about Whipple, Persephone, and Stella Gibbons.

I found a nice italicised green copy of The birds fall down at a second-hand bookshop in Wimbledon yesterday, and then bought the Virago edition of The group at the library booksale today. More to add to Mount Tbr.

Lovely finds!

Someone in the Marylebone area has been offloading Viragoes at the Oxfam bookshop. I restrained myself and came away with only
The Misses Mallett
The true heart and
The people with the dogs.

All are lovely original greens. The Young and the Stead are two that have interested me for a while, so I was especially pleased to find them.

Nice scores Claire! And all nice green ones! I just found The True Heart online myself not long ago. I can never find VMCs at any shops even within a 100 mile radius of home on this side of the pond. I think they are are more readily available on the East Coast but still not like there.
You Rock!~!

Lovely finds - well done! It's funny how finds can come in waves - sometimes I won't find a new Virago for ages, then like buses loads come at once. I have the same issue with my vintage Pyrex collection (ahem) - haven't seen any in the local charity shops in months and months.....

I took the kids to Wood Green yesterday, priority was the building society, WH Smith to buy some craft glue, and some treats from the bakery, but I did manage to check out some of the charity shops - 2 old favourites and 2 new ones - at the new British Heart Foundation shop, I found a Persephone I didn't have, complete with bookmark, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, The Home-Maker - there were 3 others I already bought - £2 apiece as well. I didn't get any Viragos but I did get 5 other books there, and I found a 2012 hardback edition of Irene Nemirovsky, The Misunderstanding. There were some Virago non fiction books I already have.

Not VMCs, or even VMC manquées, but Romans des femmes by Georges Simenon and Angelika by
Bolesław Prus arrived today. The Simenon is an omnibus of ten novels (1931-68) with female protagonists, and Angelika is a very early novel by Prus which I haven't seen in anything but Polish until recently.

84: Ain't charity shops grand! Wonderful books - well done!

Here is a non-book find that I think you will enjoy. It's a link to seven wonderful literary gardens, including those of Beatrix Potter, Roald Dahl, and Vita Sackville-West.

Link didn't work for me Deb.

Me neither?

Drat! It was in an email from Random House. I'll see if I can get it another way.

Let's try this. It's a link to the web page, where you should be able to access the "Literary Library" link at the top of the page.

What a surprise!!! In the mail today from Andrew the three remaining books in G.B. Stern's *Matriarch* series (Mosaic, Shining and Free, and The Young Matriarch) in vintage hard covers. Virago had printed only the first two, and I had given up on ever seeing the other three. Thank you, thank you, Andrew!!!!!!!

That's wonderful, Peggy - well done, Andrew!

From Elaine, via PBS, Familiar Passions and Dangerous Calm, both in newer green and in lovely condition. Thank you Elaine!!!!

Barbara

You're welcome. And I friended you a PBS credit for the one you spent.

>91 LizzieD:: You made a Christmas wish. And to all those who call me a Scrooge, I say, "Bah, humbug! I'm just on a different calendar!"

I have a huge wishlist on ereaderiq which sends me lots of price drop messages. Some of them are just a matter of pennies, or they're still expensive, but I succumbed to a couple today, one of which was Penelope Fitzgerald, A House of Air - collected articles and reviews, including some biographical, but also writings on many of her contemporaries including Barbara Pym. It isn't that cheap, £4.99, but it's out of print in hard copy form and the cheapest secondhand copy is more than that with postage).

So much loveliness going on here with all this gifting out-of-print books and friending PBS credits!

Luci, I like the sound of A House of Air and am off to investigate further. Do not be surprised if you see my purchase on your home page very soon.

Ereaderiq are already responsible for an earlier Amazon buy today- Virginia Nicholson's Millions like us: Women's Lives in the Second World War. Currently £1.99 on Kindle at Amazon.co.uk.

I also bought Mother of All Myths, a non fiction book by Aminatta Forna.

You are a very bad influence, Luci but thank you anyway ;)

You can talk! Isn't what this group is for so we can egg each other on and be a thoroughly bad influence?

Absolutely, and we seem to be doing it very successfully too!

Yesterday I brought home from the post a plethora of Angela Thirkell's but sadly no Virago in site (yet) and these lovelies greenbacks:
Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather,
An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw, and
Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister by Aphra Behn.

Last week I was able to add to my green library:
My Next Bride by Kay Boyle,
The Swan in the Evening: Fragments of an Inner Life by Rosamond Lehmann,
Love Lessons by Joan Wyndham,
What's It Like Out? by Penelope Gilliatt,
The Comforters by Muriel Spark,
Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles,
Anderby Wold & The Crowded Street (finally) by Winifred Holtby,
After the Death of Don Juan by Sylvia Townsend Warner,
Willa Cather: A Life Saved Up by Hermione Lee,
The "Rebecca" Notebook and Other Memories & Vanishing Cornwall by Daphne Du Maurier, (the latter sent to me from a non-L.T. friend who lives in Cornwall),
A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary by Anonymous,
Over the Frontier by Stevie Smith,
She Knew She Was Right by Ivy Litvinov,
Everything is Nice: The Collected Stories of Jane Bowles by Jane Bowles,
Never No More by Maura Laverty,
Afternoon of a Good Woman by Nina Bawden, and
The Other Woman by Colette.

As you can probably guess my credit card has taken some horrible hits but I just got so hungry and had no more books in boxes, etc. Now I need more shelving. 'Ain't Life Grand?'
edited to say that once my current orders have all arrived I think I seriously need to STOP!

#96 - 101 Both of you are a bad influence - stop it! (I say, as I head to amazon).

#103 Wowzer Belva! :-)

104: We are the girls your parents warned you about Heather, hanging out at the bikesheds with our kindles and secondhand paperbacks!

103: Well your Virago collection is coming on very nicely, Belva. And a plethora of Thirkells too, wonderful!

Wow Belva that's amazing - you are in green heaven!

GOOD for you, Belva!
In my mail yesterday I got my copy of The Selected Letters of Edith Sitwell, which I ordered because I was egged on by Genny........ O.K. She mentioned that she had just found a copy. It doesn't take a lot of egg, does it.

>105 Soupdragon:: We are the girls your parents warned you about Heather, hanging out at the bikesheds with our kindles and secondhand paperbacks!
Oh that's too funny, Dee!

Not a VMC, but a VMC author, at any rate: E. M. Delafield's Late and Soon arrived today. As did Vera Caspary's Evvie - a first edition, no less.

LOL!~! This is really getting funny! And yes, I am in green heaven but poor as a church mouse now with no credit available (almost).

I love your remark Dee; can picture it now..

And Peggy, I think we should blame it all on Genny. And no, not a lot of egg at all. ;-)

Andrew; very nice. Not many have found that particular Delafield. And Caspary, didn't she write Laura? Why yes she did. Now I really am jealous. (and possibly on the hunt again....I may have to come out of retirement just to feed my book budget)

I ordered a Persephone copy of The New House from Amazon. Like new. E-mailed the seller to confirm that it was the Persephone and Like New. Yes. It arrived. Like new but not a Persephone. In fact it was a pristine 1988 Green Virago which, alas, I already own in very good condition. Sent it back to the seller and got a refund and have now reordered from someone else.

Just also ordered two books by Mary Hocking for AV/AA. I bought a rather shabby copy of A Particular Place last month and have now ordered the first two books in her WW2 trilogy - Good Daughters and Indifferent Heroes.

By the way Belva - is AV/AA still on?

Hi Barbara.
Yes indeed ALL VIRAGO/ALL AUGUST is still on. I wouldn't know how to live my last month of summer without it. Would you like me to go ahead and throw the thread up? Ewwww, that didn't sound good. lol!~!

