Books I love from my bookshelf

My husband and I are both book lovers and between us we have quite a selection! For this post I thought I’d share some of the more interesting books I have on the bookshelf that mean a lot to me.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare– William Shakespeare

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

I have been reading Shakespeare since I was in primary school. We have another entire portfolio as well as some poetry books and individual plays. This copy is mine and was given to me by my mother and is one of my most cherished books. It’s pretty tatty and yellowing now, but I expect it should be, being older than I am, with a date on the inside cover stating 1983. Charmingly, the cover also emulates the cover of Shakespeare’s original folio, only a handful of which still exist.

The Dead Zone– Stephen King

The Dead Zone

This lovely hardback was a gift from a university house mate for my birthday, a while back now. But it is a first US edition. From early in his career, only five books are listed in the ‘also by Stephen King’ section, which is something bizarre to see knowing now how many books he has written. As a big King fan, this book forms just part of my vast collection!

Quentin Tarantino– Edward Gallafent

Quentin Tarantino

This one is special to me as it is written by a former University of Warwick lecturer who we affectionately named Eddie G. A talented teacher and author, he signed this copy for me after I had used it in my dissertation on the images of women and violence in the films of Quentin Tarantino. A fantastic and insightful book as well as a nostalgic reminder of my university days.

Grimm Fairy Tales– The Brothers Grimm

Grimm Fairy Tales

This book I stumbled across by chance. My mother and stepdad were helping me to sell some old things at a car boot sale and the people opposite us had a few interesting hardback books. I decided to go over and admire them and found this. Instead of buying it, I left it- otherwise I’d spend all the money I was making, my mother said, and she was right. As the day ended and everyone was packing away, the younger man at the stall came over to us with the book and offered it to me for free. Initially I said I couldn’t, but he said the things they had been selling had belonged to their grandfather and were going to the charity shop now anyway. So I graciously accepted. On closer inspection of this lovely, old hardback, it has dates of 1946 and 1948 written inside. I was shocked at how old this book was and am lovingly keeping it aside for my children.

The Art of Howl’s Moving Castle– Studio Ghibli Library

The Art of Howl’s Moving Castle

Now, I’m cheating a bit here as this belongs to my husband, a gift from myself for our first Christmas together almost ten years ago. He introduced me to Studio Ghibli and Howl’s Moving Castle is the first we watched together. The hardback is part of the Studio Ghibli Library of books and includes some absolutely breath taking artwork and a full script.

For this blog post, I limited myself to only five books, but I have more that I love, including some really fascinating film related books, but that’s for another time maybe!