Happy New Year to everyone! At Eve's Alexandria we have been celebrating in traditional fashion - by raiding one book shop after another until we're thoroughly exhausted, and then collapsing down together to stroke and discuss them. After which, the annual book-giving bonanza and then, of course, the building of The Pile. The Book Pile is one of our most hallowed rituals and each year, against all odds, we manage to make it bigger than the last. (Admittedly, we have been greatly aided in recent years by the arrival of biblioholic partners, for which we are truly grateful.) This year our pile was well over 5ft tall.
The hugeness of said Pile makes it very difficult to see properly - we had to construct it with a book shelf for support (ala Niall's 'structual book-pile conceit', patent pending), but then couldn't get a good angle on the photograph - and so we went on to build some smaller piles the next day.
The above is Nic's Pile; the photograph below shows Jo's, Esther's and mine (in that order, left to right).
Mine is tallest (because I'm bad, very bad), but Jo pips me on quantity - she tallied 23 books either gifted or purchased (which she now has to carry home to the Czech Republic). Many of them came from what has to be the best book shop I have ever visited: Blackwells in Oxford. Four floors of pure delight, plus a basement of extroadinary proportions. A whole room for poetry; nearly a whole floor for classic fiction and literary criticism; a hardback fiction section; and a very interesting sale... Well worth the pilgrimage, should you ever have the chance.
I would list what is in the piles but it would certanily take me hours to wade through it all. But, yes, before you ask, that is Harrius Potter Et Philosophi Lapis, the Latin version of the first HP book. This is because I'm insane, as well as bad, and have been hankering after it for quite a long time - I keep dreaming of a world in which my Latin is good enough to read it fluently. You never know, a few months with my trusty dictionary and I might be a little further along the way.
Coming up: my best of 2007. Better late than never!
~~Victoria~~