I just may go ahead and read Mary Hocking along with you for AV/AA. Do you know that there is not one review for any of the three in her trilogy? We could just take care of that now, couldn't we? Barbara & Belva; the dastardly duo!~!

hugs,

Yes Belva, but knowing our luck you'll love it and I'll hate it! Hocking is one of those Virago authors that is not easy to find. I have read Letters from Constance which was wonderful and The Very Dead of Winter which was good, but until now I could not find any of her other books at less that $40-50. I still could not find the last book in Virago but if the others are good I'll order it on Interloan.

Goods Daughters is a wonderful read! I meant to review it but didn't because life happened and now I'd have to reread it to do the novel justice. Still, I remember really liking the family. The father is a lay preacher who is strict, but very fair and loving, to his girls so they feel safe and know their boundaries. (That doesn't stop the girls from testing them). Good picture of London just before WW2.

Sounds right up my alley Elaine. Thank you for the tidbits of the novel. I am looking forward to reading this trio.
And you are probably quite right Barbara. That seems to be how the two of us roll. lol!~!

The recent Persephone Biannually inspired a little clicky-clicky ... and as a result I received Miss Buncle's Book and two copies of The Exiles Return. One copy is a gift to the person who gave us The Hare with Amber Eyes, written by Elisabeth de Waal's grandson Edmund. The hubster & I enjoyed *Hare* so much, we thought it would be fun to give our friend a related book.

>114 Liz1564::
Elaine, your Goods Daughters touchstone is for some reason bringing up Three Plays By Brieux Member of the French Academy ( Maternity, Three…
by Eugene Brieux. Would this be correct? Sorry to impose but I wanted to follow your link.
hugs,

I have been on the hunt for Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire books for the past couple of months. Three more came in today so now I am awaiting the remaining fourteen to come in.
I was waiting for my therapy appointment one day about four years ago and when my therapist came out to get me I was reading Trooper to the Southern Cross. Turns out she is an Angela Thirkell addict. She said the the Barsetshire series are just about the only books she doesn't ship down to Panama for sharing after she has read them. She rereads them every few years. She was surprised that Thirkell was still being read today. She doesn't know about L.T., does she? Well, she does now. Anyway I am grateful that she turned me on to the series.

Belva,

Try this. There isn't much on the page except a brief description of the book.

http://www.librarything.com/work/402188

That worked Elaine.

Today I received in the post Louisa May Alcott's Little Women: an annotated edition edited by Daniel Shealy and I can't begin to tell you what a wonderful edition of her book this is. A real treasure to add to my library. I got it on a reck from CurrerBell and am so thrilled that I went ahead and ordered it. Well worth the price.
I wonder who the fortunate one to get the Advance Reading Copy was...........

Belva - 'Three more came in today so now I am awaiting the remaining fourteen to come in.' Hilarious!

;-)
LOL!~!

Belva, I have been reading Angela Thirkell for years, ever since I came to the US to be precise (1985!). Now, to my great delight, she has been 'accepted' among the Viragos...Hurrah!!!

>124 aluvalibri::
Something to celebrate, right Paolina?
So very nice to 'see' you.
hugs,
belvina

Thank you, my dear. It feels good to be back :-))

Yep - wonderful to have you back. You've been sorely missed. We love you!!!!!

Through the mail today two Persephones bought second hand for under $10 each but both like new.

The New House
Good Evening Mrs. Craven

I already own the first in VMC and the latter in Persephone Classics. I justify these small purchases because I don't smoke and drink or run the streets. :)

Well done Barbara!

>122 romain::
Barbara dear; There were not 14 Angela Thirkells awaiting at the Post today but there were 11 and among them a treasure. A 1935 1st edition of The Grateful Sparrow and I had no idea. Really wonderful artwork within and lovely coverart. I had just ordered it blind. The only one I had trouble finding was Summer Half. It also arrived today and was the only truly spendy one of all the Thirkells I ordered.

Thank you, dear Barbara! I love you too, and often thought about you all and our lovely group during my absence. Luckily, things will keep improving and I I will not disappear again :-))

AGAIN HOORAY FOR THE FOUNDER!!!!
I don't have anything of interest coming in right now except lovely Heather's lovely Mrs Miniver, but that will take a bit.
Meanwhile, Belva, Summer Half is the Thirkell that I'm reading right now, and the one before it was Cheerfulness Breaks In, and both of them feature that beautiful half-wit Rose Birkett (marvelous! dispiriting!).
AND I have a copy of both Good Daughters and A Particular Place but not Indifferent Heroes. I can't locate *IH* as a VMC easily, so I may have to get a ringer if I like the first one.

O.K. I put my post in the wrong place, but I liked the first 3 pages of A Particular Place so much that I ordered Indifferent Heroes. Letters from Constance, the *Winter* and the *Strangers* from AwesomeBooks. Only *Constance* is a VMC, but I'll take what I can get!

Peggy, most all of my Thirkell's are Moyer Bell which I love, though not as much as the Virago.

#131 yes I just ordered four Mary Hocking from awesomebooks for just over £10 - : ) I really shouldn't be buying books - but I don't care.

Aren't the Moyer Bells lovely, Belva? My only Thirkell VMC is *Trooper*, and I have a lot of 80s vintage ones in mass pb, but now I try to hold out for M-Bs.
Ali, you really should be buying a few books, especially at that price. So there.

I loved Letters from Constance Peg. So we are all reading the Mary Hockings in August?

Oooh those Moyer Bells are pretty. I really like their Mapp & Lucia covers (and am in process of collecting all six), and I'd like to own more Thirkells so now I know what to look for!

Coincidentally, given the Mary Hocking discussion above, this lunchtime I found a Virago copy of Letters from Constance in the Oxfam shop! I also picked up some (non-Virago) Barbara Pyms that I don't have - An unsuitable attachment, A few green leaves and A very private eye. So now I am all set for the rest of the year!

"So now I am all set for the rest of the year!" You don't really mean that, do you Claire? But congratulations on finding some wonderful books - especially the *Letters*!
And, yes, Barbara, I intend to read Mary Hocking in August unless I save Two Serious Ladies for then and read one now, and I may. I need something unfraught to get me settled from Life and Fate.
Meanwhile, I just happened across a cheap copy of Rhapsody at AMP, and I sort of had to give it a good home even if I don't usually care for short stories. It's a Penguin green, and my only complaint is that the sticker over a former sticker pulled the green from the spine. It has a great cover though of a Duncan Grant, so I'm happy.

13: That's really handy, and I don't think any of the Pym books you mention have been published by Virago.

I've succumbed to the temptation to order a Mary Hocking, I think I might have read it 20 years ago in a pre-Virago edition - both Abacus and Virago are part of the same branch of the same publishing empire here (Little Brown/Hachette) and so presumably that simplifies the process of turning books into VMCs if they still have the rights - the same thing happened with Molly Keane's last 3 books.

I've received 3 recent books published by Virago in the last couple of days, not VMCs.

I went crazy choosing leftover review books from the Amazon Vine program, and will almost certainly be unable to ask for anything else once I miss the deadline for reviewing them all, but I have:

Rebecca Harrington, Penelope - debut novel about a young woman's first year at Harvard - new hardback
J Courtney Sullivan, The Engagements - various characters set between 1927 and 2003 - ARC

And I've inherited an American Vine ARC from Suzanne (Chatterbox) from the LT 75 in xxxx group who has just visited London - I was asking her abou thte book when we met up last week and she decided to post it to me rather than lugging it home - Blood and Beauty by Sarah Dunant is a novel about the Borgias, this copy is non-Virago but here it's Virago. LT people are just so lovely, aren't they?

