I have dialled back on the book-buying this year, and have so far managed to actually reduce the TBR each month – and it’s been a number of years since I last did that. So, not so many books in this post, and it’s been nearly two months since I last put up a book haul post too.

Some first editions. The Explorer and The Echo are both signed (people who follow me on Twitter may remember my tweet to James regarding his signature), and cost me, er, nothing. They were actually prizes at the SFS Social where I read an excerpt from All That Outer Space Allows. I didn’t win the two books, but the person who won them gave them to me. For which, very many thanks. A Fine and Handsome Captain is by a pen-name of DG Compton, and was cheap on eBay. Annoyingly, the jacket is a bit damaged. Lila was also reasonably priced on eBay, and it is also signed.

Some genre first editions. Sacrifice on Spica III is the second book of Brown’s Telemass Quartet. I wrote about it here. I heard Justina Robson read an excerpt from Glorious Angels at the York pubmeet in November last year. I really enjoyed North’s The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, and Touch sounds just as appealing (if not more so).

A few charity shop finds. Well, Boneland and The Three were. Snail I bought from eBay, although I can no longer remember why.

My mother found these for me in various charity shops. I’d mentioned I was collecting these particular editions, so she’s been keeping an eye out for them. I now have 17 out of, I think, 24 books. I read Lady Chatterley’s Lover years ago, but a different edition. Apocalypse is a posthumous collection of essays. Mornings in Mexico / Etruscan Places is an omnibus of two short travel books. And The Plumed Serpent is set in Mexico and was written when Lawrence was living in Taos.

Some non-fiction. Pursued by Furies is a humongous biography of Malcolm Lowry. I have Bowker’s biography of Lawrence Durrell, Through the Dark Labyrinth, somewhere. And The NASA Mission Reports: Gemini 4 is another for the space books collection.