Books for the TBR Pile: 'Not Just Moorcock' Edition

In a few days time, I'll be off for a week's holiday down in Devon even though I've been working from home for the last few months now, I feel like I've earned this break. It will also be the first time in a long time (around five years I think) that I'll have had a holiday outside Lewisham. Not that's there's anything wrong with Lewisham (the fried chicken doesn't draw the tourists, like it should, but I love it, it will be nice to get away though :o) I don't know what I'll do with the blog while I'm away; knowing me I'll probably make some noise about taking a break and then cover it with content when I should be sleeping ;o)

It's at times like this then that a Graeme's thoughts turn to the most important thing to consider when going on holiday... What books shall I take? Seriously, I don't want to get caught short with no books to read and no bookshops open, that would be horrible. I might even end up having to talk to people...
Being me, this won't be a problem as I've been planning the 'holiday reads' for at least a fortnight. My Kindle will definitely be making the trip down south; it's full of books that I haven't read yet including Arkady Martine's 'A Memory Called Empire' amongst others (I'm not a huge science fiction reader but thought I'd give it a go and see how it went). Comic books? We'll see but I'd imagine that I'll bring at least one with me. And as for 'real' books... Well, lets take a look at what I've picked up over the last few days.


The charity shops of Lewisham are all open again and I've been making up for lost time with much frequenting of them. I've never read any Mickey Spillane (although from what I've heard, he may be more my thing than Raymond Chandler, whose books I have read) and in the spirit of trying new stuff once in a while, I bought 'The Mike Hammer Omnibus Vol 1' in the British Heart Foundation. There are three books in this volume and I'll probably tackle them one at a time.

I won't lie, I just really wanted to buy a book, the other day, and my luck was in when I saw '48' in the Cancer Research shop. I've read it before (one of Herbert's better books I think) but lost my last copy during a move or something so it was an easy decision to make in buying this one. I will post about it here but I'm in no big hurry with this one as I've read it within the last couple of years.


This post isn't just about Moorcock but mostly... yes, it is. Michael Moorcock has always proved to be an engaging storyteller, for me, and that is just what I need at the moment. Plus I'm enjoying hunting around and collecting these slightly older (ok, much older) editions. These are a mixture of eBay and Amazon finds, I'm looking forward to rooting round in some proper bookshops and carrying on with the hunt.

'Moorcock's Book of Martyrs' was a second attempt at buying a decent copy (the first one I bought really stretched the definition of 'good', at least I thought so) and I did a lot better with this copy so I don't need to make a third attempt :o) I'll be dipping in and out of this every time I feel the urge to post about a short story.

Again, all truth here... I've got 'The Warlord of the Air' already, in a collected edition of 'Nomad of the Time Streams', but I didn't want to lug a whole collection on holiday (and I love this cover, and it was cheap on eBay...) so bought this for the trip. 'Elric at the End of Time' was purchased for similar reasons but there was also a little nostalgia here as I remember reading it at high school and again, loving the cover. We'll see how things pan out but I'd like to think that at least one of these books will be reviewed while I'm away.

That's it for me in terms of books bought, at least for now (I'm waiting on more Moorcock books to arrive but whether they arrive before I go is another question). What books have you treated yourself to recently?


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