“When I start a new book, I think I am not going to be able to do it again. I can’t draw, I can’t use colour. It’s a rather miserable process.” That’s what John Burningham writes at the end of his brilliant book Behind the Scenes, which I was given this week as a present. It is a wonderful retrospective of his work with especially interesting early London Transport posters, one of which is very Mr Gumpy – like.

The Thursday market in Oxford is full of books and junk and odd stuff, this week I found a copy of Caldecott’s Picture Book with beautiful drawings and colour plates, I particularly liked the animals.

The third book came in the post , “Tiny Pencil” is a magazine crammed full of amazing work by artists using graphite. Liam Steven’s work was my favourite and I’d recommend a look at his website.