This page was last updated:Friday August 31, 2012 19:48

I will probably write to this "as I go along".  Expect there to be updates to this page from time to time.

August 23, 2007  "Book Ocean" ["book sea" (sea of books?)] or "Many Books" in Chinese. 书海

 June 26, 2006 --- Originally from the Library index page...

Books can be a real learning experience.  You not only learn something by reading the books, but sometimes you can learn something by reading about a book.

There are times, when reading a Victorian book is like trying to "read Jell-O" (gelatin) while sitting on a moving train. [from the idiom about nailing Jell-O to a wall or tree]  The language can be difficult.  They took two pages in order to "say" what it would take a sentence or two today.  I have this book, "Beside The Bonnie Brier Bush" by Ian Maclaren.  I got it so I could try and get in touch with my Scottish roots.  When I tried to read it my eyes kept falling off the page. I did try reading it more than once.  It reminded me of these 78's I had at the time.  One of the records started at the end rather than at the beginning.  The needle worked its way out.  I would forget about this and start the needle at the "beginning". The needle would fall off the record.  That is how I felt when I was trying to read this book. I couldn't figure out why I didn't understand what I was reading.  I put it down to Victorian writing as the book was copyright in 1894. And then there is my "paying attention" problem.  I wanted to solve the mystery, so I went and looked up this book online.  At first the only thing I learned was that, when they made a silent movie of the story, it was the first film that Alfred Hitchcock worked on. I eventually found out that this book was written in the Scots language.

January 8, 2006 "Scottish" books, Part II [July 27, 2008 Oops! I do believe this should be a 2007 entry but, "gee Wally!" I can't remember for sure.]

I believe that my ancestor's are Scottish since, more than likely, my maternal grandfather's last name was Wallace. It depends upon what it is, but sometimes if I see something Scottish in a "junk" store, I buy it. One year I found this book that had a tartan (plaid) cover on it.  I believe I was at the "big book sale".  I thought it would be a neat book about Scotland I could add to the collection. 

The title was, "The Unspeakable Scot".  The author was, T.W.H. Crosland.  There is a chapter in this book, "Thrums and Drumtochty", which discusses the "Kailyard School" of Scottish fiction.  "Beside The Bonnie Brier Bush" is an example of that "school".  Ian Maclaren was a leading member of the school.

Of course I say that, Crosland "discusses" the "Kailyard School".  Well, he doesn't seem to have any kind words for it. I just sort of skimmed over this book a little bit.  I haven't really read it.  It is a bit musty and such books are difficult for me to read. 

May 3, 2007 "Scottish" books, Part III

I only told part of the story though.  Before I learned of the "Kailyard School", I was looking up the author T.W.H. Crosland.  For some reason, Winston Churchill kept coming up in the searches.  Another name that kept coming up was, Lord Alfred Douglas, (Oscar Wilde's former lover).  There was a libel trial involving these three men.  You can read about it here...

WINSTON CHURCHILL AND THE LITIGIOUS LORD by Michael T. McMenamin http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=748 .

I had to read enough to learn "what the deal was".  I couldn't understand how these three should be connected.  It seemed like a very "odd" story.  I was reminded of this story when I went to write up this page on the web site. (I forgot to stick it on here.)--- I was re-looking into these things for some reason in late 2006 or early 2007. 

I don't remember what it was that reminded me of the libel trial. (Could have been the fact that I wanted to remember to add this part of the story to this page.) I was writing a radio drama for a competition. I wrote that one character, an actor Nigel Mumford, was about to appear in a play,

"Bloody Minded" which was written about this libel trial. (I needed something dull and boring---"artsy," for Nigel to be in.)  You can read about the radio drama writing efforts in the Journal on the, "Life Lessons" page.  Just scroll down to the January 21, 2007 entry and read from there.

July 8, 2007  Fiction I had Douglas help me pull some books out of the boxes in the basement. I wanted to write about them.  We put a box of books onto the shelves in exchange for him helping me find these.  I was wanting to write about some fiction books I have bought over the years.

I am sitting with a fairly old, "Old Mull Whisky" bottle at my feet.  It has embossed spider webs on it's "shoulders".  It has a red screw lid on it.  It once had a paper label on it.  I don't remember exactly where I got it.  When I saw the brown bottle with the spider webs on it, I "had" to have it.  Have been "battling" baby spiders this past week.  Ok, back to the books... 

Have been thinking about the fiction books I have bought over the years.  I was under the impression that there wasn't much of it in the collection.  I prefer non-fiction most of the time.  I got to looking for the books I wanted and found we had quite a bit of fiction.  Most of it I bought over the years.  Of course Douglas has his fiction (paperbacks) upstairs.  I didn't do a complete survey but, I would venture to guess that most of the fiction I have bought would NOT be considered, "women's novels".  I do have a couple of romances.  There's a copy of "Gone With the Wind".  That one we found in the house.  I have a few mysteries in the collection of course. 

Speaking of books we found in the house... They aren't in the best shape at all.  They were on the back porch and the roof leaked at some point.  They had their dust jackets on them.  I recently learned that dust jackets were to be thrown away "back in the day".  I don't know why they were kept on the books we found.  Of course it doesn't matter, since they stick to the books, because of the water damage.  I threw away most of the books we found on the back porch.  They were just too damaged.  One I wish I had kept as it probably wasn't damaged, was one about health and fitness.  It was an early "alternative" medicine book by some "fitness guru".  I forget the name of it, but might recognize it if I see another one.  This one book we kept, is called, "Orphan of Mars".  It is by Joanna Cannan.  I was looking up the author on Wikipedia, and the article said that this book was a detective story.  I didn't know that. 

Because of my "Anglophilia", I bought a book, "The Fortnight in September" by R. C. Sherriff.  It is one of the few of our fiction books I have read all the way through.  I must have bought and read it in September 1992.  There's a note paper inside the front cover, with a date of 9-14-92.  It lists some of the place names in the book.  I evidently wanted to look them up on my old National Geographic map of the UK.  If you want to read a quiet book about a 1930's family going on vacation (holiday) then I highly recommend this book.  I liked it. 

Another book I read all the way through, is "The Yorkshire Moorland Murder" by J.S. Fletcher.  This book is interesting because it is about a guy who collects books.  An American bibliophile goes to England to buy a book.  He ends up dead on the Moors of course.  His nephew comes to England in order to deal with the man's effects.  The nephew goes to the local police station.  They tell him that the book found on his uncle's person, was in a drawer in a policeman's desk.  Yet, the nephew and the police spend most of the rest of the book hunting for that very book.  The author forgot he had written that it was in the policeman's desk.  If they find that book, they find the murderer.  It is an interesting book otherwise---if I remember correctly.  It seems as if I remember a scene in a village? pub with a nice fireplace. Those kinds of scenes always enhance a story.

I lived in Missouri on and off for 13 years--- a good bit of my childhood.  I guess I am as much from Missouri as I am from Texas.  Douglas' grandfather was from Missouri too.  In the house was this novel that takes place in Missouri.  "Paul Winslow" by  James Logan Mosby.  I will get it over with, there is some blatant racism in this book.  It is from 1916.  If you take the racism out of the story, it is a very wonderful book.  The author can really paint with words a beautiful picture of the Missouri River scenery.  I could vividly see the river I remember from my youth. 

I am part way through "The Virginian" by Owen Wister. I am part way through "The Three Musketeers".  I've lost my place in that one though. I've read all of, "Angela's Business" by Henry Sydnor Harrison. I haven't finished, "Queed" though.  I have read one sort of "high brow" piece of fiction.  "Thunder on the Left" by Christopher Morley.  I always wanted Douglas to read it, so that I could see if I got out of it what he got from it.  Of course, he doesn't find the synopsis I gave him at all interesting.  So I had to look it up online.  I got it this time!  I'm in the middle of a book by Booth Tarkington too.  "The Plutocrat".  I even got a good bit read of "File No. 113" by Gaboriau.  I would have finished it, but it is very difficult to follow since I can't picture in my mind what sort of "scenery" the author writes about.  I don't have pictures of Victorian Paris in my head.  I have a rather beat up copy of "The Sheik" by E. M. Hull.  I read that a long time ago, and had to own the book myself. 

As for fiction I collected, "because"....  Some of the authors are, Harold Bell Wright, Richard Harding Davis, Earl Derr Biggers, and Harry Castlemon.  I have a book by, "Oliver Optic".  I have, "Trail of the Lonesome Pine" by John Fox Jr.  I have "The Sky Pilot" and another title, by Ralph Connor.  I shouldn't forget, I have some stuff by Bret Harte also. 

I almost forgot to mention that I have a collection of Little House (On the Prairie) paperbacks.  I don't have the whole set.  My first grade teacher bought them for me.  I got them well after I was in the first grade though.  She was a friend of the family.  The books are similar but not much like the TV show. They are "better" than the TV version in some ways.

Another book I brought up to write about is not fiction at all. (Although some of us probably wish it was.) I think it might be an economics text book. I'm not sure exactly what it is. The title is "British Politics & European Unity, Parties, Elites and Pressure Groups" by Robert J. Lieber. It's from 1970. I bought it at a book shop that had publisher's overstock books. I may have paid $3.00 for it. That was in the 1990's.  It was brand new "old" stock.  I figured it to be a very dry boring book. I got it so that I could use it as a reference book. I wanted to know what "we" (the U.S.) were in for.  As we are headed down the same road as Europe.  ("NAFTA" etc.)  To give you some idea, one chapter title is, "The Wilson Government and the Common Market". 

Ok, I've written enough for now.  More later.  Oops! I forgot something...

July 9, 2007  Poetry

I'm not an "art snob". I tried to write about this before...
I really like Edgar A. Guest. The critics might not have liked his poetry. Just because a person doesn't like Picasso's Cubism for example, that doesn't mean they don't have "taste". They say that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Art is subjective---it all depends upon what your definition of art is. (If your name is "Art", your definition might be, "me". Ha!)

At one time Rembrandt was considered the greatest artist that ever lived. Now Picasso gets to claim the title. That should tell you something. People might argue that people who don't like Picasso's famous works don't know anything about art. It could also be argued that people who go for the likes of Jackson Pollack and Picasso, have very "strange" tastes. Some people would argue that there is no right or wrong answer to this situation. Like I wrote before, it all depends upon what your definition of art is.

Another poet I like is, Chas. (Charles) Mays. He lived in Texas.  He wasn't a professional poet.  He published at least two volumes of poetry.  "Gone With the Years" and "Gone With the Years Vol. II".   These are difficult to come by I would imagine. They were privately published.  The author only meant for the poems to be read by family and close friends.  When ever one of his children were born, he wrote a poem.  When they got married he wrote a poem.  When his brother died, he wrote one.  Some of the poems capture universal emotions.  Some of them are extremely personal. 

Ok, will write more on poetry some other time. 

July 17, 2007  Non-Fiction As I've said before, I prefer nonfiction to fiction.  I had Douglas help me find a couple of examples of nonfiction to write about today.

The first book I'm writing about is, Volume 23 of "The Pocket University". "The Guide to Reading" Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickinson and Others. If you followed the reading schedule etc., in this book supposedly you would get the equivalent of a "liberal arts" degree.  The other book I brought up was "The Joys of Reading, Life's Greatest Pleasure" by Burton Rascoe.  While trying to find a link about this book, I found the following link, http://www.getcaughtreading.org/, which has nothing to do with Burton Rascoe by the way. 

