I am a huge lover of reading, I always have been and always will be, so when my mum said we were going to go book hunting I was stupidly excited! I'm lucky enough to live near a village which has someone who sells a massive selection of second hand books on the weekend, think multiple rooms filled to the ceiling with stacks of books kind of 'massive selection', all for amazingly cheap.
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This was honestly only about 20% of the books in this place, it was insane. |
We must have spent at least two hours there just browsing and choosing books to purchase. There are some real gems in there, including a first edition of The Wind in the Willows for only £10. In the end we got 16 books, 2 for my mum, and 14 for me.. which only came to £17 in total! Yes, £17 for 16 books all in fairly good condition and great finds. I couldn't believe it either.
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Even more books! | You can just see the tea shop in the far right corner |
After we'd bought enough books we decided to go have a look round the village and see what we could find. We ended up coming across a cute chocolate shop and obviously had to buy some. It smelt so good in there, I could have stayed in there for hours just smelling all the chocolatey goodness! As well as the chocolate shop there was a tiny little antique/craft type shop and an adorable 'tea shoppe'. We stopped off there for cake and tea to end the day on a sweet note. It was definitely sweet in my case as I chose a Victoria sponge slice which was full of cream and absolutely delicious!
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I loved the cup and saucer that the tea was served in, and the tea pot. |
I also thought that it would be a fun idea to show you the books that I got with a brief overview of what they're about so you can check them out for yourselves if you're interested. I've read a few of them so far and really enjoyed them and I'm really excited to get to the rest.
Shattered Dreams - Irene Spencer
"Irene Spencer grew up in a fundamentalist, polygamous Mormon village
in Arizona. The thirteenth of thirty-one children, she grew up in abject
poverty and isolation, and was taught that she should never question
the church leaders. Her mother, unable to cope, left her children and
three 'sister-wives' with her abusive husband.
Desperate to
escape her violent home, and believing she had no choice but to live by
'the Principle', at sixteen Irene found herself in a plural marriage,
sharing her husband with her half sister. When the government raided her
village, she fled with Verlan, numerous other wives and countless
children to a ranch in Mexico where Verlan's brother, a self-proclaimed
prophet, was attempting to found a new Mormon colony.
The strains
of husband-sharing with - ultimately - nine other wives were
unbelievably hard. Irene's story provides a fascinating insight into
polygamous marriage - the squabbles and the jealousy, and the agony of
watching your husband choose other wives over you. They lived with
divided loyalties in unremitting deprivation - struggling to maintain so
many households and to bring up 56 children."
The Pursuit of Happiness - Douglas Kennedy
"Manhattan, Thanksgiving
Eve, 1945. The war was over, and Eric Smythe's party was in full swing.
All his clever Greenwich Village friends were there. So too was his
sister Sara, an independent, canny young woman, starting to make her
way in the big city. And then in walked a gatecrasher, Jack Malone, a
U. S. Army journalist just back from a defeated Germany, and a man whose
world-view did not tally with that of Eric and his friends. This chance meeting between Sara and Jack would have profound consequences."
Star Wars: Dark Empire - Tom Veitch & Cam Kennedy
"Six years after the
Battle of Endor, the fight for freedom rages
on. Darth Vader is dead, but a reborn Empire under a mysterious new leader strikes back at the struggling Rebel Alliance.
Massive World Devastators, more powerful and unstoppable that the Death Star ravage entire planets, wile the ruthless heirs of Jabba the Hutt place a monumental price on the heads of Princess Leia and her husband, Han Solo.
Along with Lando, Chewbacca, Artoo, Threepio and other old allies, Han and Leia struggle to protect the future for their unborn child.
But their greatest foe may be their closest friend, Darth Vader's son, Luke Skywalker..."
"If it is the author's
job to paint word-pictures, few writers have accomplished the task more
brilliantly than J.R.R. Tolkien, whose timeless fantasy classics have
literally taken readers to another place.
And what a place it is! The Middle-earth so graphically depicted in The Hobbit, The Rings Trilogy, and The Silmarillion
is a breathtaking world of misty valleys and craggy tors, placid lakes
and raging rivers, steamy bogs and glad green glades -- a magical
kingdom inhabited by such unforgettable characters as the Great Goblin,
Smaug the dragon, and the great wizard Gandalf. Small wonder this
wonderland has provided such a rich source of inspiration for artists!
In
this book nine talented painters contribute powerful interpretations of
Middle-earth, each one accompanied by the text that inspired it.
Artists include Inger Edelfeldt, Tony Galuidi, Roger Garland, Robert
Goldsmith, Michael Hague, John Howe, Alan Lee, Ted Nasmith, and Carol
Emery Phenix."