My new Hockings have arrived - the trilogy are a lovely matching set

They look lovely Ali - happy reading!

My copy of Good Daughters also arrived today from Book Depository. A beautiful pristine green. I am thrilled. The second book is coming from Better World Books. If they run true to form it will be a piece of crap :)

Better World Books? Definitely crap! I got a book today (tho not from them) described as good online with water damage stains and the first having a piece cut out leaving a wavy line - go figure!

Yep Karen. I e-mail every single seller these days and say that if it says Like New it should look like a new book and if it says VG it should have an uncreased spine and covers. All the good sellers come through and all the bad ones cancel the order. Saves us both a lot of tension and hurt feelings.

However I never bother to e-mail Better World Books or World of Books because they ALWAYS send crap and I only order if I really want the book and can't get it anywhere else.

From Heather's offer on the duplicates thread, a nice original green copy of Mrs Miniver arrived today. I'm very pleased to say the least. Thank you, Heather!!!!

Is it just me or have book covers been getting really good in the past few years!? Those Hockings are gorgeous, Ali!

My Hocking Indifferent Heroes arrived from Better World Books. Described as 'good' but is in the most appalling condition of any book I have ever received from any seller. I cannot remember ever being as shocked by a book's condition as I am with this one. Every inch of it is creased, torn or ripped and if I didn't want to read it so much I would throw it straight in the trash. I still have a free book coupon with them from my last purchase and I think I'm going to call that in rather than pay for this piece of crap.

>147 romain::
Good for you Barbara. I hate when they indiscriminately send pieces of *hit out to you rather than a book!

Home again, home again jigetty jig!~!
And waiting for me at the P.O. were 4 more Angela Thirkells, two of them from her Barsetshire Chronicles. I am yet awaiting only Pomfret Towers and Before Lunch and will have the entire series on my shelf. WOOT WOOT!~!

147: That's just awful - I've only had one book that I would consider that bad, a copy of Calvino's Complete Cosmicomics and it was so gnarled and dirty I had to put it in a plastic bag and dispose of it :( Sympathies - complain and demand a refund?

>148 rainpebble:: I am yet awaiting only Pomfret Towers and Before Lunch and will have the entire series on my shelf.
That's impressive, Belva! Are they all similar editions e.g. Moyer Bell?

BWB refunded my money without being asked, after I left negative feedback. Woo-hoo! I never use Better World Books anymore because of the poor quality of their books but I so wanted this particular book and this was the only Virago edition I could find.

So many of these sellers are part of an enormous franchise. For instance Julie's Bookshop, which sounds like a corner store, turns out to be part of some corporation-owned warehouse in the UK. I read every seller profile going back months and I e-mail each individual seller and I mostly get nice books now, but it is a lot of work.

I don't order anything from BWB any more. I tried them three times and every time the books I received were appalling - battered, marked-up, covered with stickers that couldn't be removed without causing further damage, you name it. Their standard for "Good" is very, very low.

>150 lauralkeet::
Laura, all are the Moyer Bell but for 5 Carroll & Graf and then of course the two Virago. All of my Pyms are Moyer Bell as well except for a couple. I love the Moyer Bells. They are classy, artful and good quality.

I'm surprised by that info about Julie's Bookshop - whatever the setup, I've been very happy with the condition of all the books I've bought from that seller. A lot of marketplace sellers just get their books sent out by Amazon directly. I've once got a refund - from Awesome Books - as well as a better condition copy, as they sent me a so called VG book which was coming away from the cover throughout the book, with a very battered cover, and it was minimally acceptable - and it was a book with lots of better copies available including from that seller, as they then demonstrated, but why wait until I complained? Awesome seems to me to send out better books if you order from their own website, but on Amazon, I normally look at the other sellers.

When I e-mailed Julies to check out the condition of the book I got a generic e-mail saying that their stock was warehoused and they had no way of checking it. However they mailed it over my objections so perhaps they are confident of their stock (wherever it is kept) and it will be just fine. It is the first time I have used them.

My theory about getting a crap book advertised as VG (which is later replaced by a decent copy) is that the teenage warehouse boy packing them just picks the first copy he sees regardless of condition. As proof of this I offer my own 20 year old who asked for and got three beautiful brand new books for his birthday (along with heaps of cash of course). He asked for stuff on ancient Rome and/or The Templars and I spent hours choosing them looking for a combination of quality content and readability. Everyday he takes one to work with him at a burger joint and reads in his breaks. And I watch these beautiful books come home every day covered in greasy fingerprints and coffee stains and I say nothing because he has no awareness of what he is doing and because he is reading!!!!

That's a very good theory, Barbara. AND your son reading good stuff too, and if he loves his books with greasy fingers, I'm glad that you can suck it up and love that he loves.
Meanwhile, my get-4-for-the-price-of-3 books came from Awesomebooks, and to my joy, two of them are modern green-spined-and-appled Viragos: Letters from Constance, The Very Dead of Winter, Indifferent Heroes, and Welcome Strangers. I'll be on a Mary Hocking binge!

I had a couple of green lovelies arrive from Awesome today: The Harsh Voice by Rebecca West and Mr. Skeffington by Elizabeth von Arnim - both in rather good condition, considering the age!

*and* I discovered I already have The Fountain Overflows in a modern Virago in one of my box sets - result!!

In the post today the book from Julies Bookshop. The Vicar's Daughter. Was it in VG condition? It was. But overshadowed by my second parcel which had a VG copy of Trooper to the Southern Cross in the original green. That was one of the rare ones I have been after for a couple of years so I am well pleased.

That is probably a rare find Barbara. Great score, that!~!

Somebody told me a few weeks ago to look on e-bay. Who was that? Anyway, many thanks because I picked up 4 Antonia Whites - brand new looking, original greens - to replace my horrible Dials. $14.95 and no shipping. For anyone who may be interested someone else is selling 48 original green VMCs for almost $500 with shipping. (Obviously you would not want to pay anything like that amount) They also look to be in excellent condition but I have all of them already.

I rather like my Dials Barbara but probably wouldn't so much if they were horribly battered. They don't need to be pristine but at least be a decent readable copy.

Today I got a vintage Virago from Book Depository. A few weeks ago I bought a full price copy of Good Daughters from them ($15.50) and it arrived in a green cover from the mid 90s. It's pages are white and it does not look as if it's been sitting in a warehouse for 15 years so what gives? But today's book is even stranger. Like I say, a vintage green of Margaret Laurence's The Fire Dwellers with a publication date of 1988 and yet the book is not only brand new it is gorgeously new. Can it be a print on demand copy and if so why would Virago print on demand a Margaret Laurence rather than a more popular author? I paid $3.04 for it, plus $3.99 S&H.

#162 I have seen some of the Virago books listed as print on demand from the book depository and 15 dollars sounds about right but 3?!

Yes $3 + postage which BD doesn't usually charge so clearly it came from outside of their warehouse. I can't remember now if I clicked on Abe Books, who they carry as their second hand dealer, but it came in a BD envelope with BD receipt. Plus the ISBN has the full 978 prefix, and that is a fairly recent addition to paperbacks isn't it? BD does have about a dozen Viragos with the old green covers so perhaps all of them are print on demand.

