I refuse to admit I have a book buying problem. I was able to carry all the books I bought home, myself…this means it is all under control, right?

Ok, let me start at the beginning. Since mid-August I have been constantly travelling (12 flights in two months, I think I am now able to perform the safety demonstration with my eyes closed) which completely interrupted my 12 bookshops for 12 months project. I probably have not been to a single bookshop since June (when I visited Watersone’s Greenwich). My reading did not suffer that much, but blogging was completely put on hold, apart from the posts I wrote and scheduled in advance.

Now mid-October the world finally starts to settle, I will be able to spend two weekends straight at home (what a treat!) and go back to my usual routine. On the other hand, I want to be mindful to keep some special things going, to make every weekend a bit different, to make it feel like a vacation. For that purpose exactly I decided yesterday that it was time to revive the 12 bookshops project. The weather was beautiful and I was four bookshops behind the schedule, so I decided to make some changes to the list to make the route more reasonable.

I started at King’s Cross with Housmans Bookshop, then made my way to Judd Books, after that, I accidentally came across Gay’s the Word, which was lovely. That was on my way to Atlantis and then I finally made my way to the October bookshop of choice – Bookmarks. All of that made for a lovely day, the weather was beautiful, the city-friendly, a really good Saturday. The only problem… hmm not a problem, let’s call it a thing, for now, was that in each bookshop I bought books, yes, plural. Five bookshops, plural books in each resulted in me carrying home the below (thankfully I had my backpack with me).

I refuse to call it a problem, I’ll stick to corporate language on that, it was an opportunity. Today I hauled two backpacks full of books to Oxfam, without the shopping I wouldn’t have done that for months, so an opportunity! As you can see I am perfectly capable of buying a full bookshelf in one afternoon.

I will be publishing reviews of each bookshop in the next weeks, so keep an eye on that. In the meantime here’s what I bought.

Play it Loud – Brad Tolinski, Alan di Perna (r)
Mysteries of the Mall – Witold Rybczynski
Invisible cities – Italo Calvino
Thirst for Love – Yukio Mishima (r)
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea – Yukio Mishima
Reporting the Troubles – complied by Deric Henderson and Ivan Little (r)
The Right Amount of Panic – F. Vera-Gray (r)
Call Them by Their True Names – Rebecca Solnit (r)
The Paying Guests – Sarah Waters
Art Objects. Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery – Jeanette Winterson (r)
Art & Lies – Jeanette Winterson
Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Le Guin
When I Hit You – Meena Kandasamy (r)
The Good People – Hannah Kent (r)
How Did We Get Into This Mess? – George Monbiot
Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold– Stephen Fry (r)
Uncommon Type – Tom Hanks
My Year of Rest and Relaxation – Ottessa Mosfegh (r)
The Secret Lore of London – edited by John Matthews and Caroline Wise
The Penguin Book of Norse Myths: Gods of the Vikings – Kevin Crossley-Holland
Beyond the Architect’s Eye – Mary N. Woods

What do you think? A problem or an opportunity?