The main reason I brought these books up, is because they discuss books.  I was wanting to find lists of book titles.  I am taking notes for a book.  I want to write a book about my character Josephine. I wanted to have a sort of "literary" theme to it.  So I am taking titles of books and changing words to make them apply to her life.  I want to use the re-wordings as chapter titles or section titles.  (literary allusions)  I needed some titles to work with, so two books on reading books should do the trick. 

I think I read all of "Life's Greatest Pleasure". (But as I thumb through it, I am wondering if my memory isn't faulty.  I distinctly remember reading all of it, but the pages aren't 100% familiar to me.  That could be because I read it sometime back in the mid to early 1990's.  I know I read it, must have forgotten what I read.  July 18, 2007--I'm still not convinced that I read this book all the way through.)  I might read it again.  I have a small shelf of books I have started.  I read some of one and then another.  I really like to read books you can read in small amounts.  A type of "Christian" book, (usually "religious",) that is an example of books you can read in small amounts, is called a "devotional".  What I mean by, "books you can read in small amounts" are books with short sections, or maybe short chapters.  I'm thinking of books with shorter writings in them.  As for fiction, I like short stories a lot. 

Some examples...  Do you ever miss a book after you read it?  Do you ever finish a book, and whish you had another one similar to it to read next?  As I remember it, "The Joy of Reading" ("Life's Greatest Pleasure") was such a book.  Wait!!  I'm thinking of "About England" by M.V. Hughes.  That is a great book.  It's a bit outdated.  It's a guide book to England, but yet it is much more.  I highly recommend it!!  One sentence on page 30 is very interesting.  The author is writing about, "English Scenery".  "On the bridge in St. James's Park you have Buckingham Palace with one turn of the head and with the other a fine view of our Government offices.  Here on a still morning, they say, you can actually hear the brains ticking."  Another book in which I "grieved" a bit as I realized I was on the last page was, "Mystery Reader's Walking Guide: London" by Alzina Stone Dale and Barbara Sloan Hendershott.  I've been on the next to last chapter of, "Gilbert & Sullivan Opera" by H.M. Walbrook for the longest time.  I don't know how many years it has taken me to read it.  It is a neat little book though. The next chapter is the "Epilogue".  I guess I can't bear to finish it as I will really miss my journey through it.  The book is from 1922.  The author was greatly, "in love" with Gilbert & Sullivan Operas.  The book has an illustration of, "A Small Section of the Gilbert and Sullivan Queue Five Hundred Years Hence".  The drawing is of the almost miles long line of people waiting to get into the theatre to see a Gilbert and Sullivan opera.  There's policemen around to keep order and street performers entertaining the people in line.  It is interesting to note that the D'Oyly Carte company closed sometime back in the early 1980's. (1982)  At least I think that's what happened.  I went to look it up online, but for some reason my connection is down and I need to get to bed soon.  If I learn that I am wrong, I will change what I have written here and remove this sentence too.  I also really like to read books like, "The Punch Book of Travel" Edited by William Davis.  This book is very much vintage 1970's.  I don't like some of the parts that we would say are "not politically correct" these days.  But a lot of it is nostalgic fun.  Some of the cartoons are older than the 1970's. One looks to be from the 1920's maybe or is it 1930's?  Two ladies meet in a train station or some such place. The one gal has a great pile of trunks and suitcases beside her.  The other woman asks where she is going to spend the weekend.  There's a slight look of surprise on the gal with the luggage's face. It reminds me of Douglas.  He keeps trying to teach me that if I am going somewhere for a day or two, I don't need to take enough "stuff" for a six month voyage. 

More starts...  Another great book I have started is, "The Joy of Writing" by Pierre Berton.  Pierre Berton was (he still IS) one of the greatest writers in Canada.  He was quite famous.  He wrote non-fiction.  I got this book at a charity thrift store in Windsor, Ontario.  I think it might violate the copyright laws to bring books over that are only copyright in Canada.  People had a problem bringing across Beanie Babies back in the 1990's for similar reasons.  I really like this book though! I've brought books back from Canada that I know wouldn't have had much market here in the States.  I doubt they were for sale here.  As much as I hate "globalism", I wish "they" would iron out a universal copyright law.  That way I could LEGALLY buy things from say, Amazon.co.uk that are now not available for me to purchase, because of copyright laws.  I tried to buy something from them once, and Amazon wouldn't let me buy it because of my zip code (postal code).  One last one for now...  I have re-started "How To Read The Bible" by Julian Price Love.  I am understanding it this time.  Don't know what was wrong the last time I started this book.  It seems pretty interesting.  I hope to learn something so I can do a teaching on it one of these days.

It seemed like "one last one", until I remembered this other one!  Another incredibly interesting book I have is, "A Social & Industrial History of England" by F.W. Tickner, D.LIT., M.A., B.Sc. (Econ.). There is no copyright in the book.  There is a "Chronological Table of Events" in the back of the book.  The last entry is, "1914. Commencement of great European War".  I found out online somewhere, that the book is from 1915.  I highly recommend this book!!!!  It is very interesting!  I'm at, Book II, Chapter XVI, "New Lands and New Policies," "The Spirit of Daring and Adventure".  It begins, "At the close of the fifteenth century Europe...".  It isn't a dry political history at all.  It is a book detailing how people lived. If they taught history like this in school, more kids might take to it.  My copy once belonged to, Mildred A Smith (who was a student? at) Milwaukee Downer College.  I got this for 50¢ (fifty cents = $.50) at the big book sale we go to. I vaguely remember writing about this book before.  It could have been on this site somewhere.  Don't ask me where!  It was probably in a letter to someone.  Darn!  Here I was writing this stuff, when I had some letters I need to write!  Gee! Whiz!

By the way, I have been known to make book specific bookmarks for books I am reading.  I will find thumbnail photos on the Internet, to use.  For instance, when I started reading, "The Joy of Writing", I wanted to have a mind picture of Pierre Berton as I read it.  So, I found his picture and made a book mark.  Ok, this should do it for now.  Should write more soon enough.  But wait! There's more!  If you order now during the next 15 minutes...  Ha! 

More... but not books this time...  You know how last week, I was battling baby spiders... they were pouring out of the light fixture in the hallway.  Well, no sooner did we "fix" that problem, then they started pouring out around my computer here.  I was battling them in here.  It was crazy.  One of them even bit me, although it seems very harmless.  They are just those common house spiders. 

July 18, 2007  Another Reason Why I Buy "Used" Books (cheap)

Was re-editing the stuff I put on here last night.  Decided to put this bit on here.  It has been on my mind a while...

One of the best ways to ruin the binding of a book is to photocopy from it.  "Back in the day", photocopier "beds" used to move over the parts that scanned the thing you wanted photocopied.  The movement of the book along with the bed could be detrimental to the binding.  Holding the book in place so that it moved along with the bed, didn't help matters any.  The main problem with photocopying or scanning from books, is trying to get the book flat enough so that all the text or pictures get scanned. 

Back in the 1980's maybe I saw a lady using a hand held photocopier in a library.  It wasn't wide enough to photocopy a whole page.  The paper it used looked to be something like the old fax paper.  I believe it came in rolls like adding machine paper. If I remember correctly, the device looked something like a larger electric razor.  You would scan one section of the page and then the next.  I assume the user would then have to reconstruct the page by pasting the strips of paper together. 

I wonder if now days, they have a similar device that allows you to scan a whole page at a time?  If there was a way to lay the bed of the scanner onto the book and it might be easier on the binding.  It would be great to have such a device.  I would hope that a modern one would store the pages onto a chip or disk and you could download it onto your computer at home--- or store it on a laptop right then. 

I think it might be going to storm soon.  I should turn off the computer.  I will write more on this some other time. 

August 13, 2007  Books I Like to Find And no, I'm not eating Lima Bean Rice Flakes as I write this. Yuck! (for the readers who read, "British" English: I think that would be "broad beans"--- No! According to "British English A to Zed", "broad beans" are, Vicia faba. "Lima beans" are, Phaseolus limensis.  Similar but not the same.)

Here I am again.  I haven't finished that letter yet!  I have packages to mail off which need letters inside.  An electrician is coming soon and I need to clean house so he can get at outlets and work on what he needs to work on.  I am going to hopefully get some dedicated lines for all the "peripherals" to this computer. I just got a "bug" to write this though.  Famous last words, "this shouldn't take that long".  Ha!

Today, I am writing about the kinds of books that I like to find, at places like the big book sale, for $5.00 or less.  These are "neat oh" books, but only certain people with very select tastes like them. 

I was looking on www.bookfinder.com today.  My "Favorite Searches" came from eBay this morning. I found an interesting "how to write book" in the listings.  As I looked at the description, I clicked on "seller's other items".  There I found 5 more books to look at.  I put them in my list to possibly bid on later.  I got a bright idea to look them up in Bookfinder to make sure I wouldn't be overpaying for them.  I eventually scratched three books off the list.  They look like nice
books, but they are the kinds that I like to run across by accident and pay less that $5.00 for.  I did buy one book from the list via www.alibris.com.  It is "The Book on the Bookshelf" by Henry Petroski. The author is an engineer. This book is a history of bookshelves. He's done other books I'd like to find.  For example, one of them has a history of the paperclip in it. 

While I looked up that book, Alibris brought up a list of books on "book binding". I have really wanted to find a book on book binding.  I need to research it so I buy the best one for the money.  I want the best information available.  I am taking notes for a fiction book I want to write. I want to use all the stuff I had to take out of my radio drama for the competition.  It would be nice to have it privately published or is that self published, and then hand bind it into the cover I want.  Don't know if that will get done, but it would be nice to look into it.  Because of the collage work I do, it would be loads of fun to get into book binding.  I have decorated covers of blank books before.  I get a good collage on there.  One of my efforts was very nice. I did a great job on the art work part.  The only problem was that the "goo" that I used to decoupage the artwork, destroyed the binding of the book.  I learned from that "disaster" that it would be best if I started from scratch.

Another thing about books that was recently brought to my mind...  Sometimes it is good to have illustrations in a book--- woodcuts, maps, photographs, drawings.  That way there is something to break up the monotony of all those words on the page.  In other words, for some reason, I tend to buy a lot of books with pictures in them.  I really like the larger format "coffee table" books. 

I'm going to have to stop thinking and writing about books. I have real work that needs doing!  One of the things I need to do is finish covering the set of books I bought recently.  I bought a whole set of "The Pocket University".  I got it off eBay.  I hope to re-sell it some day.  Some of the dust jackets are very flimsy and almost not there at all.  They "shed" all over the box they were in.  I had recently bought a book for myself on eBay, "Off Mike Radio Writing by the Nation's Top Radio Writers". (Edited by Jerome Lawrence)  It had a nice plastic cover around the dust jacket.  I had always wanted to know where to find such things.  Some of the old dust jackets contain some interesting information about a book, yet they can fall apart very easily.  The one on "Off Mike", was stamped inside, Demco, Inc.  www.demco.com.  They sell supplies for libraries and paper conservators. They even sell a corrugated plastic box meant for books that get wet. I guess that's so you can transport a soggy book without having it drip on other stuff.  So, I bought 50 of these covers for books.  I got enough for the 23 books of "The Pocket University" and I got some for books around the house.  You have to sort of build up a rhythm when putting them on.  For some of the dust jackets I only had pieces of it.  It took some doing to get them into the wrapper.  What I did was, use a whole one as a template.  As I was putting the wrappers on the books, I noticed that some how they had gotten some dampness to them. I don't think they got wet exactly.  The covers aren't warped.  I think damp air got to them. The pages stick together a slight bit and they are slightly wavy. They smell somewhat musty too. They were sent to me from Texas.  They seemed to have been in maybe a garage or barn somewhere.  There were the usual cobwebs and "fluff" that collects on a book left in the almost-outdoors.  The fragile dust jackets are another indication that the book was in a garage type setting. [August 15, 2007 The "cobwebs and 'fluff'" are probably the remains of cocoons from moths.  There is some water staining to the books.  They don't seem to have sat in water.  Maybe they sat on a damp floor of some sort?]