Charity shopping at the weekend, I found a Virago Travelers - Peregrinations of a Pariah - in the Oxfam Bookshop in Crouch End, but then their card machine failed to work and a very rude, nasty woman refused to let me run to a cash till (they were closing but I would have made it back from the ATM before they finished packing up, quite easily), write a cheque or have another go at ringing up my books (there were 9 of them). I ended up going back the next day, and also found

Isabel Bolton, New York Mosaic - a VMC

Emer McCourt, Elvis Jesus and Me - newer Virago novel

Several non Viragos of interest to VMC readers

A Greyladies book Susan Scarlett (better known as Noel Streatfeild), Summer Pudding

An Oxford World Classics edition of Esther Waters - I know it's not a Virago but this Victorian novel was a gripping Radio 4 serial a few months ago, about a servant who has an illegitimate child and her struggles to earn a living as a single mother when being such was shocking - I read VMCs and other such partly because I'm fascinated in seeing the differences in how women in society are portrayed in fiction over the years, and this fits very well into that interest.

Penelope Fitzgerald, The Blue Flower

Dervla Murphy, Where the Indus is Young - and her last but one book, about visiting Cuba with her daughter and grandchild, The Island that Dared, is £1.99 for Kindle on Amazon UK at the moment.

Sadly someone must have bought the Fleur Adcock poetry books I tried to buy on Sunday (she was part of my grandparents' circle of NZ literary friends living in England, though she must be quite a bit younger - I don't think she's that close to turning 100) - indeed, she doesn't turn 80 until next year).

What wonderful finds - well done!

I've never seen a Greyladies book in a second hand shop!

Greyladies? A series or a publisher? Is this something else I have to keep my eyes out for?

It's a publisher. Here's their website.

Re my query on 164 I found this from us

http://www.librarything.com/topic/76769

167: It was the first I've seen, and I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't had to go back, so maybe it all worked out well in the long run.

Virago is 40 and have released a Kindle freebie to celebrate:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Virago-40-A-Celebration-ebook/dp/B00DNADN4Y/ref=sr_1_1?s...

I believe that Virago is 40 is only available for U.K. customers. Am I correct here?

Loved all the Noel Streatfield (Susan Stratfield) books when I was a kid.

Arriving in the post this week was Angela Thirkell's World: A Compete Guide to the People and Places of Barsetshire by Barbara Burrell. I was so tickled to find this before I begin reading the series.

#172 It seems to be listed on the amazon.com site too, Belva:

http://www.amazon.com/Virago-40-A-Celebration-ebook/dp/B00DNADN4Y

>175 souloftherose:: but sadly, it also says "This title is not currently available for purchase" and there is no link to download it to your Kindle. Boo hoo!

(see my post on the thread about the Virago 40 book)

#175 Oh bother, there was for me but that must be because it knows I'm in the UK.

I've emailed Virago to see if I can find out if the book will be released outside the UK - if I hear anything I'll update here! Fingers crossed.....

Thank you Karen. You are a gem.

No probs - I don't expect to hear back anything in a hurry but I will update if I do!

venting ...

I know a few of you have had the experience of receiving a non-Virago edition from Paperbackswap. I've been lucky up to now, but there's a first time for everything.

The Optimist's Daughter was on my wishlist (using the ISBN for the Virago edition). It popped up as available, so I requested it, only to receive a non-Virago edition with, you guessed it, a different ISBN. The site's "help" information has very clear instructions on how to handle this with the sending member. The member admitted she was new to the site and had made a mistake, and offered "If you want to ship the book back, I would be glad to refund your credit. " No, it doesn't work that way. Why should I pay the postage?

So when I replied to her about this she got snippy with me: "After paying for it to ship once, it doesn't make sense for me to pay to ship, in essence, two more times (shipping you materials, then paying for your postage), to get back a book that is worth a dollar or two. I would think that if you were honestly interested in the book that the version wouldn't matter to you and it's frustrating to me because that was a book I would've happily kept. Now it seems I've paid out of pocket to ship you something of mine that I enjoyed and I don't even receive credit for it. I consider this case closed. "

I had already explained I collect VMCs and the edition was important. Thankfully she refunded my book credit. Sigh.

/venting

Let's hope she learned a valuable lesson. Newbies often, I find, don't understand the dynamics of PBS. I had one ask me for two credits since the book she was going to mail was a hardback and would cost her more than a paperback to ship. When I tried to explain that a book was a book was a book she got huffy and denied my request. Sigh...

Sounds very frustrating - I have started using ReadItSwapIt here in the UK whihc has been mostly good but there are major issues with people just ignoring your swap requests. I'm fine with people not wanting to swap but I wish they would just say so instead of keeping me hanging on and wasting my time....... :(

And if you're a book lover, the edition *is* important!

Laura - I feel your pain. I presume you got back on the wishlist in your old position. It was (Deb) Cariola who told me to always PM in advance and check that it is indeed a Virago etc. Since then I have had almost no trouble except from a man who was sending me a Vera Brittain. He said it was 'as stated'. Well it wasn't. When I approached him - quietly, nicely - he got very rude, saying that I was a 'collector' who was going to sell the book for profit, had no interest in real reading, and that I had robbed him of his book and his postage.

I try always to be polite because I have also made many mistakes on PBS, including sending the wrong book, h/c rather than p/b etc but the strangest person I have run across on the site was a woman who lodged an OFFICIAL complaint against me because I did not use the PBS label but hand wrote the envelope (my printer was out of ink). Anyway she said I should lose my membership for that. I wrote back to her - very nicely - but she responded with more nonsense. It seems that because I did not use the sticker she was afraid that she had been sent a bomb.

I really enjoy the forums on RISI and there are some lovely people there, but I've given up on swapping by post, I find the posting too much effort and someone got really snippy with me because it took a whole week to get her book... and the book she sent me was in reasonably good condition but not quite as good as she said it was. It was a VMC and quite a fat one and the spine was affected in the way that spines of fat books often are, however careful you are as a reader with them. I erred on the hyperanxious side when describing the condition of the books I sent out. We did sort of apologise to each other but it made me much more wary about swapping.

However, the RISI meetups are fun, and I've been very impressed by the last two by how many books I was given that I'd forgotten even wishlisting. For the last one I listed 50 books that I was giving away, 8 were requested before the event and I took along another 30 or so, only about 8 ended up at the Oxfam Bookshop in Bloomsbury Street, round the corner from the restaurant where we met. And of course, I went shopping and staggered home with nearly as many books as I left the house with.

I've gone back to RISI, having given up on Bookmooch, although I don't do many swaps, I like to keep the option there. I also offer to send any of my books for the postage rather than as a swap if there is nothing I want on a requestor's list.

I knew I would find sympathetic ears eyes here!

186/187: Having tried both, I've found RISI marginally better. Neither are ideal though........

And on the same kind of subject, I really should have learned by now not to trust Amazon resellers - just returning a Kay Boyle green described as "Very Good" which has cover damage and heavy annotation...... :((((

>190 kaggsy:: ugh!

Well on a more positive note I received my third Mary Hocking today - courtesy of the wonderful Belva who ordered it for me. (Does this mean I can't pick on her for a day or two?). I am so looking forward to this trilogy and will almost certainly start it early and then pretend I read all three on the 1st of August :)

I also received a very nice original green of A View of the Harbour from PBS.

Ha ha Barbara!~! You are forgetting who is hosting AV/AA this year. lol!~!

No seriously; NO AV/AA POLICING.

If you read all three on the 1st of August good on you. ;-)

I will definitely start a week in advance Belva because I am chomping at the bit to find out what all the fuss is about.

It happens doesn't it!?!

So annoying, Laura, yes we feel your pain!

Karen, I get annoyed by people who just seem to ignore swaps on RISI and I tend to cancel the swap after a couple of days when that happens. Actually, I rarely request swaps at all anymore but love getting swap requests and perusing the other person's library for possible swaps.

