Gratuitous Llama Book Blegging: Listening To Temptation Division

The devil's website just sent this mighty enticing little suggestion to my email inbox:

The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton Vol. II: Fiction

Ooooooh......

So what do you guys think? On the one hand, I have been preaching the virtues of thrift around Orgle Manor pretty regularly of late. On the other hand, well....we wants it! And after all, my birthday IS a week from Saturday....

UPDATE: One point the book has against it is its cover design. I happen to know that painting. It's The Awakening Conscience by William Holman Hunt, one of the early Pre-Raphaelites. I've never liked it - I consider the colors to be artificial, the line work fussy and the look on the young lady's face positively bovine.

Shallow, I know. But there it is.

UPDATE DEUX: Ai! More temptation! This time it's from the Telegraph, in which David Twiston-Davies reviews A Wodehouse Handbook: The World and Words of P. G. Wodehouse by N.P.T. Murphy:

Driving out the myth that Wodehouse knew the world of great houses only from childhood visits to servants' quarters, Murphy identifies him as the descendant of a soldier at Agincourt, the kinsman of an earl, the nephew of four clergymen.

He shows how Wodehouse's first major creation, the scapegrace Ukridge, was an amalgam of three early friends. While Jeeves's name was taken from a Warwickshire cricketer, his erudition coincided with that of a butler called Robinson who, asked about the sex life of the African spider, explained that she bestowed her favours on her male counterpart then had him for lunch.

As for Lord Emsworth, he seems to be based on the pig-loving 6th Earl of Dartmouth. In traipsing around the Midlands Murphy found the model for Blandings Castle at Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, though its grounds are at Weston Park, Shropshire.

Most remarkable, he discovered that the Junior Ganymede club for gentlemen's gentlemen was located in a Mayfair pub now called 'I Am the Running Footman'. Its customers are no longer servants of the big houses nearby. But when the colonel entered another pub off Pall Mall he found it full of clubland's uniformed porters, stewards and waiters who immediately lapsed into silence. He realised his mistake and apologised. As he left, a hall porter held the door and murmured 'Well done, sir - quite right.'

I've already got Murphy's In Search of Blandings, but.....we wants it! We Waaaaants It!!!

Absolve Me, Pater, Quia Peccavi UPDATE: No, I haven't clickied any of the above yet, but I must confess that earlier today I did give in to the temptation - based on David Frum's recommendation - to pick up Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day by Philip Matyszak.

At the time, I rationalized to myself that it would be educational for the Llama-ettes. But of course that's not really why I bought it.

Mea culpa!