Here's some books that I have on the shelves behind me which fit the category I am writing about today.  Some day I'll get these catalogued.  See the library pages to read more about these titles when I get them on there.

Seven Language Dictionary "French-English/English-French; German-English/English-German; Hebrew etc.; Italian etc.; Portuguese etc.; Russian etc.; Spanish etc.;  I got this book hoping it would help me in doing things like navigating the search functions of "foreign" language web sites.  (Is that a slot for searching, or is it a slot for signing up to a news letter?)  The print is so small I cannot read this book very well.  And it is from 1978 and it probably has very little Internet specific words in it.  It would be really great to find a dictionary like this that had Internet terms in it.

Writing The Story of Alphabets and Scripts by Georges Jean

The Reader's Handbook by E. Cobham Brewer

The Reader's Encyclopedia Edited by William Rose Benét

A Dictionary of Dates Brought Down to the Present Day Everyman's Library

Words and Shadows Literature on the Screen by Jim Hitt

American Design Second Homes by Chippy Irvine (text) and Billy Cunningham (photographs)

The New York Public Library Book of How and Where to Look It Up by Sherwood Harris

One book that got me through my radio drama with Nigel and Josephine, was British English A to Zed by Norman W. Schur. 

One book that makes me laugh so hard I ache is, Boners by Alexander Abingdon.  The illustrations are by Dr. Seuss.  I highly recommend this book.  My copy is so heavily read, that this red covered book is falling apart. I wouldn't trade it for anything! 

If you are talking humor, then, Try and Stop Me by Bennett Cerf is a "must have".  That's a book I have been known to give away to people.  My stepfather did some public speaking.  He may have had this book so he could have interesting stories to add to his speeches.  I am not sure. I was reading his copy.  He let me borrow it, and then he let me have it. 

Etc.  I'll write about more some time.

September 22, 2007 "Big book sale" 2007...

I went to the big book sale yesterday.  I got a fair amount of books. I
spent $34.45 with sales tax. (tax was $1.06) One book I got for free. The receipt says I got 24 books.  I actually got 25 of them.

At one point, I was taking books out of the "to buy" box and sticking them onto a table so that one woman could tell the "cashier" the prices.  I accidentally put one book in the "bought" box by mistake.  I had to take it out so they could add it in.  I wasn't trying to do that, I just got a little addlepated.  I hope I didn't do that with any of the other ones.

Here's a list of the books I got this year.  (Just so I can remember where I got them, when I go to catalogue them later on.)  These aren't in any particular order.

1. H KAINH DIAQHKH Greek New Testament  1916 Eberhard Nestle, D.D. (This is the book I got for free as the one lady called it a "prayer book". Prayer books don't usually sell well?) $.00

2. The Dictionary of Mis-information by Thomas Burnam 1975 $2.00

3. A book that's becoming a favorite: Who's Who in Literature (Literary Year Book) 1925 Edition  It once belonged to the Dearborn Public Library.  $1.00  It has loads of interesting stuff in it. I think the adverts are as interesting if not more interesting than the actual text of the book.

4. Decoration by Sarah M. Lockwood 1934  This one's very beautifully printed and bound except the dust jacket once stuck to the nice blue cover.  All that remains of the dust jacket is the white bits of paper that still stick to the cover. $1.00

5. Vogue's Book of Etiquette by the Editors of Vogue 1924 but copyright 1923  $2.00 Another beautifully printed book. There are some condition issues.  I don't know if they are "serious" or not. I don't think this is a reading copy but I don't know that it's a great copy either.  I don't know what constitutes good, bad, reading copy etc.  I found one on Bookfinder, that says, "1925 second printing".  On there, it goes for, $200 - $250 but that's with a dust jacket.  Mine didn't come with one.  There were much cheaper ones on Bookfinder too.  It's still a very interesting and nice book.  There aren't any photos or drawings to illustrate things like how to lay a table. (I assume this book goes into how to lay a table.)  Yet there are samples of invitations on embossed paper in the book.  (bound into the book to illustrate the proper way to do them)

6. The Tartan Spotter's Guide James D. Scarlett $1.00

7. & 8. two copies of, A Doctor of the Old School by Ian Maclaren  the first one is from 1895 $1.00  and the second one is from 1923 and has an Introduction by Alexander Woollcott  $1.50  I got two because the first one I saw looked interesting and they were both different. (I found two versions of the same book.  The first book I found looked interesting by itself--the 1895 version.  As I was realizing why the title was familiar etc.; I spotted the 1923 version near by.  Because it was a different edition, and because it had the introduction by Alexander Woollcott, I got it too.)

9. A Book About A Thousand Things by George Stimpson 1946 $1.00 (Another reference book similar to an encyclopedia.  It has all sorts of facts about "A Thousand Things" in it.)

10. London by Sidney Dark 1937 $1.00

11. A Dictionary of Symbols by J.E. Cirlot this one is from 1991 $1.00

12. Peg Along by George L. Walton M.D. 1915 $1.00

13. Very glad to find this one even though it is in paperback.  Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins by Theodore M. Bernstein 1978 $1.00  I thought the author's name was familiar.  One of my favorite recent eBay acquisitions, is, The Careful Writer by the same author.  These books are about grammar mistakes people make routinely.  They are fun to read as well.

14. The Magic of Herbs by David Conway 1975 $1.50

15. Printmaking A Beginning Handbook by William C. Maxwell 1977 $1.50  I saw a photograph of a nice printing press in here.  I hope Douglas hasn't surreptitiously thrown away the drums (or whatever they are called) to the "Iron Right" ironers we saved.  They would be great filled with sand in order to make a printing press like in the picture.

16. I bought another copy of The Reader's Encyclopedia by William Rose Benét 1948 $1.50  I got it to either give away or sell.  It's a very interesting book!  Very handy to have around the house.

17. The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant 1953 $1.00   I know the Apostle Paul exhorts us to "beware lest any man spoil us through philosophy etc.".  I don't really want to study philosophy. It is just that I am always running across some philosophical term or name.  Then I am left wondering, "What in the world!?".  So, I have to look up the thing I run across to try and figure out what I am reading about. I have a dictionary of philosophy or is that philosophers? I thought this book might help me out as well.  It could be that the reason I don't understand the definitions of philosophical terms, is because philosophy makes absolutely no sense. (Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. King James Version    Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one carries you off as spoil or makes you yourselves captive by his so-called philosophy and intellectualism and vain deceit (idle fancies and plain nonsense), following human tradition (men's ideas of the material rather than the spiritual world), just crude notions following the rudimentary and elemental teachings of the universe and disregarding [the teachings of] Christ (the Messiah). Amplified Version   Colossians 2:8 Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ. The Message)

18. Junior Classic Dictionaries Latin-English and English-Latin 1943 $1.00 I was hoping to learn some Latin (to a point). I thought learning some would help me with plant names and things like that.

19. The Christ of the American Road by E. Stanley Jones 1944 $.50

20. Biblical Quotations by John H. Bechtel 1920 $.50  This one was published by The Penn Publishing Company in Philadelphia.  I don't know if these Penns are related or not. Our Penns, came from Virginia. I have a book of Quotations also by this company. (My father was a fifth generation newspaper man.  He owned a weekly newspaper and a print shop/office supply shop.)

21. Field Book of Common Ferns by Herbert Durand 1949 $1.00  I was hoping to identify some "wild" ferns which grow profusely (uncontrollably)  in our flower beds. They look very beautiful, except they don't look very harmonious in our flower beds.  They are tall and unruly looking.  I want them to grow in certain spots.  I don't know how to transplant them.  Just like the dandelions, they grow where they want to and not where I want them.

22. An Introduction to Wild Flowers by John Kieran 1952 $1.00 Yet another book bought in order to help me identify the common "weeds", rather, wild flowers which grow in our yard.

23. The Cities of the USSR Intourist-Moscow $1.50  doesn't have a year in it  Got it to add to the Soviet collection.  Couldn't resist it.  It looks like a classic example of cold war Soviet books. (Soviet "kitsch"?) There's a photo of Yuri Gagarin in the early pages.  I mention it to give you some idea of the age of the book. 

24. The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil 1988 $5.00  This one was the "most expensive" book that I bought.

25. Another Soviet Book  Заонежье Музей-заповудник под открытым небом (by) В. Гиппенрейтера   Or in English:  Zaonezhye Museum of wooden architecture in the open air   Photographs and text by V. Gippenreiter. 1972 $2.00  This is a really neat picture book in three languages.  The Russian words above, should look like the following picture... 

Well, that should do it for now.  Somehow my list of prices and the receipt didn't come out the same.  I'm missing $.50 (50¢) some how.  And then the total they get of $34.45 isn't the total I get adding the subtotal of $32.50 and the sales tax of $1.06.  I paid them $44. and some change.  I forget exactly what I paid her.  I know it sort of threw her.  The money goes to charity so, I'm not worried about overpaying.  I just don't want to have underpaid.

September 22, 2007  Recap

Ok.  I was off.  I entered number 14. (herb book) as being $1.00.  It was really $1.50.  That's where I lost my $0.50 (50¢).    The subtotal was for $32.50.  The tax was for $01.95 not $1.06. $1.06 is the tax rate.  The total bill was for $34.45.  I think I paid $45.00 but I am not sure exactly.  Anyway...  I'm editing yesterday's post to reflect the found 50¢.  I am also making the book titles bold text so it is easier to read.  I also added a word here or there to clarify some of the text.  I wonder if I need to change the pagination... 

September 25, 2007  Art Lessons

The things we worry about... or rather the things we concern ourselves with needlessly... Sometimes "news" will put other things into perspective. In other words I had another, "V8 moment".  [V8 is a brand of vegetable juice.  The advertisements are known for someone slapping their's or someone else's forehead and saying, "I/you could'a had a V8"].

Finally a package came in the mail today.  I won the eBay auction on August 18, 2007.  I bid on a book, Modern Practical Design by G. Woolliscroft Rhead.  It looked to be a very interesting book about Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts design.  On the same day I won an "impulse" buy of some souvenir cook booklets of Pennsylvania Dutch (German) recipes from the same seller. 

I wrote the check for them on August 19.  The check was mailed probably that evening or the next day.  The one book was for $50.00 and the booklets were $1.99.  The total was $57.24 with shipping.  I sent in payment and waited.  And waited. 

I didn't see hide nor hair of the books.  I began to get concerned when yet another week went buy with our letter carrier leaving behind no package of books.  We went and looked at the canceled check via my online bank statement.  It said that the check was "posted", August 27, 2007.  This means that the seller got their money.  The bank web site listed the check as, "substitute".  The other checks were listed as, "external".  That was very puzzling to us.  I wrote to the bank and asked them what "substitute" meant, and I still haven't heard back from them and don't think I will.

Also, in December/January I had ordered a calendar from Amazon which the post office web site said arrived at my zip code, but which I have yet to see.  I do know that when we get a substitute letter carrier, mail sometimes gets left next door.  If it gets left to our west, then we might not ever see the item.  This past winter, Douglas "rescued", from the house to our east, a package addressed to us.  No telling how long it would have sat on their porch, as they were in Florida. 

