I have been wanting this book since I first saw it at a friends house 2 years ago:

The Complete Costume History Auguste Racinet

At close to $200, I cant ask folks to buy it for me. So I wait till the price comes down - someday!

Mine's an odd one. In the eighties, there was a player called Perry Groves who used to play for Arsenal. He wasn't great, but he was always willing, and a great favourite with the crowd. He's "written" his autobiography, called We all live in a Perry Groves World. This is after a chant that the crowd used to sing, to the tune of Yellow Submarine. It's meant to be very irreverent, and extremely funny.

Moreover, there is a campaign among Arsenal fans to try to make this book outsell Ashley Cole's autobiography - Ashley Cole just left Arsenal to play for their arch-rivals, Chelsea, and he is (quite rightly, in my opinion) percieved to have betrayed the club that made his career for money. He said in his autobiography that the last straw for him was when Arsenal would only pay him fifty five thousand pounds per week, when we was expecting sixty. And he wonders why he's perceived as being a money-grabbing little sh*t!

Anyway, that's why I want Perry Grove's autobiography and I DON'T want Ashley Cole's...

I want bookstore gift cards, so I can go and browse and choose-I rarely buy "new" fiction books because I can get them from the library, and until I read them, how will I know if I want to own them? But I love to poke around the biographies and the decorating/garden sections and see what's there.
Martin-my nephews and my son have become interested in "English Football" lately-led by the one who studied in Russia, I think-but I'm not sure whether they are Arsenal fans-I'll have to find out-I could add three to the sales list!

It took me a moment to realize that 'play for Arsenal' did not mean he plays for a band.....(really, I do watch soccer, really)

The last bday and anniversary, my DH bought twelve gift cards from Borders, attached them to a dozen silk roses and I was in heaven. He was going to do that for Chanukah but he already bought me something quite expensive, so Im not expecting it again. But it is so fun to decide that there is something I must have, and be able to go up to the flowers and pick off a card, just like a money tree!

cece - this is VITALLY important. The team you start to support is the team you end up supporting for the rest of your life, through thick and thin. (I suspect it's a bit like baseball in that respect.) So, please - I don't care WHO they support so long as it's not Chelsea (because they are owned by a Russian billionaire and can - and do - just buy anyone they want) or Manchester United (because EVERYONE supports Manchester United) or Tottenham Hotspur (because they are historically Arsenal's biggest rivals - only three miles away.)

Just mention Thierry Henry, Cesc Fabregas and Theo Walcott - the best player in the world, the best young player in the world and potentially the best player in the world (Cesc is nineteen, and Theo's only seventeen) - all three play for Arsenal.

To the tune of "Wild Rover":-

And it's Ar-sen-al
Arsenal FC
We're by far the greatest team
The world has ever seen!!

Ahem. Sorry about that. Got a bit carried away there...

Here is a link that might be useful: Arsenal

Cindydavid, Dover Publications has paperback reprints of some of Racinet's work. Also if you Google you can find lots of his work online. I know like me you probably prefer the complete book you saw, but until then...

I've been reading Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters and looked online to find the early 18th century fashions and extreme hairstyles she talked about...do you do that when reading, too?

Now I'm reading Horace Walpole's Letters online, but my little MSNTV browser won't let me read all through one volume. Years ago, I asked my library to order several volumes through interlibrary loan. They came from Yale University, one was in French (letters to his Parisian friends) which I don't read. They were such finely bound volumes I was almost afraid of them...LOL I'd really like to have my own copies...looking for a used set maybe for Christmas. josh

cece despite what Martin says there are a few folk in the UK who are not football followers. In this area of the West of England the big game is rugby football although young lads usually have a favourite footy team.
My DH used to teach and was always being asked "What team do you support Sir?" One day, off the top of his head he told them "Tranmere Rovers" a team in a lowly 'division' based on Merseyside (Liverpool area). From them on the kids brought him photos of the players, cigarette cards etc and he had to read up the reports of the game to see who and how his team HAD done at the w/end.

