A literary location and books to treasure

    A literary location: snapped at dusk, The Eagle and Child - also known as The Bird and Baby - a public house dating from 1650 in Oxford's St. Giles, extra-mural meeting place of The Inklings, and as such referred to by Edmund Crispin.

    I wish I'd had time to go inside when I was there last week; that will have to wait for the next visit.

 

    Books to treasure: I am fortunate in being invited to many literary events in London, but living up in Scotland means that I can rarely accept these lovely invitations. One such 'do' which I couldn't attend was a recent evening hosted by The Guardian to showcase the beautiful books of The Folio Society.

    All those of us who prize quality of production and design in our books - fine paper and bindings, exquisite illustrations to complement the text - will be familiar with Folio Society books. If you're looking for special Christmas gifts, their site is well worth a visit: take for example their 2013 diary shown above, the favourites in this list, or - to follow on from the Inklings - C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, and don't miss this wonderful short video which brings books alive!

Comments

[LizF]

I definitely covet some of the Folio Society books (a lot of them actually) but unless I win the lottery, they will remain out of my league!
Lovely to look at though!

[Cornflower]

Beautiful!

[Susan in TX]

Folio books are made the way all books should be made, but alas, priced to drive the book industry out of business. ;) I love the fell of their pages.

[Susan in TX]

That should be *feel* of their pages...oops!

[Cornflower]

It must be very disappointing for writers when the quality of the physical book doesn't measure up to that of their text. The Folio Society standard is the one to aspire to.