I waited and waited.  Then on September 10, 2007 the seller wrote me to say that she had finally shipped the books.  Her husband was in a serious auto accident, and she had to deal with that.  I tried to be very understanding when I wrote her back.  I was relieved to know what was going on.  She wrote me back thanking me for the kind words.  Then she said that other buyers didn't believe her about the accident.  Ugh!  How in the world?  Are there that many liars on eBay, that it taints the people who tell the truth?  Her story kind of put my waiting on the books into perspective. 

So I waited some more for the books to arrive.  I am impatient as usual.  But they did seem to take a long while to get here. I began to seriously wonder if they were delivered to the house to our west.  I kept praying that they would arrive.  It was when I finally gave up and let go that they arrived. 

Tonight, we went to a Bible class we are running in our Fellowship.  When I got home there was an E-mail that came from my sister.  She had gone to a doctor and it was confirmed that she is going to have a baby.  That really put my petty book buying into perspective.  I was literally having anxiety over nothing. Sure, I had a great desire to peruse the pages of this design book, but it wasn't important in
reality.

Speaking of this book....

Modern Practical Design, G. Woolliscroft Rhead. It doesn't have a copyright but the preface is dated, 1912. 

Book collector's generally want good quality first editions.  I tend to find used books very interesting.  People talk about the "patina" of wooden furniture.  Collector's want an 18th century piece to have three to four centuries of "patina" on it.  I don't expect my books to have great wear to them.  I know that to "real" collectors, [of books] wear or "patina" isn't a good thing.  I think that in some cases "patina" adds to the interest of the book. 

For instance, this book has parts of a sticker on the spine. It's a sticker with "Art Deco" lettering on it. "Clyde Edward Derr", "Commercial Art.. Lettering A Specialty".  There is a whole sticker on the inside front cover.  It is partially covering the glue left behind when someone removed what was probably a bookplate which was stuck there.  The title page is interestingly rubberstamped, "L.F. Grammes & Sons, Cor. Jordan and Union Sts., Allentown, Pa., U.S.A:". 

See the "Stuff Found In Books" page for images from this book.

I like the idea that artists once owned this book.  There's pencil check marks on various pages marking different sections.  There is even thick ink or something tar like drizzled on a very small part of page 146.  I don't think it is a printer's goof of some sort, but you never know.  It doesn't obscure the printing that much.  Actually it could be a printer's goof.  It's hard to tell if the effected words on the page are smudged or not.  And the page opposite, 147 is not effected.  So the book wasn't closed while the "ink" or whatever was wet.

At the Old Wood-Working Machines web site, there is a photo of a machine with a stamp or label from "L.F. Grammes & Sons of Allentown, Pa.,".  http://owwm.com/PhotoIndex/detail.asp?id=3091 Does this mean the machine was made by "L.F. Grammes & Sons" or did they just own and use it?  According to this article, "L.F. Grammes & Sons" was a machine shop which first opened in 1875.  They made metal objects including decorative objects like, cigarette boxes and bookends.  Wow!  I bet they used this book to get ideas for their designs.  Way cool!!  Just do a search for "L.F. Grammes & Sons" and you will find photos of all sorts of stuff they made. 

Desk accessories move from work to art
By Ralph and Terry Kovel, King Features Syndicate
July 29, 2001
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2001/jul/29/desk_accessories_move/

Even though I didn't get a fancy first edition in like new condition, I feel like I got a real treasure when this book arrived.  The illustrations in this book are wonderful!!  While I was writing up this entry, I discovered that there is an electronic edition of this book, that was for sale on eBay, which goes for around $12.00. 

There's an unusual (to me anyway) teapot by Alcock Lindley & Bloor on eBay right now.  The auction ends on the 28th.  So far there aren't any bids on it.  At least there weren't any bids on it when I last looked earlier today. I hope to win it.  That would make three "brown Betty" teapots I have from them.  Some day I will have to get more dish and teapot pictures in the picture pages.

More later.... Off to "listen" to a radio comedy via BBC Radio 4 that has my favorite actor in it. 

November 8, 2007 More book buying (eBay)...

I've bought a bunch of books on eBay lately.  I got lost on there the other day.  Most of the books I found then, I stuck on a list to try and find elsewhere. 

I did win on the Alcock Lindley & Bloor teapot.  I bought a very pretty clock too. It isn't really a spectacular clock really.  It's sort of plain. You know me, I like plain vanilla stuff.  The seller said it was vintage 1930's.  I don't think it's too far off that.  (December 5, 2007-- when I cleaned it out for using, the remains of a spider came out of the spout.)

One of the more unusual books I discovered on eBay was being sold so it could be "dissected".  The seller was selling it for "bookmakers to disect [sic], study".  I couldn't have that!  It was a nice leather bound book from 1907.  The seller said that there wouldn't be a "loss to world literature" if it were dissected.  They also said it would make a "good writer's journal". 

This, "drier than dry" subject book, is none other than the, 1906 "Annual Report of the National Academy of Sciences".  It was printed by the, United States Printing Office.  The description said that 4/5 of the book was filled with blank pages. 

The bidding was started at, $1.99. I was trying to keep this book from being "dissected".  I don't really need such a book as this, and it wouldn't really interest me completely.  (Although I am curious now as to what is in there, and what scientists are mentioned.)  It's just that I couldn't bear to see a nice example of the printer's art, get trashed.  Besides, I reasoned, that it might make a neat book to try and re-sell--if I found the "right" market. I didn't know if the seller was a "book dealer" or just somebody who sold old books on eBay.  A book dealer would know what the book should go for.  In order to see if I was getting a "good deal", I went onto www.bookfinder.com and www.addall.com to see if there was another example of this book.  I didn't find it exactly.  Most of the issues I found were from the 1970's. I did find two from the 1800's.  A volume with the first three reports (from, 1863-64) runs, US$ 225.00.  And one from 1880 runs, $36.66. [Those prices are without shipping.]  I forget what my highest bid was, but I figured this book was a good price even for that amount. 

I won the auction, and I got it for less than my highest bid. I paid, $5.65 and then, $2.85 for shipping. That would make an $8.50 total.  There were six bidders on it.  All through the process, I wondered if my situation was like this lady I once knew. She would go to a farm to buy eggs. They had auctions in a barn.  There was an orphaned calf up for auction. The initial bid was around $5.00. She couldn't see it selling for that so she bid on the calf.  She might have thought that the higher the bid, the more someone would take care of it. In the end she ended up with the calf, and had no place to put it really.  I wondered if I was
going to end up with this book to sell which no one else would want.

Another day, I got a book about naming characters.  It should help me with my latest writing project. It was being sold by a charity.  It's always good to help charities.

I bought a book with the music and lyrics to "old" Elvis Costello songs. (So I could know what he was singing about.) I have wanted one for a long time.  I told Douglas that all I needed now was to learn how to play music.  He wasn't so sure that would be a good idea. [Jan. 1, 2008-- if that was the music I was going to learn to play.]  I forget how he put it, but it was funny. 

I bought three books on Nov. 7th...
Historic Costume by Katherine Morris Lester from 1942;
The Normal Diet by Dr. W. D. Sansum from 1930;
Pure Foods Their Adulteration, Nutritive Value, And Cost by John C. Olsen from 1911.  These should be really interesting.  The first one I got for the writing.  The other ones I got for the historical nutrition information. 

Tuesday, November 27, 2007  Revolutions and Resolutions (Temporary Moratoriums) октябрь, ноябрь (October, November in Russian.  Should look like, )

It is very nearly the end of November.  Wasn't the famous Russian Revolution or "October Revolution" really in November?  I forget.  I know there's a difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars.  We go by one and in 1917, the Russians went by the other.  I used to know all that stuff.  But I lost my soviet interest some time ago and I have forgotten what I used to know. 

I always used to write "soviet" with a lower case "S" back during "soviet Times". (1989-1990)  I would write that in letters to my Latvian pen pal.  It was a subtle protest against soviet stuff.  Of course if you read the Internet, Stalin was a good guy and all the stuff "The West" says about him is a lie....  Oh yea! And I think I read somewhere, (was it on the Internet?), that you can believe everything you read on the Internet.  Ha!...  Ok, enough..... 

Books.....

Amazon debuted their digital book reader, "Kindle" this past week.  I think I would like reading a real old-fashioned book better.  The batteries won't "die" in a paper book. If you drop a reading copy of a real book, you won't get into trouble for dropping and breaking an expensive plastic gadget.  Depending on what book it is, if you loose a reading copy of a real book, it is usually no big deal to buy another one for 50¢ to $1.00.  (depending on where you buy it)   Real books aren't as slippery as plastic gadgets in my opinion.  Although, I do find books made of paper to be slippery too, depending upon how you hold them.  A paper book, although it won't be the same, will dry out if you leave it in the rain for three days. You'll still be able to read it. An electronic gadget won't usually survive three days of downpour.  etc. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7101392.stm

My favorite actor will be appearing in a play, Uncle Vanya soon.  I have to make it to the post office in the morning.  I have a package waiting for me.  I suspect that it is a postcard I bought from Estonia.  It is a photograph of an early production of Uncle Vanya.  It's taken at the Moscow Art Theatre.  I am not sure, but it might be a photo of the very first production.  It could be later though.  The seller said it was, "1910's".  But it looks like it could be older.  I won't know until I view the text printed on it.  And even that might not tell me a date.  If it is a photo of the "original" production, then it could have Stanislavski in it. 

I've gotten some neat books lately.  Some have yet to arrive.  I'm waiting on the 1928 Baedeker's Switzerland to arrive.  I got it and a book about the same age.  Switzerland for Motorists or whatever.  It has lots of pictures in it.  The one that came today was, "Bouillabaisse for Bibliophiles" by William Targ.  It's probably considered a reading copy.  I don't care as I bought it so I could read it.  I really like this one poem in there, "The Art of Book-Keeping" by S. Laman Blanchard.  It has these wonderful literary puns in it.  Some of it went over my head as I don't always get what the pun is.  It made me laugh though. 

We went to Canada on Friday.  I got a few books there. I won't list them all.  One neat book is British.  "The Gardening Yearbook", by David Squire.  It's a fancy calendar book with lots of pictures.  It tells you what to do in the garden each month of the year.  It might not completely be applicable here in Michigan, but the photos are fun to look at. 

"The Canada Trip" by Charles Gordon, is about a trip he took to find his "roots".  He was doing genealogy research while taking a trip across Canada. 

This one will make a person think.  "Divorcing Marriage" Daniel Cere and Douglas Farrow Editors.  "Unveiling the Dangers in Canada's New Social Experiment".  It's about so called, "same sex marriage" in Canada.  Not too long after they legalized "same sex marriage" in Canada, there were two lesbians who had just gotten, "married" under the new law, that wanted a divorce. There weren't any Canadian laws dealing with same sex divorce.  Laws had to be re-written so they could get a divorce.  I don't know if that story is in this book.  I just remember hearing about it on the CBC news. 

I have on order two how to books about book binding.  Then I have one book on order, ABC of Book Collecting (I think).  It's all the terms you need to know if you collect books. 

Darn! I thought about writing something else briefly, but I forgot it.  I'll remember it after I turn off the computer.  Ha!

