The dumbest thing we've done this week.

The other day we were out and about in London. We got caught up in the midst of the Palace Horse Guard for the second day in a row...


...And encountered the gayest cab in all of London.


We soon found ourselves on the fringe of the West End...and street after street of little antiquarian bookshops.




Hey, look! They have Tintin! And P.G. Wodehouse!




Evidently Daleks are bibliophiles. (This is an original 1960's prop.)


At last we could restrain ourselves no longer. Despite the fact that we're travelling with two heavy suitcases that are already overweight, we bought books. Loads and loads of lovely books. We discovered some fascinating fantasy/historical novels we'd never heard of before, and I discovered a new line from Penguin called Read Red. It's a series of classic adventure stories (Treasure Island, the Sherlock Holmes books, Verne, Burroughs, The 39 Steps, etc.) with fantastic retro Boy's-Own-Adventure style covers that look old but are in fact new designs. Well, you know about me and Penguins; I wound of getting every book in this series I could find -- even though I had older copies of several of them.

As soon as we got back to the room, Audry took pictures of our booty. (As always, click on each photo for a better view.)


The 5 books on the upper right are Penguin Read Reds. Check out the cover of Tarzan -- it's freaking awesome!


More Read Reds. And I've been meaning to read "Gone With the Wind" for years, so naturally I had to fly to England to buy a copy.


Audry got that fantastic retro-Penguin pencil set in the middle. To its left is an old school Penguin-themed notebook she got to use them with.


Needless to say we are REALLY looking forward to lugging these things back to the States.