Martin re Chealsea FC. Our daughter was offered a PR job with a big London firm. Among her 'clients' was CFC in a complicated deal with American Express plus manager Jose Mourinho. She was wined and dined at their fancy practice ground in leafy Surrey only for JM not to 'come on board' at the 11½th hour. Daughter was left with no client . . . and no job . . . she has found another company but living in London without any £££'s coming in is no fun.

elliot, I think if my DH were to give me a cookery book for a present, however many jokes it contained . . . I would not be best pleased. :-[!

Ooo, Josh, thanks for that! Yes, I do want the big one, but in the meantime indeed. I'm off to check!

Oh btw, please call me Cindy. The site for some reason wouldn't let me use my old Garden Web name (CindyAsh) so I just took something I used elsewhere. David is my DH's name :)

Elliot - If anyone's asking because you want to buy me something for under the tree...just check out my Amazon wish list!

I'm hoping someone will "surprise" me with Vol 6 of . Also under consideration, plus many more, and there is always the gift card route (I find I am much more careful/cautious when spending someone else's money with a gift card!): The Children's Blizzard/ The Letters of John and Abigail Adams/ Manhunt, the 12 day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. Also, any of Kathleen Norris's poetry collections.

My son is aware that I have just purchased some new novels by a couple of authors we both enjoy...and has said that it is quite alright if I (and his sister) read them first and then wrap them for him for Christmas...as long as she, a tub reader, doesn't drop them into the bath water.

I have a l-o-n-g list on Amazon and I've been dropping hints to the family for quite some time. Top wish list books at the moment (and they change frequently) are:

Civil to Strangers and Other Writings by Barbara Pym (OOP and the only Pym I don't have),

Thomas Cahill's newest Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe, and

Britain BC: Life in Britain and Ireland before the Romans by Francis Pryor.

Bookstore gift cards are always my favorite!

I've dropped big hints about a new 'coffee table' type book, Inside the Body: Fantastic Images from beneath the Skin. Fabulous photographs of cells, tissues, organs etc; the kind of thing that inspires some of my recent paintings.

I'm going to buy Derren Brown's Tricks of the Mind as a share-present for everyone. Younger daughter was particularly interested in his tv series; older daughter is doing psychology for A-levels; and husband generally likes this kind of stuff. Oh, yes, and I'll probably read it too...

> looked online to find the early 18th century fashions and extreme hairstyles she talked about...do you do that when reading, too?

Its funny, you'd think I would. Its more likely that I google for maps or historical facts during a read. But if I had that book, you'd bet I would!

>...and has said that it is quite alright if I (and his sister) read them first and then wrap them for him for Christmas

Ha! You raised them right, it seems :)

Sheri, thanks so much for the mention of the Cahill book, which sounds like a "must-read."

Mereille G. (author of "French Women Don't Get Fat")has come out with a new book filled with even more good recipes. Failing that, I am hoping my friends read my mind and give me a gift certificate for B & N.

I would like a lovely coffee table book about Tuscany and also a food travel-adventure type book of the area. Anyone have any suggestions? Otherwise I always long for gift cards.

DD was home for the weekend and handed me a catalogue from the Oxford Uni Press, with several things circled-including the $2000 Dictionary-ON SALE, for $999!!!

Martin-it's Liverpool, because "they are just regular working-class guys, not like that Chelsea team who are the rich *&^%$ like the Yankees." (A baseball team owed by a multimillionaire who buys all the best players.) There was also a mention of Manchester City ("not United-that's a bandwagon team".) When I inquired about TH, I was told their team name is too off-putting. hehehehe!

Oh cece, what a bargain! I hope you ordered TWO!

Although I have a list a mile long of books I want (The Go-Between, Workers in the Dawn, Demos), I am stuffed to the rafters with books now and need to cull - or really SHOULD cull but probably won't - before I bring new ones in. So I'll just wish for a personal parking space at the library with my own key. (OT - I used to wish I'd get stuck in the library for the weekend when I was a kid. I never went there without stuffing some pop-tarts or something edible and a flashlight in my bag - just in case.)

PAM

A long time ago I told my husband if he was stumped about what to get me, he could buy me the complete Horatio Hornblower series. He's overly fond of buying me anything that plugs into a wall and requires power, so, of course, I don't lack for any kind of appliance. ;-)

I usually ask for book store gift cards when people ask me what I want. That way, I can get what I find myself in the mood for.