Ok, it will get later before it gets early---- in other words, if I don't go to bed soon, I won't be ready in the morning when my ride comes. (It will get, "late for going to bed", BEFORE it gets, "early in the morning".) If I don't get the package tomorrow, it might get sent back to Estonia.  I don't want that.

More next time...

Wait!  Duh! The "moratoriums"......  I have to stop buying on eBay for a while.  We got a nice leather sofa and loveseat.  Then one credit card bill was $400.  It was all "mine".  Some of it was iTunes probably as well.  Ok.  Now, I'm off....

November 28, 2007  Text Amendments February 25, 2008 „Дядя Ваня”; () Dyadya Vanya; Uncle Vanya I got the Uncle Vanya Postcard today. I typed in some of the Russian text into Google Images. I found another image from the same production. The postcard appears to show the original production of 1899. There is a website in Russian that is a year by year month by month history of theatre in Russia. The set in my postcard is the same as the set on the website. (Scroll the text down to the bottom. The photo will change.  The photo you will see is of a man and woman by a table.  The man is Constantin Stanislavski as Astrov. You can click on the photo to see a larger version.) [If you're seeing the Russian twice, it's because I put the Russian text as a picture also.  That way people whose computers don't read Russian text, can see it.]

My postcard looks old. It has the Czar's mark on it. [ed. June 26, 2012 At least it is a Russian royal symbol, and looks like it would be the Czar's mark.] I guess it's like a royal warrant. But in this case, it probably means it is an official publication. If printed items didn't have this mark, they were unofficial. Terrorists, anarchists and revolutionaries were the ones printing unofficial stuff back then. At least that's what the officials thought. It was difficult to get certain things printed officially. Unofficial printed things were banned. The photo on this card, shows the famous Constantin Stanislavski as Astrov.

There is one character on the postcard, that I couldn't figure out. It is the last one mentioned. I transliterated the name, "Вафля" () as Vaflya. I don't seem to find this name listed in the most recent production happening in England. (English Touring Theatre  On tour: 16 January - 5 April 2008) I looked up the Russian word, "Вафля" () in AltaVista and it said it was the word for "wafer". I think it could mean, waffle maybe? It almost sounds like waffle. Is that character "the workman" listed on the English Touring Theatre site? I also see "Вафля" () listed online, in cast lists on Russian theatre websites. I don't know if "д. II." (--"d. II.") means "Act II" or what. January 31, 2008-- I found this link on the Russian website, "My-Chekhov.com".  They list an "ILIA (WAFFLES) TELEGIN, an impoverished landowner" as a character in Uncle Vanya.  http://www.my-chekhov.com/proizved/116.shtml  On their Russian language page, it is spelled, "Илья Ильич Телегин" () [Ilia Ilich Telegin--- on the website, the last name [surname] is first though.].  http://www.my-chekhov.com/ru/proizved/116.shtml

Click here to view images of this postcard.

The text of the postcard in English...
A.P. Chekhov
„Uncle Vanya” d. II.
Astrov. Uncle Vanya and Vaflya.
Moscow Art Theatre (M.X.T.)
Post Card. ("Carte Postale" is the French.)
Phototypie Scherer, Nabholz & Co., Moscou. (This text was spelled this way on the card.  It is not exactly English, is it?  I assume it to be French also.  If it is French, AltaVista says the English should be, "Collotype Scherer, Nabholz & Co, Moscow.")
Reproduction is prohibited

The text in Russian as text and as a picture--taken from the postcard itself... (The reason for the text in parentheses ( ) is because that is the "new" orthography or spelling. It is the post revolution spelling. The word not in parentheses is the pre-revolution spelling. [Except in the case of "M. X. T.".  "M. X. T." is the Russian abbreviation for Moscow Art Theatre.  I spelled out the words and put the text in parentheses. I think I found the text on Wikipedia or somewhere. I wouldn't have known how to spell it otherwise.  It is the "new" or modern orthography.])

А. П. Чеховъ „Дядя Ваня” д. II. Астровъ. Дядя Ваня и Вафля. М. Х. Т. (Московский Художественный Театр) Открытое Письмо. Carte Postale. Фототипiя (Фототипия) Шереръ, Набгольцъ и Ко., Москва Репродукцiя (Репродукция) воспрещена

Ok it's late again.  I have to go to bed.  I'm "starving" again as usual.  I saw a large lot of writing books on eBay.  I would like to bid on them for myself and the "book business".  I would be getting rid of most of them.  I gave a lot of the ones to my father in law, that I bought before.  So I need to re-plenish my stock. Ha! I only want two or three out of the lot....  I have to upload this and then get to bed.  Hope I find all the little pictures to upload.  Hope the one picture at the top of this section (Uncle Vanya in Russian) gets uploaded properly.

December 5, 2007  Editions

As my grandfather might have put it, [had he put it], "As a general rule, book collectors want first editions in extremely good condition".  Sometimes I want a book in as late an edition I can find. 

I just ordered a book, called, The Bookman's Glossary.  I got the latest edition I could find, which was the 1983 edition.  I did find a copy that a website said was a "1994 edition". That copy was located in Canada, but it had the same ISBN as the 1983 edition.  I wanted the information in this book.  I also wanted the most up to date information I could find. 

A book came yesterday, "ABC for Book Collectors" by John Carter and Nicolas Baker.  This reprint of the eighth edition from 2006 was corrected by Raymond B. Williams. I purposely got this Eighth Edition, because I wanted the latest information.  This is a really interesting book!!

When the book arrived I noticed that it had an orange sticker on the
spine. "USED SAVES Textbooks from YOUR BOOKSTORE". On the outside back cover of the book was another larger white sticker with the usual bar codes and numbers on it.  The first thing I did, is what I have a (bad?) habit of doing, and that is, place the stickers on the inside front cover of the book.  I didn't figure it would matter since it is basically a new book and I intend on reading it and using it for reference. 

Another book in which I wanted the latest edition is, "Bowes & Church's Food Values of Portions Commonly Used" by Jean A. T. Pennington and Judith Spungen Douglass.  I already had the Seventh Edition from 1952.  Since each edition contains vastly different information, I really wanted to find the Eighteenth Edition of 2005.  It's a great book with all sorts of nutritional information of common foods.  I got that a year or two ago.  (See the Health Books in the Library to learn more.)

Anyway, again it is late.  Yes, it is getting later before it's getting early.  I didn't win the auction on the 47 book lot on eBay.  There's an etiquette book on there now, the seller claims is from 1844.  Don't know if it is "real" or a reprint.  I want to try for it.  I couldn't find that exact one via Bookfinder. 

 The Swiss guidebooks arrived on Monday. The one book is by the Automobile Association (British).  It has a section on how to drive on "hairpin turns".  It even talks about what special equipment (extra parts) you will need when touring (driving) through the Alps.  The author said he only needed extra fan belts, but since "they" were making them better as he wrote the article, they probably wouldn't be needed.  I think maybe he said you would want to take them along anyway just in case.  That was back in the 1920's.  That was going by "touring" car. 

I have been listening to 650 WSM again via the medium wave or AM band.  It is such a cool station.  I like to listen to the "Grand Ole Opry" on the weekends.  But it's good most nights. 

Radio Australia is on now.  I can pick them up on the other radio....  Oops! My new glasses are in.  Instead of getting bifocals, I got a pair of reading glasses and a pair of distance glasses.  The eye doctor was so fast with the lenses, I hope I got the right prescriptions.  Anyway, hopefully we get in there tomorrow to get them.  I am going to take the 7 language dictionary in there.  If I can read that with the reading glasses, then I know I got the right prescription for that pair....            

December 8, 2007 Amendment to the above entry....  This book, "ABC for Book Collectors" turns out to be a very interesting book.  Since it's the latest edition, there's an entry for eBay in there... (February 2, 2012-- editing out some text here...)

January 12, 2008 Recent Acquisitions

Ok, so I've gone nuts lately.  (last couple of years)  I'll get to the books that I have gotten lately, in a "second".  First off some "news"...

The BBC had an article on their site, "Do you need to read books to be clever?".  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7178598.stm  They're asking if you need to read books in order to be "smart". I think the amount of "smarts" you get, depends upon what books you read. I think knowing about certain fiction books is good, then you know what people are talking about in certain situations.  It is good to have a bit of "cultural literacy". (Notice I'm not saying you have to read fiction.  I'm just saying it can be good to know what's in those books sometimes.)  But really I think reading non-fiction helps with "smartness".  There's different kinds of smarts by the way.  For those of us on the "right" side of the political spectrum, we believe that "common sense" is very important.  Those on the "left" believe that "book learning" (university education) is important.  The thing about "common sense" and such like--- if you get a university education in some "brainy" subject, what good does it do you, if you can't practically apply that knowledge?  I'll stop, before I write for hours on this.  As you may know, I have this one page where I tried to write about this before.

This next thing is very interesting too.  The BBC has an article on there about "old" travel books.  (Baedekers etc.) "Are the old ones the best ones?" The subject ties in with a couple of books I bought (1928 Baedekers Switzerland etc.) which I wrote about a few posts ago.  [see above]  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7174904.stm

On the page with this article, is a link to, "Kolby Kirk's pictures of Baedekers". [see the "Ephemera" page and also, "Photoshop & Web Design".]   http://www.flickr.com/photos/kahunna/collections/72157594587631210/  He is putting together a website, showcasing ephemera found in old travel books.  If you look at what he has on "Flickr", this website will be great.  I wish I could do such things with my pages.  I like that "old timey" feel to them. http://www.retrotravels.net/ "Read Books Differently". There's only the one page to the site now.  Go to the link above and click on "Photoshop & Web Design" to see what he's doing.  He has another neat website, http://www.kahunna.net/ . 

"Which reminds me of"...  Another digression... I've been waiting all week to write up this section.  There was the usual procrastination.  There was the repagination of this page which is fixed as far as I can tell.  It should stay fixed, as long as I don't add any text up top.  [likely story!] And now you find me writing about a favorite book I already own.  Go figure!

I already had [I just pulled it off the shelf.] a copy of "Carcassonne and Company (The Diary of an Art Student)" by Holland Robinson [words] and "Pictured by" Mac Harshberger.  It is from 1926, was privately published, and has wonderful art deco drawings by Harshberger in it.  This is real art deco. [As opposed to the "art deco" objects you can find listed on eBay, which are only called art deco, because that's an attention grabbing description.] Mr. Robinson was "lured" into a movie theatre, ["one of the large picture shows"] by a friend, who, assured him that, "the 'art' had improved until neither the spoken drama nor the opera was at all essential for modern civilization".  The friend paid a dollar each for two tickets.  The members of the audience, "were undulating gently in the praiseworthy effort of making money for Mr. Wrigley".  They were watching a movie with Gloria Swanson in it.  "Was it 'Foolish Wives,' 'Silly Husbands,' 'Erring Daughters,' 'Gilded Society'? I do not remember.  From what followed it does not matter."...  ..."I sank back in my overstuffed chair, and closed my eyes, gave myself up to thinking what a pity it is that the art of photography has been so marvelously perfected, while the material photographed has remained so worthless." About forty minutes later they saw Carcassonne on the screen.  "From the ridiculous to the sublime". Then and there, Holland Robinson determined to visit Carcassonne [which is in France by the way].  This book is a sort of pictorial journal of Mac and Holland's journey through France from Paris to Carcassonne.  It's a very interesting book.  One part I especially remember is this one night in a hotel with a seemingly dangerous (sick?) cat that was noisily outside their window. I think it kept them awake all night.  I can't remember though, as I read this book back in the early 1980's.  I remember buying this at Barber's Books in Ft. Worth, Texas.  I probably only paid $5.00 for it without tax.  I should have a receipt for it somewhere, don't know what book or box it is in.  If I bought another book that day, the receipt could be in it as a bookmark.  I know I've seen it around at some point since I've lived here.  Of course I could have bought this at Evergreen books in Ft. Worth, but am sure I got it at Barber's.   To End, my "digression"; from the "Postscript" of the book, "The prime purpose in publishing this diary, is to show just how cheaply an extended trip, including some of the more celebrated cities of France, can be made by those willing to forego a few luxuries."...  ..."Our total expenditures were therefore two thousand and fifty-four francs, or one thousand and twenty-seven francs for each of us.  At the time we made the trip, the American dollar was worth a fraction more than twenty francs, so the cost of our eighteen days of sight-seeing was about fifty-one dollars apiece."  Imagine that! {I hope I didn't quote too much and violate a copyright somewhere. If I did, let me know and I'll remove the offending text.}

[Here are two accounts of two "paranormal" nights spent in Barber's books. http://mysticghost.blogspot.com/2003/01/barbers-books.html  This second account has a photo of the inside of the store.  http://mysticghost.blogspot.com/2006/10/barbers-books-revisited.html  A photo of the outside, http://travel.webshots.com/photo/1498243229057364373eZrDGh .  More on Barber's Books http://www.fortwortharchitecture.com/barbers.htm.]

