I don't know about you dear readers but I am finding it pretty hard at the moment to concentrate on anything but I decided I really must make the effort. So a cup of tea to hand and a bar of chocolate (I am not of the mindset to worry about calories at the moment) and off I go.
Only Happiness Here – Gabrielle Carey. I spotted this biography of Elizabeth von Arnim when the author tweeted about 
it and contacted her immediately as it did not seem available here in the UK. She promptly replied that it was being published by Queensland University Press in Australia. As I have read and admired and loved all of this author's output I got in touch with them and ordered it before Christmas. It duly arrived and with a tote bag too. I love getting free tote bags. I have only just started it and it is looking promising. I do hope it will be available more widely but, in the meantime, if you are a fan of EVA then do buy it. On checking the exchange rate it works out at around £17.50 plus postage.
The Woods in Winter and The Swiss Summer by Stella Gibbons. These are published by Dean Street Press who are rapidly becoming, if they are not there already, my favourite publishers. Every single book they produce is right up my strasse and I want I want is a well worn email I send to them and they are kind and good and lovely and have sent me these two titles. (I have promised them that I will buy the other two published at the same time. I think it only right to do so as 
they are so generous)
I used to work at a library in Highgate, opposite the cemetary no less, and Stella Gibbons used to come in regularly. She was a charming, quiet and friendly lady and always so nice to the staff. She came in one day quite cross with herself and told me that she had woken up in the midde of the night and had a brilliant idea for a book, had not written it down, and when she woke up in the morning she had forgotten it. I wonder which book it was and if she every wrote it.
Love Lives – Carol Dyhouse. The sub-title of this book is from Cinderella to Frozen and is the story of how women's lives, loves and dreams have been re-shaped since 1950 the year of Walt Disney's Cinderella when it was the main ambition of most women to be married and meet Mr Right. I read this in one sitting and thoroughly enjoyed it. I remember a book some years ago called The Cinderella Complex which covers feminism in the 70's and then a book of a TV series Out of the Dolls House, published in the 80's both of which made fascinating reading covering the changing attitues of women to marriage and home. This is an up to date addition to the canon and well worth reading Published by OUP in February.
Random Commentary – Dorothy Whipple. Published by Persephone and is the collected jottings of the author. It is called Random because it is but it is none the less enjoyable for that. All of Whipple's books are now in print thanks to Persephone and if you have them, or have yet to discover her, then of course you must have this one.
The Corpse in the Waxworks – John Dickson Carr. Another published by the Classic Crime series at the British Library. I read one of this particular author and freely admit I was not enamoured of it though it was hailed as a shining example of the Locked Room Mystery. I flag this up here as I know many of you collect these books and would like to know of it. I am going to give it a whirl….I think.
So I think this is enough to be getting on with. I have discovered my rate of reading has slowed over the last year. Isn't it odd that having spent most of my life wishing I had more time to sit and read, now I have it I find I cannot concentrate?
'sigh'
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