NEW BOOKS.

Today I bought some books and I would like to tell you about them!

This morning, my Dad asked my sister and me if we wanted to accompany him on a trip to Rochester to England's biggest secondhand bookshop, Baggins. We, of course, said yes.

Baggins has become a fairly regular destination for family outings, it's a two storey labyrinth of book shelves, only slightly organised - we love it!

Just down the road from Baggins is a decent quality Oxfam shop with a pretty big selection of books, so we stopped in there first and this is what I got:

I've become increasingly aware that I should probably be studying Ancient History at uni, since the latest I am prepared to study is about 900AD and I massively want to study BC stuff, so I've decided to introduce myself to some of the great ancient civilisations (possibly also encouraged by my super epic poster). I decided not to be too ambitious, so a pocket history is about the level I'm going to start at. I'll move onto the Mayans and the Aztecs next.
Ancient Egypt, Barbara Watterson, £2.99.

In January I'll be taking the exam for my first-term history module The End of the Roman World: Transformations of the Year 600. So I couldn't really ignore this book. It includes essays by some of the central historians we looked at in the module, so I'm pretty pleased to have found this textbook for such a bargain!
The Transformation of the Roman World AD 400-900, Leslie Wesbster & Michelle Brown, £3.99.

My final purchase in the Oxfam shop was this little cutie. I really like the Very Short Introduction series, not least because they look pretty... and I'm slowly developing a little collection. I've been wondering about trying to get into some Theology for a while, even browsed through some course content of some Masters degrees (very unlikely to become a thing!) I'd like to know and understand a little more about Theology and decided this was a fairly undaunting way in.
Theology: A Very Short Introduction, David F. Ford, £2.49.


So, I had a fairly successful Oxfam experience and we headed a couple of doors down to get lost in the brilliant Baggins, (I'm really disappointed I didn't take a picture of the inside of the shop to share with you, it really is a book-lover's dream!)
An now I'll introduce you to more new books:

So, this isn't exactly a book, but I was pretty excited when I found it, mostly because it's awesome. This is gonna go up on my wall in York, probably somewhere near my Empires of the World timeline/graph... I'm such a dork sometimes. I also enjoy that it's slightly retro looking.
Panorama of Biblical History, Rev. Louis Munich, £1.50.

Recently I've been really pulled to reading and praying over the book of Acts in the New Testament. I started reading it a few weeks ago and it's been really cool. I started writing a blog about doing church like it's 53 AD (specific date chosen for phonetic/rhythmic reasons...) but there's a lot more to say that I've not come across yet, I'm sure. So when I spotted this daily bible study on Acts, I figured I couldn't pass it up, so, I guess I'm going to start reading Acts again! I'll let you know how it goes (eventually).
The Acts of the Apostles the Daily Bible Study, William Barclay, £2.

My final find for today was this aesthetically pleasing book. It looks super interesting, with 'ideas' organised chronologically and just a few pages on each it will be an introduction to some of the most interesting and radical ideas in history. Currently I'm drawn to Universal Rule (10,000-1000 BC), Inalienable Rights (1400-1800) and Chaos Theory (1900-2000). I think it's probably a bit of a coffee table book, my family loves that kind of book! For now it will probably go onto my bookshelf next to 'Women Who Changed the World', because I enjoy syntactic parallelism. 
Ideas that Changed the World, Felipe Fernáandez-Armesto, £5.

I was pretty excited about the books I bought today, so I decided to share them with you. It might give you an idea of what I'm interested in at the moment, if, y'know, what I'm interested in interests you at all. It might also suggest what I might blog about in the future (I won't say near or distant, because I'm a pretty temperamental blogger at the best of times).

I hope the Christmas break (if you have one) is treating you well and I hope you have some exciting new books in your life!
Stay brilliant! xxx