Now to get back to the original purpose of this posting...

Yesterday a copy of "The Fiction Dictionary" by Laurie Henry arrived.  It is a neat book.  It has entries like, "Allegory"; "Vignette" and so on.  You never know what of this will end up as titles in my "Book-Case Conundrum". 

I got that one via www.bookfinder.com.  From eBay came, "Best Advice on How to Write", edited by Gorham Munson (Professional Writer's Library).  Really neat book.  The one disappointment I have with it is--- I got "Best Advice on How to Write", mainly "because", yet another factor in its favor, was the fact that it was advertised to have a section written by, Erik Barnouw.  I know this author, because I have his, "Handbook of Radio Writing".  And wouldn't you know it, but this section, "The Medium of Radio" is from the book I already have!  Who knows, I'll probably like what I read in the rest of the book.

Another book that came from eBay is the other Elvis Costello book.  I didn't pay $40.00 for it either.  Then came, "How to Try a Murder".  "The Handbook for Armchair Lawyers".  It should come in handy for the murder mystery writing [without the murder].  (That I am doing "now" [off and on] and that I hope to do more of some day.)

I got an interesting book from eBay.  I got it from a seller in Canada.  "The Bankrupt Bookseller" by Will. Y. Darling.  This is the two volumes in one edition, (Collected Volume) of 1947.  It was printed in Edinburgh--- the one in Scotland.  Cool!  It has an original price of "9s. 6d. net" printed on the dust jacket. That is a "pre-decimal" price.  Don't ask me to translate that into modern British Pounds and Pence.  Now days they don't use shillings and whatever "d." is. Oh! According to Wikipedia, "d." stands for "old pence". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_Day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_coinage#Pre-decimal_system

http://local.google.com/answers/threadview?id=302454 Google Answers: Who was the "Bankrupt Bookseller" hoaxster?

The two volumes in this book are, "The Private Papers of a Bankrupt Bookseller" and, "The Bankrupt Bookseller Speaks Again". 

By now I am drinking very weak tea and having British, "digestive biscuits" (a type of whole wheat cookie).  I am listening to "The Vinyl Cafe" via CBC Radio 2.  Both of which are apropos being that I am writing about a "British" (U.K.) book that I bought in Canada. The reason for the weak tea, is that I was trying to get the last drop of tea from this one teabag. 

The first book in this volume was originally supposed to be by an anonymous bookseller who left his papers in the shop when he died.  He committed suicide.  The man who bought his book shop, had the papers printed up as a book.  In the end it was determined that this wasn't a true story.  It was a fiction story written by "Sir William Y. Darling, Lord Provost of Edinburgh from 1941 to 1944, and Member of Parliament for South Edinburgh since 1945".  (Not that he would be alive today probably.) He did go on to own two bookshops eventually. 

This is a really interesting book.  Even though it is fiction, I wonder if the opinions the author expresses, are not truly his.  Here is a quote from the section, "Religion, Religious Books and Bibles".  I wonder if this is what, Sir William Y. Darling really believed.  In the front of the book, there is a list of, "By the same Author".  One book on the list is, "Why I Believe In God".  In this quote he is writing about the Bible.  "Carnal and wicked though I am, bookseller and man of many worlds, this book is the book of books for me and, if I dare say it, for all my customers.  I don't care what they think they want, I ought to tell them, 'This is the book for you.'  'Not Francis Hackett's Henry VIII, sir; you should read the Book of Kings.'  'Not Elisabeth and her German Garden, Madam; you should read the Book of Ruth.'  'Not New Worlds for Old, sir; you should read the Book of the Revelation of St. John.'  'Not Compton Mackenzie's Seven Ages of Woman, madam; you should read the story of another Mary in the Gospels.'  'Not Will Durant's Story of Philosophy, sir; you should read the Book of Job.'" And here I go and buy a copy of Will Durant's "Story of Philosophy" this past September!  I didn't buy it to read exactly.  I was hoping I could use it as a reference book, like a dictionary. 

Then on Sunday, January 6, 2008; I got a stack of books from Rodegher's in Dearborn.  I stacked them in the room here, I am giving you them [basically] in the order they were stacked. 

1. The first book on the list is, "The Correct Preposition How to Use it" by Josephine Turck Baker.  We have a set of grammar books by the same author, that we found in the house.  I thought I might be buying a duplicate of a book in that set.  I wasn't entirely sure though. I know the cover on this book was slightly different than the ones downstairs.  I was buying it mostly for the bookplate I found on the inside front cover. Turns out it was not a duplicate book. There is a neat bookplate in it for Evans-Winter-Hebb, Inc. Detroit.  The illustration is high art deco.  [To view it click on the sentence before this one.] This book was kept in their Proofroom Library.  If you look up this printing company, you will find that they did lots of incredible art deco catalogues and advertising for the automobile companies.  They were located at 818 West Hancock Street in Detroit.  At that location now, is the "Wayne State University Bioengineering Center".  You can see a photo of the building at their website. It looks to be something of an art deco building.  I wish the photo would enlarge.  I assume because of the apparent age of the building that it might be the building that housed, Evans-Winter-Hebb Inc. 

2. "Eats, Shoots & Leaves The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss.  If you haven't noticed while reading this page, I really do need this book!!  This is an American copy of, "The Runaway #1 British Bestseller".  I have no idea if they made any changes to reflect the differences between British and American English.  Another thing, would one use the term, "pop grammar" to describe this book?  I discovered the term when looking up the No. 1 book on this present list.  I can't wait to read this book.  I have been wanting a copy for a while now. All this stuff on "mangled" English reminds me of this radio drama that was written to show how not to write radio drama.  I learned about it many years ago on the Internet.  I was never able to find a copy online.  I just saw the title.  In the last year or two, I got a book, "Writing for Radio" by Rosemary Horstmann.  In the back of the book is, "The Gun That I Have in My Right Hand is Loaded" by Timothy West. It was good to be able to read it finally.

3. "The Nature Doctor" by Dr. H.C.A. Vogel.  "A Manual of Traditional and Complementary Medicine".  It looks to be a very interesting book.  I will explore it further some time soon hopefully.

4. Just what I needed.  Ha! "Good Cooking" by Marjorie Heseltine and Ula M. Dow.  This one is from 1936.  I didn't think I had it but wasn't sure.  I would have sent it to my sister or someone if I had it already.  I looked on the shelves and didn't see it.  Yea!  Now I need to cook from it.  But not today. 

5. "Nutrition Against Disease" by Roger J. Williams.  "Environmental Prevention".  1971  This book looks to have some great stuff in it.  Not sure if it is 100% perfect.

6. This is a very slim volume, which requires me to use my reading glasses to view it.  "A New Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament" by George Ricker Berry, PH.D.  This one was published in 1944, but it was copyright in 1897.  Wow!  This looks like a great book too.  It will be "handy" to take along on trips, should I want to take such a book on a trip.  [I have scanned in a handwritten inscription from inside this book. There are some mysteries to it. Please view what I scanned in and see if you can't help me solve a mystery.]

7. "Debrett's Guide to Britain" Edited by Joanna Household.  "Where to Go and What to See".  Very interesting photo book from, 1983. 

8. "I Have Loved England" by Alice Duer Miller.  Copyright 1941.  Another interesting photo book.  One photo, "Smoking Room At Wilton" is particularly interesting.  It shows a room in a grand house with an extremely grand fireplace.  The furnishings are vintage "chintz".  The text opposite starts, "Even the grandest houses in England achieve a comfort--the well-known comfort anglais associated in most people's minds with chintz, flowers, and open fireplaces."  I don't know why, but I seem to associate this book with the efforts to get the U.S. involved in W.W.II.  Maybe I am mistaken.  I really think the photos in this book look to be more 1930's than 1940's.  No wonder the smoking room with chintz looked so "yummy".  I hope they didn't call it a "smoking" room because of the fireplace being in there. [I hope it wasn't the room that was smoking.] Ha!

9. No. It was this book which has a connection, by way of the preface, to war time England.  "Literary England" by David E. Sherman & Richard Wilcox.  "Pictures of the many places made famous in English literature with the well-loved passages which make them forever memorable".  The preface is by, Christopher Morley [see above].  He writes, "There was a sign I used to see years ago on many pubs along the eastern docksides of London River.  It said COURAGE'S STOUT.  It was tragically prophetic; but also symbol and summary."  On the obverse of the title page it says, "This book is the development of a picture essay on literary England that appeared in Life Magazine of June 14, 1943.  The pictures are owned by Life and copyright by Time Inc., 1943-1944."

As far as I know, that's the end.  Hopefully more books will arrive in the mail today.  I've been here long enough that Saturday Afternoon at the Opera is on CBC Radio 2.  They are airing Verdi's "Scottish opera" aka, "Macbeth".  This is coming from the Metropolitan Opera in New York.  It's also being beamed live to various movie theatres and shown in High Definition.  I didn't know they did that.  By the way, as the opera airs on CBC Radio 2, on CBC Radio 1 they air the program, "Definitely Not The Opera".

I'm off to fix the pagination of what I've written today, and then to upload this.  Whew!  More next time.  Wait! They're starting to sing now.  It's time to turn off the opera.  Some of it I can deal with, some I can't.  As I was fixing this for uploading, the mail [post] arrived.  No books came today.  Rats!  I'm expecting one that hasn't arrived yet---since December.  I did get the January issue of British Country Living.  One title on the cover is, "Salvage Style".  "Practical projects for throwaway items & designing an old-style new-build home."  They have had a series in there lately called, "Roots, shoots and leaves".  "...Shona Crawford Poole draws inspiration from the weekly organic box to make vegetables the starting point of dishes for every occasion."  The title always reminds me of the grammar book I wrote of above.  This issue isn't as thick as the ones leading up to Christmas.  Then there's a spring one that is usually fairly thick.  I don't mind if they are thick with adverts.  English adverts. are so much more "different" than the ones we see here.  It isn't "American" and that's what's different about it.  I see a small paragraph section on page 29, "Bedtime Reading".  It shows a stack of books for "small holders".  It reminds me... for many years now, I have wanted to get industrious and read the gardening books and learn what I need to know for spring planting.  I have a book behind me on soils.  I just never get around to doing it.  The winter is supposed to be productive reading gardening books and learning things from other books.  At least I want to do that.  Like they used to do on farms and such. 