Luci, the RISI meetups do sound fun. I rarely post on their forums so no-one would be very interested in meeting me but I think I'd be tempted if they had a meet-up anywhere near me.

196: I'm tending to do the same thing Dee, as I sometimes end up with a pleasant surprise when I look at other people's swaps. But I just think it so rude to ignore requests - I've started cancelling requests too.

196: How near is near to you, Dee? There are quite often Leeds meetups but not weekends when I can make them. I invited one person to come charity shopping in Ilkley when visiting my mum and we ended up having lunch in Bar Tat (named after the Ilkla Moor song) with 11 people, lots of bookswapping, the original person who was going to come couldn't make it, but I hope to meet her another time. She lives in Wetherby. We also never got round to the charity shops - I was shellshocked by my mum's very bad health news the previous day but I still managed to enjoy it as it was nice and relaxed.

Would Leeds, York or Harrogate work for you? Shall we start floating something on the RISI forums? I would also love to dig out a woman in Holmfirth - Kirsty blogs at www.nocto.com and she has the second most similar library to me according to my home page (you're 1st). I've been wanting to meet her for more than 12 years as I first came across her on the 4 Mystery Addicts yahoogroup (general crime fiction with formal reading group discussions).

Good idea, Luci. Leeds or York on a weekend would be no problem at all.

185> Wow, that's quite a story! As you know, I NEVER use the PBS label--mainly because I don't want to add weight to the package. (If you haven't gotten a PBS book from me, I don't just wrap it in 8x11 paper, I send them out in new padded envelopes with extra tape added.) Should I be expecting a SWAT team at my door any day now?

I had a guy go off on me because I reported him for 1) waiting three weeks before sending out the book, although he marked it sent before the deadline; 2) sending me an ARC; 3) getting nasty (including vulgar language) when I sent him a note about it.

I don't know why people can't read and abide by the rules--although I wish PBS would have a place for you to post about the book's condition. And I do think the "no ARCs" rule is kind of silly, since people are swapping, not selling, books--but, again, there should be a way to post that, aside from having to PM the requestor.

I certainly agree with all of you. Though I've yet to have problems, I have sent books out with & without the PBS label. When I don't it is usually because I am out of toner but when I do, I always cut away the ends and just tape the address part on with packing tape. And I reuse packaging that I've received books in if it is in mailable condition.
I have never sent out an ARC but have received a few. I don't mind getting them. They are always in good shape and I see no reason not to list them if one can post to the requestor that it is an ARC so they have the option of continuing with the request or cancelling.
What does madden me is when I receive a book marked paperback and it arrives as a mass market paperback. So I always P.M. my requestor if the book they have requested is a mass market. I do not seem to be able to find an option to correct this. Thus far all have messaged me back to say that it doesn't matter. But as my eyes are aging some of the books I request, when in mass market edition, the font is simply too small.
Rant over........ and back to you.

RISI allows ARCs, but I think a good rule is that it should be fine to swap ARCs so long as you declare what they are - some of my ARCs are very bulky and I've had a couple that were very poorly designed from a readability point of view. I would want to know on a swap site, and I would declare if I was swapping, but I do most of my swaps in person and would tell people what they're getting - if I can replace a book with an edition I like better quite cheaply, I tend to do it - I normally replace ARCs with proper final editions, hardbacks with paperbacks, other editions with VMC editions, and any print edition (except collection books - mainly VMC, Persephone - and children's books) with Kindle editions (when those Kindle editions are on special offer eg deals of the day, monthly deals, sales and other promotional offers - it seems to be part of the marketing for authors' new books at the moment to do Kindle deals on some of their previous work.

I just received two fine VMCs via Paperbackswap today, but then I knew I would -- they came from Deborah (@Cariola)! She sent me Familiar Passions and My Friend Says It's Bullet-Proof.

I goofed.

Now I'm really confused - because I didn't think books actually *had* VAT on them in the UK? The postage element possibly would have....

In UK print books do not attract VAT but digital ones do - a statement I read every time I buy a kindle edition from Amazon! - but VAT is charged on carriage.

'swot I thought! Tho I don't quite know why a digital book has VAT! It's still an item to read!

You're right! My mistake.

I managed to find four Greens and one that should be green and one Persephone among others in my holiday trawl (and plus some Vita Sackville-Wests that should be or have been greens in the past). Pics etc. here: http://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/terrible-confessions/

I will write up about the Pym conference, which was SUPER, but have So Much Work at the moment ...

Genny, Heather and I met up with 3 other people from the 75 group on LT on Tuesday and our get together included a visit to Slightly Foxed, Gloucester Road, a book which sells new and secondhand books - the secondhand basement includes a small shelf of Virago books - I think we took about half the contents away with us. I bought a Rebecca West non-fiction Virago and Elizabeth Taylor, The Blush - her short story collections are harder to find than the novels, and I succumbed even though I have her collected short stories on Kindle and a Virago selected.

Slightly Foxed has its own reprint series, very neat little hardbacks (like old Everyman Classics size) and paperbacks - my mental wishlist includes Dodie Smith's first volume of memoirs (I have an ex-library copy of no 2 or 3, Look Back With Astonishment somewhere and Rosemary Sutcliff's childhood memoir Blue Remembered Hills.

I've just arrived in Yorkshire, to see my mum and go to the Harrogate Crime Festival, and am hoping for more fabulous finds in Ilkley and Harrogate.

Liz and Luci, it sounds like you've been having wonderful times as well as acquiring fabulous finds.

I hope you enjoyed or are enjoying the Crime festival, Luci. I'm determined to make it one year but at the moment I'm busy getting packed and ready to visit my mum on the South Coast. Funny how we seem to be swapping ends of the country!

I have a few hours left in Ilkley before I go for my train , my mum and her husband have left for France.

I've acquired a few books including 3 VMCs
Mrs Gaskell, Curious, If True (I had it in free Kindle)
Christina Stead, The Salzburg Tales (I know her books aren't a great hit here but I've liked at least some of her novels and read the others too long ago to remember an opinion, need to reread - and I'm an aspiring completist if books aren't TOO expensive!)
Helen Hodgman, Blue Skies and Jack and Jill (oops, looking at LT I have this one, but I don't know where - if I ever find the duplicate I'll have to bring it to a meetup then....)

I also found an impeccable copy of a newish OWC edition of Madame Bovary with a translator who also did a Zola novel I read (or reread) a year or two ago, Margaret Muldoun (?)

I bought my mum a Jennifer Johnston as she mentioned having recently discovered her - Anglo Irish writer of big house stories which would fit well into the VMC canon only she's still writing and her early novels (early 70s?) have never really gone out of print.

I gave my mum At Mrs Lippincotes for Christmas and both she and her husband must have enjoyed that one - he's taken Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont on holiday with him (my mum's verdict - excellent but depressing!). I also gave her two Jane Gardams, Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat - she's been given the other book in the trilogy, Last Friends which she has taken to read on holiday and will lend me it next month when I come back up, so I'm looking forward impatiently to that. She's also taken another VMC that I gave her, Memento Mori, as I bought a whole set of Muriel Sparks from the Book People just to have the VMC edition of Loitering with Intent (I had the Penguin, the set is £5 and that book would cost more than that on its own new anywhere else, and I thought someone would like my spares and my mum and Owen were both really pleased to have them - he's reading Muriel Spark now too).

Some lovely finds Luci - and I love your line of reasoning with the Book People Sparks as I did much the same thing as I was missing one!!

I had a Penguin Loitering with Intent but I had to have the intros and it's one of my favourites so far after The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Is Illyrian Spring by Ann Bridge one of the Viragoes that's quite hard to find? I just had a notification that a cheap copy was available on abebooks and when I went to buy it there were actually two copies listed so I thought I would mention it here so that someone could snag the second copy if they wanted to:

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?bx=on&isbn=9781853810855&amp...

