Our busy Acquisitions Assistant, Rhiannon highlights some new books on sport and the city of London arriving on The London Library shelves this month, just in time for the Olympic celebrations…

There has been a huge amount of book ordering recently, including 225 new English titles on order this week alone! I suspect that I may well be able to build a small fort with all of the books that I am expecting to arrive next week. The life of an Acquisitions Assistant is never dull, or quiet!

There are now fewer than 100 days until the start of the London 2012 Olympics, so I have been keeping an eye out for sporting and London based books in particular, as well as the usual smattering of more bizarre titles.
Recent sporting titles entering the library include:

• “Run, Swim, Throw, Cheat: the science behind drugs in sport” Cooper, Chris (Oxford University Press, 2012)
• “CMJ: a cricketing life” Martin-Jenkins, Christopher (Simon & Schuster, 2012)
• “The Palgrave handbook of Olympic Studies” Lenskyj, Helen Jefferson – editor (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)
• “Sport under Communism: behind the East German ‘miracle’” Grix, Mike – editor (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)
• “Five ring circus: myths and realities of the Olympic Games” Shaw, Christopher A. (New Society Publishers, 2007)

To combine with the sporting books, I have also been keeping an eye out for London titles. These are:

• “London: a history in verse” Ford, Mark – editor (Harvard University Press, 2012) – this is on order, though is not due to be published until June
• “Lusting for London: Australian expatriate writers at the hub of Empire, 1870-1950” Morton, Peter (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) – this is currently on order
• “Underground, Overground: a passenger’s history of the tube” Martin, Andrew (Profile, 2012) – this is on order, though not due to be published until May
• “Royal River: power, pageantry and the Thames” Starkey, David (Scala, 2012)
• “The London Square: gardens in the midst of town” Longstaffe-Gowan, David (Yale University Press, 2012)
• “Edwardian London through Japanese eyes: the art and writings of Yoshio Markino, 1897-1915” Rodner, William (Brill, 2011) – this is currently on order.

The bizarre and amusing titles that I have spotted this month are:

• “Bastards: politics, family, and law in Early Modern France” Gerber, Matthew (Oxford University Press, 2012)
• “The Ashgate research companion to monsters and the monstrous” Mittman, Asa Simon – editor (Ashgate, 2012)
• “Shame and honor: a vulgar history of the order of the garter” Trigg, Stephanie (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012)
• “Manure matters: historical, archaeological and ethnographic perspectives” Jones, Richard – editor (Ashgate, 2012) – this is currently on order
• “Testicles: balls in cooking and culture” Blandie, Vie (Prospect Books, 2011) – This arrived this morning, and I can confirm that it does indeed contain some recipes!