February 15, 2008  Excitement Builds

I got an interesting E-mail yesterday.  A lady in Texas ran across this book I have catalogued on the radio books page of the Library.  She said the name on the address label was her late father-in-law.  Her husband had the Morse code key that probably goes with the book.  His siblings had an estate sale.  Her husband was not able to attend.  He did get a few belongings. Since his birthday is soon, this lady thought the book would bless him.  I thought that it would be very good to send her the book!  I was just thinking about how I need to get rid of some junk around the house.  I had this book so I could try and learn Morse code with it.  But I haven't cracked it open except to catalogue it.  If I haven't studied it by now, I probably won't. 

Been buying mostly blank books on eBay.  Trying to get them cheaply.  I have a couple of books I'm looking at bidding on.  One's a book on 100 years of House and Garden Magazine.  The other one is about euphemisms in British English. I've bought some old Television Magazines from the U.K. and Australia that have "fan stuff" in them.  I haven't listed them on the webpage yet. 

More soon maybe.

February 24, 2008  (February 2, 2011 --  This entry had a title but I am editing and removing certain things off this page and the title and related text is being removed.)

I went nuts today and tried to buy a theatre program for £38.00 (British Pounds) on eBay.  That would be around $76.00--without shipping.  I didn't win the auction.  The seller had another one they would sell me for the £38.00.  I wrote them back and said that once the "heat of battle" of the auction was over, I had come to my senses and realized that £38.00 was too much.  (My husband was up and awake by then.)  They let me have it for much less in the end.  I ended up getting three programs for around the same price I would have paid for the one had I won the auction. (The seller had two other ones I bid after the one.)

By the way, the lady in Texas (see entry just above this one) was extremely happy to get that Morse code book for her husband in the mail.  I was really glad that I was able to bless her with it.

I have been reading "The Bookman's Glossary" and "ABC for Book Collectors".  The "Bookman's Glossary" was written in the early 1980's.  The modern computer was in it's infancy (to a point). 

Second Book:  The book I ordered from Amazon finally arrived.  I ordered it June 26, 2007.  It arrived, February 5, 2008.  I was reading some of the biographies in the book.  I skipped through the front of the book some what.  I find biographies to be interesting.  They make me thankful that I live this life and not some other one.  Although, some of the things in this book are interesting, these are not people I would emulate. I am a hypocrite.  I was not going to read much of this book really. But I have read some, and might read more at some other date. If this author hadn't written this book, I would not have bought it.  It is non fiction, and it is about books.  Two reasons I would have thought of buying it.  But the kinds of books that are written about inside, are not my thing. If you like to read that kind of book, I don't think you would want to know my opinion of that sort of "literature". I do need to find a good spot to stick this book as it keeps falling off the stack next to the computer here. (At this point, I could make an appeal for my library fund.  I am not doing so, but I could be taking donations of, stray "Monopoly" money; foreign currency that has long since become obsolete; and non valuable canceled stamps. Old "trading stamps" could be welcomed as well.) Anyway.....

I do need to be going.  I shouldn't be writing this now, as I need to be getting ready for our Bible Fellowship.  (And this is such a "godly" book to be writing about before Fellowship.  Ha!)

-32-

December 3, 2008  What's Been Up...

I haven't been writing to this page much lately.  I seem to be writing to the "Bookcase Conundrum Writing Journal" more than to any other page.

I went and got a new computer monitor as the old one was dying.  When I did, websites etc. looked off kilter a whole lot.  I had to change the "ratio" or whatever it is on this new monitor.  The computer doesn't have the correct video card to match the monitor.  So I can only change it to a "ratio" close to what it wants.  You don't know how difficult it is to get the text on here so that it doesn't clash with text on the background picture.  I didn't want to add text to this page and have it clash.  Plus I am tempted to fix the text so it looks good on the monitor now.  (As the text looks "out of whack" on here now.)  But if I fix it now, and then get a new video card, I have to go and fix things again. 

To top it off, I find out that because I use "Microsoft Front Page" to make this website, the formatting I see on my machine might not be what other people see on their's.  So, all the fixing I do to this page, might not make any difference if you are trying to read this page. 

Another reason I haven't been writing to this--- I haven't bought so many books lately online. Wait a minute. I went to the big book sale.  But before that I got lost on LibraryThing.   I catalogued all the books I bought at the book sale.  I catalogued a good many of the books sitting around me.  Then I have not seen much in the "favorite searches" from eBay.  I have bought a few things.  But over time it has tapered off.  I don't always win auctions.  There's a couple of books I want to try for on there in a few days.  Don't know if I will win or not.

I have been really busy trying to finish getting the house ready for Norman's cousin that comes.  I have a lot of correspondence to work on as well.  I re-did the notes for The Bookcase Conundrum.  You can read about the latest on that work in the "Writing Journal".  I have been reading some.  Last night I finished, "Books: A Memoir" by Larry McMurtry.  Contrary what some readers are saying on Amazon, this is an extremely interesting book.  I re-started reading "How To Write an uncommonly Good Novel" edited by Carol Hoover.  A lot has been going on since February 24, 2008.  I took the beginning Tai Chi class twice.  We took a trip to Texas and back.  My suspected birth family wrote me.  Then I got a new digital camera a week or two ago.  I have been using that.  I hope to get some photos from it on here soon.  My Chinese pen pal made it to Canada. You can read about more of the comings and goings in the "Writing Journal". Oh! I almost forgot, we even made it to Booked Up in Archer City, Texas--- Larry McMurtry's shop. 

You can read about a couple of books I bought lately here.  ("A Writer's Time, Making the Time to Write" by Kenneth Atchity, etc.)

It's late again---- yet again.  I should be going to bed an hour or two ago.  I'll write more after January maybe.  I have a few things to upload.  Then I must get off this thing!  I tried to fix some of the problems with the backgrounds I scanned in for these pages.

-FIN- (for now)

December 18, 2008  More "Up"...

A little while back, I finished reading "Books A Memoir" by Larry McMurtry.  It's a very interesting book.  Oops! I wrote about that above.  Ok...  Been re-reading what I read of, "How to Write An Uncommonly Good Novel" Edited by Carol Hoover.  It seems like a good book.  Actually, I am past the place where I left off.  I'm now stuck on the chapter, "Shadow the Reader".  Have to read and then re-read each section of it.  I don't get the metaphors.  This seems like an important chapter, but yet it is one I don't like reading.  I feel that I need to know what it says, but the words are hitting a non stick coating when they enter the brain for some reason.  I didn't have this much trouble with the other chapters.  Also trying to get the house ready for Royden's visit.  Just got on here to fix the back ground and add this section.   

I wanted to write more about this book, "On Writing Well".  I could have sworn that I wrote about it before on this page.  Guess I didn't. Then where did I write about this before?  I went and searched this whole site, and searched some, "Word" documents.  I was in the middle of searching "Word" docs, when I realized that I probably wrote about this book on LibraryThing and thought I wrote about it on here.   I wrote the following to my sister in Olney, Texas.  "I bought a book, on eBay, "On Writing Well" which is about writing non fiction. Maybe I wrote you about this before. This particular book is "odd" because it ends at page 182 and picks up again at page 215. It goes on to page 246 which is the end of the index. Then it picks up again at page 215 and goes on to the end of the index. Well, I sat it by the door to this room so I would remember to try and get another cheap one somewhere. There was a reason why this copy was so cheap. One thing and another happens. A year or so goes by. Then I buy this ancient 16mm movie camera at a Salvation Army store. I showed a guy at fellowship the camera. He said we [the fellowship] should make a silent movie and he would edit it. {Not that we will really do that. But it is an option.} I went and gathered my movie making books from the basement. Then I looked on the shelf behind me to make sure I didn't have any other ones. While I was there what did I find, but a paperback copy of "On Writing Well". I didn't know I had it. I probably had it before I bought the one on eBay. Who knows, I could have bought it on eBay." This story is an example of why I am cataloging the library one book at a time.  The other example is, two different copies (different editions) of the "American Woman's Cookbook".  I bought one not remembering I had the other one.  I am sure they must have different recipes inside them. 

Douglas is off for a few days--- weeks really.  It is because of the economic down turn, and the auto industry etc. I need to take advantage of him while I have him.  He will still have to work on parts some I think. Douglas and I have a ton of things to do tomorrow.  Hopefully we make the rounds of the Salvation Army shops.  We have more important things to do of course.  It is time I got off this and tried to read a paragraph about "foreshadowing" or is it re-read this time.  Maybe I will finally get this chapter so I can move on to the next one.  Now that the background is fixed, I will have to fix the formatting of the text on this page.  That will have to come some other day.  It does get late before it gets early! 

73

January 28, 2009 (February 2, 2012-- There was a title here... I am editing this entry.)
 This is a post about "That Lawsuit Against The Bible". 

I just received in the mail, "That Lawsuit Against The Bible" by Harry Rimmer, D.D., Sc.D.... 

...As I started writing the following paragraphs, I was hearing the old song, "Dust on the Bible" via WSM in Nashville.  It was the original version by the Bailes Brothers.

More on: "That Lawsuit Against The Bible" by Harry Rimmer, D.D., Sc.D..

This website has proved to be a great thing.  This is the fifth or sixth time a stranger has written me about something they saw on this site.  I wouldn't have come by this book if it weren't for this website.  On January 8, I got a feedback form from this website.  It wasn't a usual "SPAM" reply filled out by some sort of "bot". It was from a lady from Winnipeg, in Canada.  Her husband is a teacher at a Christian school at a church.  The high school library was culling some of its books.  She brought home some of the interesting titles.  She was looking up "That Lawsuit Against the Bible" via Google and she found the listing for it in my list of wanted "anti-evolution" books.  (Mostly when you find this book in Google, it is a website offering it for sale; or it is a library catalogue.  Quite a few people have this on LibraryThing.)  She wrote me to offer to sell me the book.  I said I would buy it.  It arrived today. 

It looks to be a very interesting book.  I was trying to find out "the other side" to the story via Google.  The description of the book which I found online many years ago, said Harry Rimmer wrote it from the "fundamentalist viewpoint".  Wikipedia says that Harry Rimmer could have been a "Gap Creationist" rather than a "Young Earth Creationist".  I don't know if he was a true "fundamentalist" of if he was some flavor of "evangelical".

I hope to read this book some day.  It will have to "join the queue" as they say in England. ("Queue" is used the way we use "line"; as in a "line" of people waiting to get in somewhere.  So, in other words "That Lawsuit Against The Bible", will have to get put at the end of the list of books I want to read.)  I'll probably add it to the stack called, "Books I am reading" and read it off and on as the mood strikes, like I do the others in the stack.  Who knows, the book might, "jump the queue" (cut to the front of the "line") of its own accord, (figuratively speaking). 

I've ordered a few books lately.  I am "off the wagon" so to speak.  I was doing very good lately.  Most of the books have yet to come.  One of the books that has come is called, "The Meaning of Everything" by Simon Winchester.  "The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary".  I have been reading the Prologue and I skipped around in it some and read the captions to the illustrations.  This seems like the most interesting book!!  It is how they compiled the famous, "Oxford English Dictionary" (OED).  This isn't an "ordinary" Webster's or Oxford dictionary like one would have in a home, school or office.  This is "unabridged" or in other words it is the whole thing.  I don't know how many volumes it turned out to be in the end. The book I bought came with this card inside it.  It is an advertisement for what was then the latest edition.  It says that to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the OED, you can have the 20 volumes for $895 instead of the list price of $3,000. 