Cece - Liverpool is entirely acceptable to me (not least because Arsenal stuffed them 3-0 a couple of weeks ago!). I approve of the reasons for avoiding Chelsea and Man U.

If Arsenal is an off-putting name, it probably doesn't help that Arsenal fans refer to themselves as Gooners! Arsenal are known as the Gunners, logically (and their logo is a cannon); the name got changed to Gooners by opposing fans as an insult, and for some reason got taken up as an acceptable name by the fans themselves.

Cece --

The OED is pretty much the only book I'd want for Christmas. I've considered buying it for myself but I just couldn't justify it. Now, the 42-inch plasma TV ....... that was easier to justify. ;-)

Martin, because my boyfriend supports Liverpool I am, of course, a Liverpool fan. But, having said that, now that I know Arsenal fans call themselves Gooners it makes them more attractive! Haha

I am giving a few books this year for Christmas - BBC's Planet Earth photo book, because my mother doesn't have a multi-regional DVD player and I can't get the DVDs in Region One (or whatever the US is), and another BBC book interestingly, Unforgettable Journeys to Take Before You Die for my boyfriend who loves to travel as much as I do.

I would love a First Edition of either Several Perceptions or The Passion of New Eve - both by Angela Carter, but she's becoming popular again which drives the prices up \c:

Tottenham Hotspur is the "off-putting" name-too too silly for these American boys.

Almost forgot-I want Gone With the Windsors

Oh, I love the title! Whats it about? (actually it sounds like it should be the title of Carol Burnetts famous skit 'I just saw it in the window and couldn't resist')

From Publishers' Weekly:
The diary entries of shallow and oblivious Baltimore socialite Maybell Brumby comprise Graham's fourth novel, which explores the fictional lives of intimates involved in the 1936 abdication of King Edward VIII. Maybell, widowed, leaves for London in 1932 to join her sister Violet and falls in with her old school friend Bessie Wallis "Wally" Simpson, the married woman (twice, in fact) who has set her sights on the then Prince of Wales...Graham depicts the abdication as a kind of bedroom farce...This light romp through sordid territory is sly, gossipy fun.

Cece, I loved Gone With the Windsors, it was terrific fun and historically accurate. I hope it's waiting under the tree for you!

I'm thinking with that and Eleanor and the Four Kings I would be good to go for the day-one year we had a blizzard, couldn't go anywhere, so we stayed in our jammies all day, snuggled in, all 4 of us, in front of the fire, and played cards and read. Instead of the big meal at a relative's, we had the appetizers I had prepared to take along, and baked a frozen lasagna! Great Christmas! Dare I hope for another blizzard?

Christmas came early for me. I work at a small Branch library and about a month ago they were getting rid of their Oxford English Dictionary(I guess circ stats were low and the Central library has it). I longingly mentioned I'd love to own the OED and my manager told me to go ahead and take it!!! It's from the 1960s and I really don't have any place to store it right now, but I don't care. I am so excited!

What I am really hoping to get are gift certificates to B&N or similar. I never know what I really want to buy until I get to the store with a gift card so it's a wonderful present that lasts all year long if you plan it right. :-) The gift that keeps on giving.

Did you get what you wanted? I feel really fortunate to have been given a B & N gift certificate. Will it be books or music or both? Such luxury! For once, my stepdaughter read my mind correctly.....

My mom and dad gave me a Border's gift certificate. I'm going to try to hoard it for awhile!

I know what I want -- Stephen Ambrose's three volume biography of Richard Nixon. I've always wanted to read it but I never got around to it. Well, this weekend I went to a used bookstore and found volume 1 so I bought it. I've subsequently found out that volume 2 is quite rare. Well, it IS available used but expensive. I've checked and it goes for $60-90 for a READING copy! The third volume's also available and isn't as expensive but ...... Argh.

I don't know why but Nixon fascinates me. Then again, Hitler also fascinates me. ;-)

Rather timely read, as Gerald Ford just died. I still think he was wrong to pardon Nixon, and still think that Nixons rehabilitation as a statesman before he died was very bizarre. Might be an interesting read, tho. I remember reading some stories of his childhood and early career that could explain a lot.

