recovery.

Last week, just because I could and because I've meaning to do for a few years, I re-covered one of my favourite books, A City of Bells by Elizabeth Goudge. The copy we have (a three-in-one version) used to look like this:

Yikes. I do judge books by their covers. Most people do. It's hard not to. But (yes, yes) the cover can be misleading. I read A City of Bells quite a lot when I was younger, so if I'd payed too much attention to the (hideous) cover, I would probably be a completely different person. One who doesn't like Shelley's Ode to the West Wind, for example ('...Drive my dead thoughts over the universe...') Now it looks like this:

    

It is such a lovely story. Funny, and quaint, and beautiful (especially the parts about the missing poet and the play and the bookshop and the Grandfather and...)  

After covering it, I read the first chapter, planning on popping it back on its shelf... but I then remembered how much I liked it, and it had been so long, and I thought I'd just read it again.   

So I did! 

And it is just as good as I remembered it to be ...even if she does write quite and rather a lot about flowers. 

♥