Underneath that pile of unread books is what I grandly call my library steps, although it came from IKEA where it is called a step stool. The pile has grown since my trip to Wales where I went to charity shops in Pembroke and LLandeilo.
Note on the right a miniature rug that comes from the Frick in New York. It is an indispensable coaster as it absorbs the condensation from cold drinks. The trouble about these book-buying forays is that if one’s hostess has missed a particularly desirable item she is apt, like Queen Mary, to ask to be given it. Noblesse oblige so I gave her the Auberon Waugh diaries and an early foray into history, written in 1955 by the twenty-three year old Antonia Pakenham, Robin Hood. (She went on to become Antonia Fraser and Antonia Pinter.) Here is the rest of my haul.
I am particularly pleased with Rivals of Sherlock Holmes as I already have an anthology of the same name and thought I might have bought a duplicate but it is a different selection. CP Snow may be a bit heavy going. The small volume, bottom left, is When William Came by Saki, with an introduction by Lord Charnwood. It is just the right size to read travelling. By the way, Lord Charnwood was an author too, writing biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
I like charity shops because it doesn’t take long to skim their shelves and low prices encourage experimental purchases. In a proper second hand bookshop I feel I have to work it over thoroughly and it takes ages.
LAMDA had a party and performance to officially open their new theatres and rehearsal facilities. There were 200 of us in the new Sainsbury Theatre: Princess Alexandra, new chairman Shaun Woodward, substantial donors (that does not include me) and many successful LAMDA alumni. I did not recognise one face in the last category. I am a complete chump at spotting celebrities. Here are some names I missed: David Suchet, Ruth Wilson, Timothy West, Prunella Scales, Rory Kinnear, Paterson Joseph, David Haig, Brian Cox, Patricia Hodge, Jemma Redgrave …
