Bookshelf Travelling in Insane Times was originally hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness, then I took over for a while, but this will be my last such post as I’ve just about run out of bookshelves that I think people might be interested in seeing. This has been an enjoyable meme though and I’ve loved seeing books from other people’s collections.
On the left hand side there are a couple of books by the World War 1 VAD nurse Vera Brittain – Account Rendered and Testament of Experience, I gave Testament of Youth to my history teacher daughter-in-law. They’re interesting books, but Vera Brittain was a bit of a dichotomy as she was all for women’s rights, as long as the women weren’t her own servants – according to her daughter Shirley Williams.
I love Patrick Leigh Fermor’s travel writing, he began his adventures as an 18 year old, I believe after he was expelled from school. Those adventures and his knowledge of Greek were of great help during World War 2 when he joined the army and went undercover to what was then German occupied Greece. Not that he was very low profile as he ended up taking a German general prisoner!
The Little Prince by Antoine Saint Exupery is a lovely wee book. It’s beautifully illustrated by the author too.
The French dictionary is from my school days but it still comes in handy sometimes. At school I ‘did’ French, German and Latin and much more recently I’ve been trying to learn Dutch, but I don’t think I could ever get to grips well with any language unless I lived in the country for a while, well that’s my excuse anyway! Are you bookshelf travelling this week?