It's sold by awesomebooks so you might be able to buy it direct from their normal website if you'd prefer.

Another two VMCs also fell into my shopping trolley by accident:

The New House by Lettice Cooper
The Orchid House by Phyllis Shand Allfrey

Oops.

Wow! That is a bargain! Somebody grab it quick (I would do, but I already have it......)

>215 souloftherose:: I suspect that now it has been reprinted by Daunt Books, Illyrian Spring might be easier to find used. Some people will always want to upgrade to the new shiny edition and sell off their old one. But yes, it was one of the scarcer titles.

I just looked and the only used copy available is the Daunt edition - and at $10, it's not all that cheap....or not for me.
Meanwhile, I am so envious that VMCs leap into shopping carts in the UK. - or was that at Awesomebooks? That, I totally understand!

I looked earlier and the two VMC editions were 30-40 pounds!

The cheap ones were there when I looked last night so I guess they've been snapped up....

I can't remember whether mine was charity/secondhand shop or online, but it was affordable enough at the time, and I do see copies from time to time. Those marketplace copies must have jumped into someone's shopping cart(s) - was it anyone here, though?

#220 Yes, I got it. It took me ages to go through the buying process, or so it seemed, expecting to get to the end and finding out that someone else had been quicker! I've had confirmation of my order but I'm still half expecting a further email to say there was a mistake. I shall belive in it when the parcel arrives on my doormat.

>218 LizzieD:, 219: So much for my theory, alas! I had hoped that it would become easier to find this wonderful book for an affordable price.

#222 - Yay - well done Kerry!

Rub salt in the wound Kerry and tell us how much you paid!

I really don't think you want to know... but it was 65 pence plus £2.79 for the postage.

I just got back from the Newberry Library Annual Book Sale and I picked up Enchanted April. Not a Virago BUT A GENUINE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION!!!!! for $1.00. Beautiful frontispiece entitled The View from Mrs. Wilkin's Bedroom by the Hon. Lady Mallet. I uploaded a picture on my profile gallery.

Not many Viragoes this year but I picked up two for .50 each. Chatterton Square by Young and The Ghostly Lover by Hardwick. Also first editions of The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield, The Scapegoat by DuMaurier and Gallico's Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris . Plus a very nice copy of The Jungle by Sinclair.

Not had for $5 total.

Well done Elaine - great finds and what a price!!

>226 CDVicarage:: oh my, well done you!
>227 Liz1564:: another nice haul.

Two lucky ladies!

Actually, Laura will be getting Ghostly Lover via PBS since I already have a copy and I couldn't just leave it there now, could I?

People have been hated for less Kerry :)

>230 Liz1564:: yes! It turns out I was lucky, too!

*sigh*

You did very well with your book scores Elaine! And I love the photo. Had to sneak over to your gallery to check it out.

And elkie & Kerry, I cannot believe that you found a VMC of it Illyrian Spring, let alone at that price. Great hunting job!

Meantime I shall keep my 1949 Penguin edition:

I just caved in, after telling myself I have enough books and need no more, and sent for two Rebecca West Virago collections The Meaning of Treason and A Train of Powder. This while I am *trying* to clear the house out over the summer. Truly I have no willpower..... :( (and the fact that they were penny books from Amazon is no excuse I know.

UK Kindle summer sale - Daunt Books Kindle edition of Ilyrian Spring is 99p - maybe that will tide people over until they find that lovely green spine?

Just be careful to step over all those other tempting bargains in there. I won't mention Jane Feaver's most recent book, An Inventory of Heaven, for example.

The price wasn't exactly fabulous, but I finally found a VMC edition of We That Were Young on Abebooks this afternoon.

Amazing! From PBS in the mail today a gorgeous unread copy of Deborah by Esther Kreitman. I don't know why the Touchstones don't work for the title, nor does putting a link to the book page. No time to figure it out now.

#22 I'm glad someone from this group managed to snag the other copy! Sorry there weren't enough copies for everyone....

I don't buy that many brand new full price books in bookshops, and when I do, I try to do so in indie booksellers. Following an ordeal in Sports Direct looking for trainers for my older little monster (underground rabbit warren, abysmal customer service and insane anti-shoplifting policies which mean that you can't take the goods you're going to buy across to the cunningly concealed cashiers on the other side of the shop yourself, two naughty children and two increasingly bad tempered parents, all of us starting to fight with each other because it was so horrid), I popped into my local independent, The Big Green Bookshop for a little browsing therapy. I do try to find things I can buy there that I might not get on Kindle or which I don't see everywhere, though today I really wasn't looking to purchase anything - however, I found two of Rumer Godden's VMC books, both about children learning ballet, on the children's/YA shelves. So Listen to the Nightingale and Thursday's Children somehow ended up coming home with me. Oops.

>241 elkiedee:: It sounds to me like those were two hard-earned, well-deserved VMCs!

My bargain copy of Illyrian Spring has arrived and it's fabulous - original green and very good condition as it's been protected by a removable plastic cover. Thank you, Heather, for mentioning it. Although it was on my mental wishlist I didn't really expect to find one and certainly not at this price.

How absolutely wonderful!

Horray!~! That is really quite marvelous Kerry. I am so happy for you.

Yay! So good to know it's gone to someone who will cherish it!

I picked up a new green today whilst visiting a charity shop I don't normally pass - Sunlight on a Broken Column by Attia Hosain - sounds intriguing and I think will broaden my horizons as I think my reading is sometimes a little eurocentric. And it was only £1.25!

Today I found a nice copy of The little company in the Oxfam bookshop near work. This is one I've been hoping to acquire for some time now, so I was very pleased to spot it!

Well done!

#243 My copy of Ilyrian Spring has arrived too - from a different seller but also in very good condition (and the other two VMCs that I added to the basket are also nice copies). This is consoling me for the fact that the house buying process feels like it's never ending at the moment (and who cares if it's an extra three books I need to pack at some point)

Well done soul! Three more books is nothing in the process of packing a house up. Arghhhhh, hate moving. Sooo much work.
Good luck with the 'process'. It will feel so good when it is completed. And congrats on your new VMCs. Enjoy.

A Train of Powder arrived today and fortunately for a penny Amazon book was in ok condition - intact, with not too much marking to cover and no inside scrawl etc. Plus! it has a foreword by Molly Panter-Downes, which is kind of spooky....

That is rather, Karen. But lovely you got it and in decent condition. I think there are less than 1/2 dozen of us who have found that one. Good score!

I always figure I'd pay £2.81 in a shop so it's worth a punt on Amazon!

Yeppers! You've got that right.

A couple (well, a few!) new green arrivals today to help celebrate AV/AA :)

Firstly the second Rebecca West I'd ordered, The Meaning of Treason, arrived and was another successful penny Amazon in good nick - yay!!

And there were a few new arrivals in the Oxfam charity shop today, including The Vicar's Daughter by E.H. Young and Winter Sonata by Dorothy Edwards. The latter intrigues me because it seems to be a 1986 Virago Penguin and I'm not sure I've ever picked up on what one of these is! Does anyone have any info or have I missed something obvious?

I think you may have an American Virago Karen. For a few years they were distributed by Penguin over here. Perhaps they were also distributed by Penguin in England too? Not sure... But I have lots of Viragos with Penguins on the bottom of the spine.

Ah yes! Thank you Barbara - I just looked on the back and the original price is in dollars. How exciting!

Had a few lovely finds in Leicester recently - pix and details here:

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/a-book-buying-jaunt-to-l...

