The Sneaky Magpie

Tag Archives: Penguin Classics

30 November, 2011

Christmas gifts – books

Sitting on a sofa drinking tea, eating lebkuchen and thinking of the gifts I yet have to buy – books spring to my mind! Here are few literary suggestions, I hope you like.

Kindle! Yes, it is the best thing ever. I know that real books are great, the smell, the touch but Kindle is so handy if, like me, you have no space to house all the books you want. It can store up to 1500 books and you get them within seconds. And just imagine how easy it is to read on a packed public transport not to mention how light it is for your poor stressed shoulders. From Amazon.

The funny, witty and smart author, India Knight, writes about four Christmases she hosted. Pure joy. From Amazon.

If I had enough space I would get all the Penguin Classics with covers by Coralie Bickford-Smith. They are so beautiful.

This great edition of Master and Margarita and many more stunning books at The Folio Society.

The Making of a Marchioness and other wonderfully rediscovered 20th century classics from Persephone Books.

A Kindle cover which is not a Kindle cover – it’s a Whistles make up bag! But it fits perfectly and is so much more stylish. Also comes in dusty navy blue.

PS Apologies for the messy pictures but for some reason WordPress won’t center, argghh.

12 November, 2011

by The Sneaky Magpie
in Books, Culture, Interiors, London, Museums and Galleries
Comments ( 5 )

All about Charles

Well, almost. The bicentenary of Dickens’s birth is coming up and we have all sort of treats lined up.

First of all, I am so excited about the BBC adaptation of Great Expectations this Christmas with Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham, Ray Winstone as Magwitch and David Suchet as Mr Jaggers. I am besides myself and cannot wait. I am starved of a good costume drama this autumn (season 2 of Dowton Abbey completely failed to engage me). In fact, we will be doubly treated to Great Expectations as there is also a silver screen version being shot with Helena Bonham Carter who, in my opinion, is the perfect Miss Havisham and Ralph Fiennes as Magwich who I am very curious about.

Most of us are familiar with Pip’s passionate love for Estella but I decided to refresh my memory and I am rereading this great novel. I downloaded the complete works of Charles Dickens to my Kindle for a mere £2 but you can go flash and get these luxurious Penguin Classics editions with fabric covers illustrated by Coralie Bickford-Smith at £10-15 per book or a full set for £100. A beautiful Christmas gift, don’t you think?

The box set includes A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Bleak House, A Christmas Carol and Hard Times.

The Charles Dickens Museum was closed up until this week for some restoration works so I went to check it out yesterday. I expected a higgledy-piggledy house with creaking stairs and dingy rooms. In reality it was a very orderly and tidy home.

We start our tour down in the basement where we find a cozy kitchen, a washroom and a library. Of course I was absolutely fascinated by the kitchen and it was my favorite room in the whole house.

The drawing room was such a happy place, it was all coziness, fun and love. You can imagine the Dickens family enjoying many chatty afternoons here. Just imagine Christmas in this place!

Mary Hogarth’s room had a beautiful gown on display.

The author’s desk.

The musem has got the best collection of Dickens memorabilia in the world.

There is a great museum shop with beautiful editions of Dickens’s works and the museum will be dressed up for Christmas with special events.

Last but not least we have the new biography by Claire Tomalin which I am looking forward to read.

29 January, 2011

Grey Saturday

Today I had a small success. For the past week Freddie would only sleep on my chest during the day, every time I put him down he was awake within minutes. This was not the case at night luckily but I got tired and ended up having no free time whatsoever. This was not ideal. So today I read up about it and got firm with him (which is very hard btw due to his extreme cuteness). But it worked and I’ve had 1.5h of free time so far, he is still asleep!

Here he is wriggling on the bed in the jumper I knitted for him. It fits perfectly and keeps the little fella warm in this nasty weather.