some of my favourite books

I've borrowed a camera from work (to take pictures of my room to get someone to fill it- which I've yet to do) hence the blogular influx of late. Thought I'd show off some pretty books of mine.

This is the Oscar Wilde short stories book with forewords by Stephen Fry, I went to a signing on Oscar Wilde's birthday, and he gave a talk about Wilde, and did an amazing reading of The Happy Prince. He was very pleasant and I was very starstruck to meet him.





I loved this book, and then heard that the author Kate Summerscale was doing a lunchtime reading and talk at Birkbeck, so I went along with my copy and managed to get her to sign it for me, she was also really nice- though needless to say I wasn't quite so starstruck with her.

This is the US copy of the first Harry Potter, which I got as a present on my 23rd birthday from Fiona and I love it, I'd really like to get all of the US versions. As well as having a different title and cover, there are illustrations at the beginning of each chapter. There's an interesting article here about different book covers being used in different countries.

This was another present, a selection of sketches/quotes and journal entries by my favourite transvestite Candy Darling.

So many brilliant quotes in this one, some of my favourites:

"I operate better as a woman"

"Tricky mother nature"

"This is my barbed wire dress. It protects the property but doesn't hide the view"

Another signed one here, although this was a present bought online- so I didn't get to meet Tracy Chevalier. For a long time this was my favourite book, infinitely superior to the much more well known Girl with a pearl earring.

I love this, I got it from a bookstall in Spittlefields Market, it's the perfect horror story and it's beautifully written and I really wanted this old-school penguin copy. It's a bit fragile, but lovely to look at.

We were weeding stock at work in the Library and I came across this little gem which I decided to keep for myself, it's dated dreadfully. I love it.

Here's my next look sorted:

This is the exhibition catalogue from one of the most bizarre and interesting exhibitions I've been to since I've lived in London. Basically the artist had collected hundreds of versions of the same portrait of a saint called Fabiola, and they were all displayed in two really small rooms in the National Portrait Gallery. There's more information here.

The first half of the book is about saint Fabiola, the second half is a complete catalogue of the portraits in the exhibition.

There are plenty more where these came from, so I will post some more soon :o)

x x x

words not pictures

I am writing here in response to this Guardian feature.



I do quite like some of these illustrations... but surely these pictures are no less "accessible" than the originals, or any other illustrations, they're all fairly meaty older children's books- so surely it's less about the pictures and more about the WORDS?! am i mistaken?



I quite like most of them (as stand alone illustrations), however I REALLY dislike the Alice ones. surely turning her into some kind of vampy knicker-flashing rah compromises the aforementioned WORDS... isn't she fairly boisterous and tom-boyish but in a victorian dress and petticoat?! jesus, even young girls have to be sexualised these days.

I'm moaning, i know, but i just think that we need to give children a bit more credit. look at the modernisation of the Mr Men for crying out loud, last year (or perhaps before) roger hargreave's son, or someone, wanted to modernise the characters to make them link more visually with their identities. so he gave mr strong a weight-lifting belt and muscles. when we were younger, we didn't doubt that mr strong was strong just because he was a big red square- we knew he was strong because the WORDS told us he was strong.


don't target the children... target the parents! who aren't stimulating or interested enough to persist in making their children interested in reading!

in fact, everyone should just give their children to me, and i'll form some kind of reading circle. a PICTURE-LESS reading circle.

love love x