Some lovely finds there, Karen. And congratulations to Youngest Child!

Hmm, maybe we will have to have a future Virago Meet-up in Leicester ...

Into the last couple of days of my Devon holiday and yesterday I found an excellent green copy of Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick in a second hand book shop here in Teignmouth where I'm staying.

259: Now *that's* a good idea!

260: Well done Ali!

following a lovely review recently by Jane (Fleurfisher) I bought copies of Never no more and No more than Human by Maura Laverty from awesomebooks both in decent condition and nice original green.

262: Lovely! awesome are usually a bit more reliable than A****n!

I find their books better when buying from the Awesome website than from Awesome as an Amazon seller. I really like the Laverty books.

264: yes, I always try to buy from their site too - and if I see it listed on Amazon I always go to their site to see if it's on there, but alas it isn't always!

I have made some lovely purchases today - apologies for posting this photo on two threads - but rather than type out each title ...

I've loved all the ones I've read in that picture - the Molly Farrell books, Beyond the Glass, All Passion Spent and The Song of the Lark.

Woo hoo! Well done!

Great excitement today as a newbie arrived - I managed to spot a bargain in the form of Leonora Carrington's The Seventh Horse at less than a tenner including postage - post here:

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/happiness-is-a-new-and-f...

and if I can make HTML work there will be a picture below!

Yay - it worked!

OMG it looks brand new. And that is one book that I have never seen anywhere even on line.

Well done.

I found both Maura Laverty VMCs on Abebooks for a dollar each. I hope that the sellers' definition of "very good condition" at least approximates mine.

>269 kaggsy:: Oooh, beautiful! I have the original green edition, and it is one of my favourite covers. (Same painting as yours.)

271: It is in pretty amazing condition and because I was buying it from a reseller through A****n I was a bit worried - I've had so many issues with bad quality books described as very good.

272: With Abe I usually find the decriptions are a bit more accurate - hope your books arrive in lovely condition!

273: I do *love* so many of the paintings featured on the green Viragos - they had an identity but within that identity an individuality which I think has been lost with the modern covers.

I meant to post that I found a green copy of Deborah by Esther Kreitman at the Oxfam bookshop the other day. I am not supposed to be buying books this month, but I couldn't resist that, or the brand-new-looking Daunt books edition of The matriarch by G. B. Stern.

275: How could you not pick up a nice green in an Oxfam shop! Really, I should not buy any more books this year but it won't happen...

Two books in the last week. Laura's friend Avaland sent me a lovely copy of Edith Wharton's The Mother's Recompense and I bought a like new original green of An Unsocial Socialist from a dealer in Niagara Falls.

I also treated myself to two print by demand VMCs from Book Depository in the last 6 weeks. I got After the Death of Don Juan and The Diviners. I have very little money for treats these days but I justify my book purchases because I don't drink or smoke and, to steal a gross exaggeration from Gerald Durrell, you could fit all my clothes in a briefcase.

I shocked myself with how few books I bought this time in England. (Got back Wed and will write about Oxford over the weekend). But what I got was treasure:

Original Greens to replace later editions

Invitation to the Waltz
Ordinary Families
Together and Apart posted picture because there wasn't a VMC just the Dial edition. You can see the lovely edition I snagged.
Lolly Willowes posted picture because the other images are blurred. Another pristine edition from an Oxfam store.

Little Boy Lost gray with bookmark for 2GBP at the Hospice bookstore in Stratford
Tin Toys Trilogy

I have all the Persephones I want to date and so I will only be replacing the American editions with British grays. Likewise, I have only three VMC's I need so my buying is replacing my copies with better copies. This makes the hunt more specific, but no less fun!

(Barbara, I did leave leave my underwear again, but only because I replaced it with Marks and Spencer's underwear!)

My m-i-l produced an original green copy of Their eyes were watching God for me yesterday.

278: Lovely finds Liz and it's nice to be hunting for specifics!

279: What a lovely m-i-l you have Kerry!

Welcome home Elaine - we missed you! Keep the 'American' Persephones because the covers are beautiful. I am supplementing with greys but putting them side by side. I am still buying VMCs I don't have but am slowly replacing non-Vmc copies with the real thing. Plus I am also replacing Dials, really beat up copies, and newer VMCs as I find them.

All four Viragoes are replacements. I've listed Ordinary Families and Together and Apart on PBS. They are Dial editions. I find the Dials 'scratch" and fingerprints really show because of the high gloss finish. Lolly Willowes amd Invitation to the Waltz replaced later editions.

Would you believe, not a used Thirkell in any of the charity shops in Stratford or Oxford!

>278 Liz1564:/282:
Elaine, so lovely to have you home safe & sound. I hope you enjoyed a lovely holiday. And though few, what lovely scores you found in your books. Isn't it wonderful when you find just the thing you are seeking?

>279 CDVicarage::
How wonderful that she loves you so that she would do that for you Kerry. Mine loves me very much but just never thinks of the small things that make one so happy.

>277 romain::
I have to say that I have never heard of The Diviners Barbara. Nicely done!

Alas, I must wait until next month before purchasing any more lovelies. My Thingaversary books are coming in slowly but surely. I think they will all be here for my big day; the 30th. I will 'attempt' to get a photo & post it. What a triumph that will prove for me as I have never attempted it.

Well done ladies!

282: Sorry to hear you were disappointed re Thirkell, Elaine. I've seen several copies of the two recent VMC in charity shops, including one of mine in quite mint condition, and I already had the other from the Works - a remainder bookshop chain which also has an online operation and regular offers of free postage. So if you come over again it may be worth alerting us of any particular books you're looking for when you book your flights, and we can arrange some way of getting books to you in one place for collection to take home. The Book People often has Virago offers at very good value prices too. I bought 5 Muriel Sparks for £4.99 just so I could have a VMC edition of Loitering with Intent and gave my Penguin copy of Loitering and 4 duplicate VMCs to my mum, who was very happy to have them.

Ihr Leben (Her Life) by Zofka Kveder arrived today. Kveder was a Slovenian writer and this particular novel was first published in 1914. The blurb on the back cover makes it sound like a VMC manqué; perhaps tomorrow I will translate and post it. For now, however, I am just happy to have got my hands on something so obscure.

284: I did the same to get some newer and better Sparks.......The Works and The Book People seem to carry very similar stock and it *is* worth watching out for Viragos!

I love the generosity of the Virago community. Thank you for the offer, elkie, and I may just take advantage of it one day! There are two The Works in Stratford but they had nothing of interest.....I suspect their stock was geared to tourists wanting a quick Shakespeare and English history fix. I was particularly looking for The Gentry by Adam Nicolson since Ali (I think) mentioned she had gotten a cheap copy there. But most nonfiction books seemed to concentrate on the Tudors and most fiction was historical novels about the Tudors. Shades of Showtime and sexy Henry's with stunningly beautiful wives...

That was me who had Gentry from The Works, I haven't seen it there since. It does exist in paperback now, though ...

How lovely to hear of your finds, Elaine. I hope your visit was rewarding in every way.

I second that falcon!

Both Maura Laverty novels arrived today, one in very good, the other in pretty good shape. That was a nice ending to the work day. :)

Picked up an interesting-looking Virago today in the Oxfam charity shop - Wave Me Goodbye Stories of the Second World War. Obviously not a green, but nevertheless full of stories by some of our favourite authors - Mollie Panter-Downes, Jan Struther, Kay Boyle, Rose Macauley, Elizabeth Bowen, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Elizabeth Taylor etc etc. Some less likely names too, like Anna Kavan - so I'm quite pleased and rather looking forward to reading this!

