Lovely day out in Oxford

Would it surprise you to find out we bought some books?

Us neither.

Cloud

• Joseph Connolly - Winter Breaks


• Jonathan Riley - Routledge Guide to Mill on Liberty


• Stephen D Tansey - Politics The Basics (2nd edition)


• Jim Stanford - Economics for Everyone


• Mark Thomas - Belching out the Evil


• Bryan Caplan - The Myth of the Rational Voter


• Joel Best - Stat-Spotting


• Nicholson Baker - Human Smoke


• Eric Rauchney - A Short Introduction to the Great Depression and the New Deal


• Studying Economics - Brian Atkinson and Susan Johns


• Colin Hay - Political Analysis: A Critical Introduction

You may spot from this list an interest in economics and economic theory. It's worth saying that Cloud has been thinking about doing an external MA on this topic for some time but is currently settling for trying to do some preparatory reading.


Lisa

• Some Doctor Who magazines from the lovely store - Booklover. [Silly reading but fun reading.]


• Neil Gaiman's Mr Hero (issues 1-6) - also from Booklover. [I'll take a punt to keep small shops like this in business]


• Deborah E Barker and Ivo Kamps (eds) - Shakespeare and Gender [I'm in a Shakespeare mood - wonder why?]


• R Burt and L Boose (eds) - Shakespeare the Movie II [Told ya I was in a Shakespeare mood]


• Hermione Lee - Body Parts [I remain interested in reading about life writing despite the long drag of not having yet transformed the PhD into book form myself. Sigh.]


• Punctuation Personified [fascimile from the Bodleian Library]


• Susan Cooper - Silver on the Tree [I read this, indeed the whole series, as a child. As this copy had the cover I remembered so vividly I couldn't help but succumb to buying it]


• Cornelia Funke - Inkheart [I was intrigued by the forthcoming movie, but more by reading about the premise of the book. Can't believe I hadn't read this already!]


• Nicola Barker - Darkmans [Shortlisted last year for the Booker, but probably receiving the most negative press due to its length, I was convinced to get this by our friend Sue]

Plus, when we got home, Cloud finally tracked down the name and author of a book I had seen at the Lowdham book festival but had resisted buying (we'd bought over 10 books already by this point so had endeavoured to stop ourselves). So I have Karen Maitland's Company of Liars coming soon.

Still, aside from rampant book purchasing, we did do something new: go up the Sheldonian Cupola. The theatre is being refurbished but the cupola is still open to look out over Oxford.

[Our photos to follow]

Once home, we settled in and downloaded Merlin (great entertainment) and then read whilst listening to Steve Reich recordings. I finished The Book Thief and Cloud got me tissues when he copped me with tears streaming down my face by the end. "I cried too" he said, understandingly.