I received the books and cd I wanted because I showed my wish list on Amazon to my husband, stood beside him and pointed to the ones I really, really wanted, and watched with satisfaction as he clicked them one by one and sent them to his shopping cart.

Cindydavid4 --

I know! I just picked up the book last Saturday and ....... voila. Next thing you know, it's a timely read!

I've also read a few other books on Nixon and, from what I've read, Ford didn't have a choice. I vaguely remember reading that Ford got backed into a corner -- Nixon apparently threatened to say that there WAS a deal and that Ford reneged if Nixon didn't get the pardon.

As for Nixon's rehab as a statesman after his disgrace, I always thought that was quite interesting. I've also read a bit on Nixon's foreign policy and he sounded like he had a lot of interesting ideas. I think he would have made a darned good statesman .....too bad his personality got in the way.

You might want to follow that up with the timely read I am currently in to: Second Acts, about the lives of ex presidents. Very interesting insight into all of the presidents, focusing on their later lives rather then on their actual terms of office. I was esp amazed how many enemies on the campaign trail became good friends after the office was over. Ford and Carter, Bush and Clinton, among others. BTW Ford apparently always denied there was any kind of deal with the pardon, that he did it because he thought it was right. Well. Maybe. He didn't survive decades as a leading member of the House of Representatives to see the political advantages of certain actions. Whats funny tho was in this book, he really was surprised by the reaction of the public to his pardon. It wasn't till much later that people started to see it as a good thing, so he felt himself vindicated.

Anyway, it might be a good read for you.

Second Acts, huh? Ok, I'll look up the book. I've mostly been interested in presidential politics, more specifically the campaigns. I don't know if you've read Teddy White's Making of the President series?

I haven't really been keeping track of presidents after their terms had expired. Well, that's not true -- I've always been interested in Nixon after '74.

I'm not sure where I read it but yes, apparently Ford was quite surprised by the public's reaction. I still think it was the right thing to do for the sake of the office of the president. Nixon, as a person, may have been deserving of a hanging, drawing, and quartering but the damage such a fate would have on the office of the presidency would have been devastating. That's kind of why I was hoping Clinton's impeachment proceedings would crash and burn (and it did).

I can see why ex-presidents would become friends. After all, they have a commonality of experience that very very few people would have. They can relate to one another. And, if they were political enemies and political contemporaries, then they would have even more commonality! I mean, c'mon -- Bush Sr. and Clinton would have tackled the same issues except that they would have been on opposite sides. This could be why Mary Matalin and James Carville got married.....

And yes -- I'm sure Ford has repeatedly said there was no deal. But can you imagine the damage/uproar if Nixon HAD said that there WAS a deal and the Ford had reneged? At least Nixon kept his mouth shut after the pardon ...... Maybe that WAS the deal -- that Nixon would shut up and leave Ford alone in exchange for a pardon?

Anyway, I'll have to look for that book. Thanks for recommending it!

I've heard good things about Nixon Agonistes by Garry Wills although I haven't read it myself. The title makes it tempting, but I read so much about Nixon in newspapers and magazines while he was alive that I can't bear any more.

Heres the Amazon link. And I read some of the early White books but stopped after a while. Should take a look at the ones I missed.

What I like about this book is that it just glances over the problems with each presidents term, and focuses mainly on what he has done after. And I liked how the first ladies and their adjustments were included as well.

Here is a link that might be useful: Second Acts

Thanks for the link!

Yes, I kind of agree with your approach to the White books. The 1960, 1964, and 1968 were quite good. The later ones were..... lacking. Anyway, I would highly suggest the last one in the series -- America In Search of Itself : The Making of the President 1956-1980. He ties all the various presidential campaigns together and looks at the changes that America underwent during that time period. A very interesting read.

I keep seeing that book - think it would be a good place to start. I remember reading 1968, since that was the year I really became aware of the political scene. Should try 60 and 64 as well.

I wanted: Tony Hillerman's latest; Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope"; and Deepak Chopra's "Life After Death."

I got: "The Audacity of Hope." So I stopped by CostCo yesterday and bought Tony Hillerman's book. I'll just have to wait on the Chopra book.