We returned on Friday from a one-week reunion with university friends – some we see very often and some less so; we hadn’t all been together since February 2020. After a protracted winter selection process pitting locations and cottages against each other, the nine of us had managed to agree on a converted inn in Appleby-in-Westmorland, Cumbria, and it ended up being the perfect base for us: roomy, with lots of communal space plus en suite rooms for each family unit, and well located.
This was my first time in the Lake District in 17 years, and I particularly enjoyed the outings to Haweswater, Acorn Bank, Keswick and Derwentwater, and Carlisle (that one by train), as well as some low-key walking closer to the cottage.
As apposite reading, I took along:
- Some of Us Just Fall by Polly Atkin: A memoir of chronic illness by a writer based in Grasmere.
- Haweswater by Sarah Hall: Purchased in Sedbergh last year. Hall’s debut novel is set in the run-up to the lake being dammed to provide water for the city of Manchester in 1936, flooding the village of Mardale. I’m finding it rather dry and the local accent over-the-top, but I’ll push through and call it one of my 20 Books of Summer.
- The Farmer’s Wife by Helen Rebanks: A recipe-studded memoir of daily life as the spouse of famous Lake District sheep farmer James Rebanks.
- Wild Fell by Lee Schofield: As featured in my Six Degrees post, a plant-loving and conservation-oriented memoir by the manager of the RSPB Haweswater site.
I also packed, but didn’t get time to read from, books by Margaret Forster and Dorothy Wordsworth. A good showing by women from the northwest!
Though we hadn’t planned on going back so soon, having been for the first time in September, when I learned that Sedbergh was only 40 minutes from where we were staying, I suggested it for a daytrip along with a scenic walk to a waterfall and cake and soft drinks at the Cross Keys Temperance Inn, and even the less book-obsessed of us seemed to enjoy.
My final haul – including, from Carlisle, one book each from a charity shop and Bookcase (above), which I learned about from Simon but actually found kind of overwhelmingly huge and mazelike – cost £9.50 after subtracting the sellback of a partial box of books at Westwood. A good selection of poetry and novellas, plus a favourite I couldn’t resist buying two copies of and might reread as a buddy read with my husband (the Orlean).
Any vacation reading or book hauls for you this August?
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
It’s about time for a return visit to Sedbergh … if you haven’t collared all the books! Off on a charity-shop-book-haul today I hope. Harrogate provides fairly rich pickings.
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I’ve only been to Harrogate the once in 2006, for a visit to some family friends. I didn’t know it was a good place for charity shopping. If I’m ever back that way, I will be sure to take advantage!
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For books, make your way up Cold Bath Road to St. Michael’s charity shop, also the same charity on the Leeds Road. Then go to Commercial Street for one of the many charity shops. I know you have no immediate plans …
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Always good to have a local’s recommendations. I went while I was in Leeds doing my Master’s. Some of our closest friends are in York, but we tend to just stay in the city and environs when we visit them.
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Well, York’s pretty good too I think. If crowded!
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Sounds like a lovely get together. I didn’t get on very well with Haweswater, either, which made me a little reluctant to read Burntcoat which I loved.
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I really enjoyed The Wolf Border but have been underwhelmed with everything else I’ve tried by Hall so far.
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Oh, it’s called *Bookcase*, the one in Carlisle—I’ve been thinking of it as Bookmarks for years. I loved that shop when I first went and am long overdue a visit! We’re not properly vacationing in August but I am going back home for a slightly unexpected but very welcome nine-day visit with my parents and brother, so am thinking about which books to pack for that…
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Have a great trip back to the States. I hope the weather isn’t too gross.
Bookcase is the sort of place you could easily spend half a day in. It has a decent cafe and sells both new and used books.
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I’m almost (almost!) looking forward to the heat and humidity of an East Coast summer… 😉
Must get back to Bookcase—a decent cafe is a huge plus and I don’t remember taking advantage of that the last time I was there.
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Looks beautiful and I love that you chose your reading so perfectly around your location (and impressed that you actually read! When I go away with friends my book hardly gets opened – clearly I talk too much!).
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I thought there would be more reading time, but with nine of us around it seemed like it was always time to unload and reload the dishwasher. I mostly read over breakfast, in the car (while a passenger) or on the train, or before bed.
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Haweswater is not my favourite by Hall, I remember also finding it very dry.
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I’m not sure historical fiction is her forte. It may be a slog to get through this one.
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Yes, Bookcase really needs a whole week devoted to it! I find I get tired after an hour or two there, but I do love it.
I still haven’t been to Sedbergh, and must rectify.
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Sedbergh doesn’t have many shops compared to Hay or even Wigtown, but it’s worth a stop of a couple of hours if you’re in the area.
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Looks a lovely trip and plenty of great buys! Happy reading.
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Thanks!
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I have Mr Rebanks’ book so feel I need the companion now myself! I think I’ve only read one book this month so far and I’ve not really read a summer one but I’m bad at reading seasonally … Anyway what a lovely trip, thank you for sharing it with us! I haven’t been to the LD since our honeymoon, so that needs to be redressed.
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Which one have you got? I thought English Pastoral was great, but The Shepherd’s Life overrated. I enjoyed being back in the Lake District even though it wasn’t my first choice of destination.
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Fortunately, I have English Pastoral!
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What a great place for a reunion. And think I might like Wild Fell. Am powering through The Overstory by Richard Powers by listening. Am truly caught now by the tensions with the logging and the main character – the old living forest.
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I loved The Overstory, one of my favorite releases of that year.
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It is quite incredible now I am fully into it. A bit disconnected like short stories at first but now am in the trunk and quite tense too!
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I love that picture of you in the bookstore! Sounds like a fun reunion. I read the Orchid Thief a long time ago and remember enjoying it.
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Thanks! There’s a recent UK book called The Orchid Outlaw that I’m going to read, but I think it has more of a conservationist perspective. I love the zany Charlie Kaufman movie Adaptation, which is kind of about adapting The Orchid Thief for film.
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Fabulous idea to base your reading choices on your location. It always makes a holiday more memorable for me when I do that.
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It doesn’t always work out for me, and sometimes reading something completely contrasting can also be memorable, but I do try for at least a couple location-appropriate reads.
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Indeed I have fond memories of reading Earthly Powers on a balcony in Malaysia and Sophie’s Choice in Portugal.
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I always remember Jan Morris read the complete works of Jane Austen on a houseboat in Sri Lanka.
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[…] bought this in Cumbria one year and started reading it in Cumbria the next. Once I got home, however, there was little impetus to keep going. Were it not for the […]
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[…] completed the Triple Crown of British Book Towns in a year, what with visits to Wigtown in June and Sedbergh in August. My hauls were comparable in all three and my spending in Hay (£37.95 for 15 books) was […]
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