I love the Secret Santa that happens every year in the Virago Modern Classics Group on LibraryThing.
It’s lovely to choose books and send them off to a distant location, it’s lovely to watch so much bookish joy as those parcels land and are opened, and of course it is lovely to receive new books.
I opened my packages tonight, and I am more moved than I can tell you by my santa’s thoughtfulness and generosity.
Here are the wonderful gifts she sent me, temporarily lodging on the Virago bookcase before being catalogued and found new homes:
From the top:
A lovely Persephone Book : The World That Was Ours by Hilda Bernstein. I have read so many words of praise for this book, and I have long wanted to add it to my shelves.
Possibly the biggest Virago Modern Classic in the world – Cecilia by Fanny Burney in a green VMC edition. I have wanted this book for so long.
The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley in a quite beautiful edition. I’m reading a library copy of The Rose Garden at the moment and I am smitten, so it is wonderful to have another, unread title to hand.
Sing Sorrow Sorrow edited by Gwen Davies. An anthology of dark tales by Welsh women writers that has been on my wishlist forever and a day.
Love You Forever, a charming little book that I know nothing at all about.
And bookmarks too!
No Santa could have done better, and I have been wonderfully lucky.
Thank you so much Belva!
(Still waiting for the parcel I sent to be opened …)
Fleur in her World 
Wasn’t Belva kind? I can tell you that love you forever is a very beautiful childrens book that will make you cry. Well, I cried anyway. I still hve my parcel sitting under the tree, saving it for Friday and the first day of my hols
I just love online book group secret santas! I do one every year with my goodreads group (still waiting for Santa to deliver that to me though).
I have a copy of Evelina at home (not read yet) but haven’t heard very much about Ceclia yet so I’ll look forward to your review on that. I also have a copy of Sing Sorrow Sorrow which I had forgotten I had (and now want to hunt down on my shelves).
Happy reading 🙂
What a lovely selection you received, Jane! I too felt overwhelmed by the care with which my Secret Santa books were chosen. Now we have the delicious anticipation of the post-Christmas reading period, with quiet afternoons or evenings curled into our favourite reading spots, dogs nearby, a mug of something hot at hand.
What lovely gifts, Jane! I have Cecilia but have been intimidated by its chunkiness. And I remember the children’s story from when my own were small. It’s a lovely book.
Hooray for the Virago group!
Your Santa was indeed very generous!
I love the feeling too when you have read a really good book and then you have another one by the same author at hand!!!!
What a lovely stack of books–and many hours of reading ahead of you. I just finished Susanna Kearsley’s The Rose Garden not long ago and loved it, too. I also enjoyed The Winter Sea–I like her so much I was prompted to buy three more books by her and two of them just came in the mail today!
It looks like you had a very generous Santa! I love your Virago green spined collection too!