Wonderful finds, everybody. Karen, you did really well finding that Leonora Carrington!

I have a omnibus copy of Wave Me Goodbye and Hearts Undefeated somewhere but haven't been able to find it for months! I have since picked up a cheap separate copy of Hearts Undefeated but would love to find Wave Me Goodbye again. The bits I'd dipped into were wonderful.

Oooh, Hearts Undefeated sounds good too! I'm glad I'm not the only one who *knows* they have a book but can't quite put their hand on it.......

I know ladies! That can be so frustrating. I have been turning my shelves upside down in a search for The Life and Death of Harriett Frean and Life Before Man. 'Smakin' me crazy!

Good finds though!

From Amazon Market Place a very good copy of The Little Company by Eleanor Dark and a near perfect original green of Susan Spray which does not seem to be print on demand just beautifully looked after.

Well done Barbara - lovely finds!

My copy of Women in the Wall arrived from Awesome. It is an almost perfect original green and autographed by O'Faolain!

Oh Elaine - lucky you. That's another Virago I have never actually seen in the flesh. I have a horrible old copy Avon copy.

A little bit of luck in the charity shops again - The Land of Green Ginger and The Semi-Attached Couple, and The Semi-Detached House, both in lovely original green - pix here:

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/lucking-out-in-the-chari...

Lucky you Karen. I only have Ginger in the new edition. Another one that I have never seen in original green. You say in your blog - Why did the original owner give it up when she had kept it in such lovely condition all these years? Given its age I am thinking she is downsizing at best, or dead or gaga at worst.

I confess I probably thought the worst - but didn't like to say so publicly... I just hope one of my offspring will take care of my books one day!

I will give permission to give my books away to anyone who wants them, assuming anyone still "does" books when I die (and that that doesn't happen too soon), and to charity shops for good causes (perhaps Marie Curie - which is a charity for hospice and end of life care, something sadly close to my thoughts these days) or Oxfam, but probably most organisations which run charity shops, though perhaps not all of them. I might also suggest that all visitors are invited to leave with whatever they can/will carry. Really, someone will need to do something sensible with my books!

Today in Crouch End I found:

Margaret Laurence, The Stone Angel - 1990s style cover, print on demand edition from 2007, perfect condition - I couldn't remember which of my 8 copies of 5 Manawaka books are Virago, of course this is one of the 3 I had, but my older style Virago copy is a rather yellow ex-library hard cover (I think they were printed that way for libraries)

another Greyladies Susan Scarlett (Noel Streatfeild) book - Love in a Mist apparently draws on a lot of her research for The Painted Garden

a Pandora Press bio of Ellen Terry and her daughter Edith Craig - Pandora also reprinted some neglected writing by women in the 1980s including a crime imprint

Oooh - I'd forgotten Pandora Press.

Lovely finds!

Hopefully my bookish daughters will either have some of my books or find good homes for them. I don't feel ready to think about that yet!

I found The Way of the Eagle online in nice condition and also Sheep's Clothing in very nice condition. Both very cheap. I have several more orders in the pipeline but about half of everything I order cancels after I write to confirm the condition. With the possible exception of Illyrian Spring in original green I am never ordering another thing from Better World Books, or World of Books. Awesome Books seem to list everything as Good but with a ? after it. That ? has put me off buying from them too. I mean, what happened to Very Good and Like New? And why the ?

I have received a lovely copy of Adam Nicolson's Gentry from Belva!

Ooh fantastic!

#305 I recently had several v good books from awesome, two Maura Laverty VMCs - in very good condition and the Mary Hocking trilogy in an Abacus edition also very good condition. I didn't notice the ? at the time- but that is odd - they are probably just covering themselves - so they can say there is no guarantee of the book being in that condiion. So far I haven't been disappointed in Awesome but I have had one of two poor copies from better world books/world of books - they seem to just churn out second hand copies.

305/308: I find Awesome a reasonably safe bet. I never expect anything pristine but more often than not they are quite good and I don't think I've ever had a total disaster from them. Like Ali I've had trouble with Better World and World of Books so I tend to avoid them now. It's always a bit hit or miss, but my main issues are really grubby, grimy books or ones with excessive writing/highlighting. I've returned books in the past because of that.

I hate when a seller doesn't mention whether or not a book is ex-library or not. This has been a huge problem for me with World of Books. I have received some pristine ex-library books before, but more often they are nasty and beaten-up. Also, it annoys me when the seller doesn't say whether a hardcover has its dustjacket or not (not usually an issue with Viragoes, but still!).

310: Funnily enough, that was the only issue I ever had with Awesome, when i ordered a couple of Simenon books and they didn't say they were ex-lib!

On a flying visit to London at the weekend, I did manage to find time to visit a few book haunts and came home with some treasures - including 3 Viragos! Pix and details here:

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/books-are-my-bag-an-impr...

>312 kaggsy:: I was in that Oxfam shop on Saturday too! I think you must have been there earlier though, as I didn't spot those Viragos!

313: Wow! :) I was quite early in the day - about 11 a.m. - as I had to be somewhere at 12!

Ah. I was there in the early afternoon, having been to the British Library first.

Lovely haul Karen.

I picked up a like new copy of Devil by the Sea for next to nothing. And I found The Crowded Street in Persephone on AMP for under $8 including postage. It came from the Goodwill and was listed as Good but is in very nice condition. Now all I need is the Virago edition. I have it marked as Read in my library but don't remember a word of it.

317: Lovely finds! Always nice to track down a reasonably priced Persephone!

I spent some time this weekend at the University of Toronto, Victoria College Booksale and rooted out a number of VMC's

A green:
The Ante-room by Kate O'Brien

Blacks (published by Lester and Orpen Dennys):
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
Together and Apart by Margaret Kennedy
The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns

Modern
At Mrs Lippincote's by Elizabeth Taylor
Devoted Ladies by Molly Keane
In A Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor
The Land of Spices by Kate O'Brien
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor

I would say, I now have a VMC Collection!

Well done, Cookie!

> Barbara
I am up to 45 VMC's and I just started collecting in June. I now have to find time to read them!!
LOL

Fabulous - lovely way to increase your collection!

>319 ccookie:: woo hoo! Nice work, Cookie.

>319 ccookie:: Excellent finds! Yes, finding reading time is the real challenge!

I found an original green copy of Summer will show on Charing Cross Road this Saturday. I've been wanting this one for a while, so I was very pleased!

> Claire
I haven't had the thrill yet, of finding a specific book after a long search.
Congratulations!!

In the mail today

The Squire's Daughter in nice condition (original green)
Celia - in newer green and like new condition
The Harsh Voice - in Print on Demand from Book Depository. I am buying one a month of these.

Lovely! Well done Barbara!

Have had some very lucky finds recently, including Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Family History and The Orlando Trilogy - pics and details here:

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/all-change-and-a-very-sm...

Nicely scored Karen! Love the Mary Stewarts.

Well, on the subject of Mary Stewart, I found a nice hardback omnibus of 3 novels in the charity shop for £1.50 a few weeks back, but forgot to include it! Now I just need the time to read them all.... :o

Karen, I am so jealous of the Cather, which I can only find in modern (boring) covers. Have never seen the Colegate in VMC either. I have it in Penguin.

They're both very lovely, despite the Colegate being a bit battered. Even though I have *so* many books on the tbr, I always pick up a Virago I don't have when I see it because you never know if it will turn up again!

Found an older green copy of Elizabeth and her German Garden. It's in quite nice order. Just one of those happy surprises that happens when you least expect it.

From Amazon Marketplace today a copy of The Ha-Ha in original green in quite good condition. One of the ones I've been looking for for years.