"The classic guide to yoga - clear, comprehensive and superbly illustrated. Easy-to-follow instructions and authoritative teaching cover all aspects of this timeless discipline - an inspiration for the beginner and expert alike."
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I already have Carrie, it's one of my favourite books but this cover was too good to not buy it, and for only 30p! |
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"It wasn't the first time Gerald and Jessie Burlingame had tried bondage games to liven up their marriage. But as Jessie lies on the bed in their lakeside holiday cabin, her wrists securely cuffed to the bedposts, the shame and humiliation of it strikes her as never before - feelings that turn to rage when Gerald chooses to interpret her lack of enthusiasm as part of the game.
When she kicks out at him she means to hit him where it hurts; what she didn't foresee was the resulting coronary that leaves Gerald dead on the floor - and leaves her handcuffed to the bed, miles from anywhere, with no one to hear her screams.
As she contemplates an agonising death from dehydration and the slow crucifixion of muscle cramps, she begins to hear voices inside her head - a confusing babel offering advice, encouragement or blame. Only one voice offers her hope, telling her to go back to a childhood memory of another lake and another holiday cabin - and another terrifying event. An event she has tried to forget, but which she must now re-live once again if she is going to survive.
And that's when the nightmare truly begins."
"Carrie White was no ordinary girl. Carrie White had a gift - the gift of telekinesis.
The story of misfit high-school girl, Carrie White, who gradually
discovers that she has telekinetic powers. Repressed by a domineering,
ultra-religious mother and tormented by her peers at school, her efforts
to fit in lead to a dramatic confrontation during the senior prom."
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I also already have copies of The Hobbit and The Catcher in the Rye, but I loved this cover of The Hobbit, and my original copy of The Catcher has been passed down from my mum to me, and read so many times that the pages are falling out. Oops. |
"'The road to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow brick,' said the Witch
When a tornado crashes through Kansas city, Dorothy and her dog Toto
are whisked far away, over the rainbow, to a strange land called Oz. How
will they ever get home? And what is at the end of the yellow brick
road? Plucky Dorothy and Toto embark on a magical adventure to search
for the Wizard of Oz and along the way encounter the Tin Woodman, the
Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion"
""Smaug certainly looked fast asleep, when Bilbo peeped once more from
the entrance. He was just about to step out on to the floor when he
caught a sudden thin and piercing ray of red from under the drooping lid
of Smaug's left eye. He was only pretending to sleep! He was watching
the tunnel entrance…"
Whisked away from his comfortable,
unambitious life in his hobbit-hole in Bag End by Gandalf the wizard and
a company of dwarves, Bilbo Baggins finds himself caught up in a plot
to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very
dangerous dragon."
"Holden Caulfield is a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been
kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the
challenges of growing up, Holden dissects the 'phony' aspects of
society, and the 'phonies' themselves: the headmaster whose affability
depends on the wealth of the parents, his roommate who scores with girls
using sickly-sweet affection."
"Wendy, Michael and John are sleeping when the window of their
nursery blows open and lets in a very remarkable boy, Peter Pan, and his
fairy, Tinker Bell.
Peter soon entices the three children from their
beds and out through the window to Neverland. There, they encounter
mermaids, fairies, the Lost Boys, the Indian princess Tiger Lily and her
tribe, and do battle with an villainous gang of pirates and the sinister Captain Hook, in a magical adventure which has enchanted generations of children and adults alike."

"Luke Skywalker was a
twenty-year-old who lived and worked on his uncle's farm on the remote
planet of Tatooine ... and he was bored beyond belief. He yearned for
adventures out among the stars—adventures that would take him beyond the
farthest galaxies to distant and alien worlds.
But Luke got more
than he bargained for when he intercepted a cryptic message from a
beautiful princess held captive by a dark and powerful warlord. Luke
didn't know who she was, but he knew he had to save her—and soon,
because time was running out.
Armed only with courage and with
the light saber that had been his father's, Luke was catapulted into the
middle of the most savage space war ever ... and he was headed straight
for a desperate encounter on the enemy battle station known as the
Death Star!"
"What warps when you're
travelling at warp speed? What's the difference between the holodeck and a
hologram? What happens when you get beamed up? What is the difference
between a Wormhole and a Black Hole? What is antimatter and why does
the Enterprise need it?
Discover the answers to these and many other
fascinating questions as a renowned physicist and dedicated Trekker
explores The Physics of Star Trek."
I hope you enjoyed reading about the books that I purchased and having a slightly different type of blog post than usual. Let me know if you'd like more of these posts in the future of a review on any of the books that I featured. I'd be more than happy to oblige! Also, if you'd like to add me on Goodreads (please do!) my account is here.