{wishlist}

I've been packing up my books these last two months. Every wall of my study was covered. Ditto, bedroom. I couldn't see out the windows. Much of it was stuff I would probably not read again. A lot was study-related. When did I last look at a Greek grammar primer, let alone twenty of them? So, I packed things up. 2500 or so. I left out the TBR and some things I couldn't bear to pack, but all in all I was pretty ruthless. I thought to myself that if I don't need to climb up this ladder and go through these boxes in the next year, then maybe I could even bring myself to GET RID OF SOME BOOKS PERMANENTLY. Or at least replace them with e-copies (I've just bought a Kindle). Disposal is a step too far at the moment tho'. 

The problem with book packing is that you keep coming across titles you'd love to read again. And sometimes they are part of a series. And sometimes you don't own all the series, even if you've read them all, but you've always meant to track down the missing ones. And so I've already bought one of the missing ones and no doubt the other two will soon join them. 

If you haven't read any of Dorothy Dunnett's 'Dolly' series (mostly 1970s), you're missing a treat. Quirky, funny spy-mysteries with exotic settings and strong, clever female heroines who run into trouble but managed to rescue themselves with the aid of the mysterious Johnson Johnson and his yacht 'Dolly'. Each one is written in the first person - the heroine's voice - and this allows both a distinctive and idiosyncratic voice and also ups the mystery quotient as we only gain the heroine's perspective. 

All are out of print, shamefully. Some of them were published under the pseudonym 'Dorothy Halliday' (Dunnett's maiden name). The 'Dolly and the ----- Bird' titles were also reissued under other more prosaic titles for the US market and then different titles again for the UK market on re-issue (fantastic fiction gives the list here: so that Dolly and the Doctor Bird is also found as Operation Nassau (UK) AND Match for a Murderer (US). Confusing...) I do have some self-restraint (not a lot), so I will restrict myself to the Dolly and the... ones, I think.