There have been lots and lots of additions to the library over the last few months. (summer of 2008 into winter 2009)  I don't list them all here and won't probably.  You can look for them at http://www.librarything.com/profile/Writerwithbottles . 

Again, "Fin" (for now).  More later...

June 14, 2010  It's been a while I know....

Last Sunday, June 6, 2010, somewhere around a quarter to 5:00 AM...  I went to make sure the cats were eating.  They just came in from outside.  I think Sterling was curious about something downstairs maybe.  I looked down there and noticed water on the floor.  I almost dismissed it as water coming from the furnace humidifier we use in the winter.  I wanted to go to bed.  I was very tired.  It didn't make any sense.  I went down there and panicked.  There was water over a good bit of the floor.  It was especially bad where my books were sitting in boxes.  I went and woke Douglas up.  It took him a minute to figure out what I meant when I said water and basement. I don't think he heard basement initially.  I think he just heard water. The water was evidently coming from the drains.  We had heavy rains and winds in the night.  It was a problem with a pumping station in Detroit.  At least the City of Dearborn is saying that.  Douglas scrambled to bail the water into the set tub.  I scrambled to put the wet books into the freezer.  I was contaminating everything with sewer water if that was sewer water that came up from the drains. Most of the food in the freezer was well wrapped. (boxes of chocolates believe it or not) There was some bread in there. Douglas said he will eat that. There wasn't any paper or human waste floating in the water.  I left some books out of the freezer as they didn't seem that important. 

At least it was mostly books that got wet.  It wasn't anything horribly important.  We didn't loose our house or loved ones to a tornado.  We didn't loose our loved ones in a flood.  Those things both happened in this country recently.

On Saturday June 12, 2010... we went and started cataloging the wet books.  We started with the ones outside the freezer.  Then we started tackling the freezer books.  The freezer books were stuck together in some cases.  In a good many cases we took photos of the book cover, title page and copyright info.  I want to try and get compensation.  I don't know that it is available, I just want to try.  We finished cataloging the freezer books Sunday afternoon.  We put some of them back in the freezer.  If nothing else, I'll know what to try and replace.

I was so busy last Sunday throwing them into the freezer, I didn't look at the titles really. I was trying to prevent dry books from getting wet. I was trying to prevent the wet books from getting wetter.  I was trying to preventing the books from getting moldy. It made me sick to think about them so detailed as to know exactly what I had in my hands.  It was my fault for not sticking them on shelves by now.  Here's a list of a few that made me the most heartsick... I just remembered buying them, the effort to find them, the surprise to learn they existed, or it took some doing to convince Douglas why I "needed" the book.  Most of them were bought before we had the Internet or before we bought things online. I'm watching a repeat of the game where Germany beat Australia.  Yes, the World Cup is happening.  Yea!!!

The Kipling I saw with the nice red cover as I stuck it in the freezer, was NOT a first edition.  I'm glad for that.  Didn't think I had too many first editions that would have been valuable.

There were four People's Friend Annuals from Scotland.  I grieve because of the two oldest ones, the 1968-69 and the 1970-71.  I know they're sappy romance short stories (that "granny's" read apparently).  But I liked reading them.  These were great because they had old adverts. in them.  One ad. was for an early cash machine. (teller machine / ATM / cash point) 

I was in the middle of reading "The Plutocrat" by Booth Tarkington.  I had left off at pages 110 and 111.  I had always hoped to finish it.  This might have been a first edition.  Possibly a gazillionth printing. I don't know.  I do know it was probably a reading copy.  Since a good bit of the story takes place on a cruise ship I took it on a cruise to read.  I didn't manage to read any of it while I was there.  I mostly sat on deck seeing what I could pick up on the radio.  I heard Spanish lessons for native Arabic speakers over Radio Exterior de  España and domestic medium wave or AM broadcasts of Radio Havana Cuba.

Vladimir from Kaliningrad who was studying for his PHD in MRI (NMR) technology at Manchester University had sent me a nice book via Amazon.co.uk.  "Natasha's Dance" by Orlando Figes. "A Cultural History of Russia".  I was sad to see this come out of the freezer.  It is a very thick book and couldn't have been cheap for a student.

"The View from Lenin Hills" by William Taubman. Although this book was from 1967, I really enjoyed reading it.  I learned about Kefirniki.  Those are people who drink Kefir in Russia.  Kefir is similar to yogurt and buttermilk. 

Another interesting volume is, "Stories by English Author's -- Africa" from 1896.  It has short stories in it by famous authors.  Some of them are racist.  Some are gruesome.

"Daily Life in Russia Under the Last Tsar" by Henri Troyat.

"Russian Art from Scyths to Soviets" by Cyril G. E. Bunt from 1946 is a very interesting book.  I was sorry to see it in the freezer.

There were some old Russian language literature textbooks from the Soviet Union. (late 50's early 60's) 

There was one Russian instruction book, "Russian Grammar in Illustrations" by Pekhlivanova and Lebedeva 1994.  This copy was meant to be sold in the territory of the "CIS" only.  (Commonwealth of Independent States)

Also in the freezer is a copy of "How To Make Good Pictures" from the very early 20th Century.  I bought it on August 15, 1984.  We found the receipt in the book.  The price was $10.50; the tax was $.55; and they charged me a total of $10.55.  I don't know if they goofed or if they gave me a discount.  You would think the discount would have been written on the receipt.  Also in the freezer was a more common 1958 version of this book.  I might have other versions in the dry stacks.  It is this "antique" version that was my favorite of course. It was very sad when Douglas opened the book so I could photograph the title page. It seems as if the pages have stuck together rather well.  I don't think freeze drying them will help. I even found a 1939 version in the freezer stack.

"The American Rural School" by Harold Waldstein Foght from 1912 was a sad loss.  I kept it in the freezer with the others I will miss most. It tells how to run a rural one room school.  My grandmother taught at a one room schoolhouse back in the early 1930's.  This book taught one how to run the school so it was self sufficient.  The boys would grow a garden.  The girls would cook, preserve and can the produce.  It was a very interesting thing.  I wish they could apply some of these "lessons" to modern schools.

I was also reading "Sea Warfare" by Rudyard Kipling at one point.  I got lost some where towards the end or mid way through. After a while, I couldn't understand what was going on. It was an ex library copy.  The library it came from was very interesting.  The book is copyright, 1917.  It is about naval warfare in the English Channel during W.W.I.  So when I saw stamps inside it, that said it once belonged in the, "Reading Room of the US Naval Hospital in Newport R.I.", I pictured injured sailors reading this book while recuperating. I was able to find some of the ships Kipling writes about in Douglas' big naval books.  (Like, Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships)

That should do it for now.  There were many more books that we catalogued.  I was just writing down the main ones. 

Maybe I won't wait so long before I write to this again.

February 4-5, 2012--  Nothing like time to.... Ummm...

Ok, I am over the grieving for the wet books to a point. The ones I kept are still in the freezer.  If I don't think about them or look in the freezer I am ok.  Douglas went and broke a lid to an old, vintage, collectable, (valuable?) cookie jar [biscuit jar] today (Feb. 4).  I don't blame him. The lid was a victim of circumstances and it wasn't totally Douglas' fault.

Oh by the way, we had some plumbing work done on the house sometime after the basement flood. We asked our plumber about putting a, "back flow preventer," on the drains in the basement.  He said that those pipes were so old they were made of clay.  A, "back flow preventer," would produce so much pressure that the clay pipes would break.  That would cause all sorts of expensive problems. 

I am writing now about this book which I always think I have written about before, only I can never find my writing about it. I go to look up the authors of my favorite sections of the book and I have to dig for the book. So I look on this page for it, "to no avail". So now I am sticking the relevant information on here.

I am also going to write about some books that are inspiration for a section of my Osbert Pickle story.  One book I've written about before.  Another book I don't have and haven't read.

First off, my Osbert Pickle character will be taking this train journey at some point in the story.  I am modeling the train and the journey on the memory I have of the accounts that I read in the following books... (Remember, I have slept since I read these.  My memory might be faulty.)

I got on this Trans-Siberian Railway kick---or rather I am remembering these books with accounts of riding the Trans-Siberian Railway, because I bought this book on eBay.  This week, I won the auction for this book on eBay that is about a journey on that railway.  It is told via the postcards sent to someone, "back home,". The book is reproductions of the postcards sent back.  I ended up writing the seller of this book and we discussed the Railway and our interests briefly.  I sent him a link to my Osbert Pickle story.  He found that interesting.  As it turns out I was writing to one of the authors of the book. As I wrote in that E-mail, "I am currently writing a story about an itinerant book dealer in a fictional country. This book dealer has to take a train journey at some point. The train he rides is an ancient train that usually takes farmers and their wares--- produce, live chickens etc. to a market just outside the city in my story."

I read an account of a train journey through France in the 1920's in, "Carcassonne and Company (The Diary of an Art Student)" by Holland Robinson [words] and 'Pictured by' Mac Harshberger". I remember peasant type people eating large sausages which I assumed to be something like our Salami. (I remember the sausages fitting on the lap of a large woman.)

I read two accounts of riding on the Trans-Siberian Railway from Vladivostok to Moscow, in, "From Melbourne to Moscow" by G. C. Dixon (1925) and Through Russia's Back Door" by Richard E. Lauterbach (1946).  I remember the accounts of how people took their samovars with them. (Samovars are the Russian tea making apparatus.) At the various train stations, there would be vendors that would provide hot water for the samovars.  They would sell food there also.  But I think people found it either safer or cheaper to bring their own food from home.  When I think of these accounts, I am reminded of an episode of, "From Our Own Correspondent" that I heard back in the 1990's on the BBC World Service.  I can't remember if I am remembering two different stories from different sources, or if it was the same story from this program. The reporter was telling about flying on an Aeroflot plane in the former Soviet Union just after the break up.  They were telling about someone having a portable cook stove on board which they were using to cook food in their seat.  I think I remember there being live chickens on there too or was it goats.  I could also have been remembering a "60 Minutes" story I remember from the 1980's? where the reporter was on a train in a third world country?  I remember the reporter having a manual typewriter on board.  There may have been live animals on that one too. 

When I was looking up [Googleing] some author's listed in the, "Travel" book I write about in a second, I found the following book... I don't have it and haven't read it.  It looks very interesting though.  I will probably just stick it on the wish list as I don't have time to read it. "Trailblazer  The Trans-Siberian Railway: a traveller's anthology".  (Also, I'll wait to get one because, I like to happen onto, "neat oh," books at book and garage sales that cost less than $5.00.)

Another thing I wanted to write about is this book which I believed to have written about on here before.  I have not written about it here before.  It is probably in a very old E-mail on an old computer somewhere. This is a book that is very memorable to me.  I looked up one article online, and found that there was a magazine called, "The Travel Magazine," which is probably the origins of this book.  I was reminded of this book when I was thinking of the Trans-Siberian Railway.  This book has a chapter with an account of life in Siberia in the early 20th Century. 

It took some doing to find this book so that I could write about it.  We found it buried in a box of books about Russia and the Soviet Union.  I knew it would be in there, or in with Travel books.  In the process of looking for this book, we found another one I was hunting for months.  (A book from the London, Film Festival of 1968, which I had seen it it's box more than likely, more than once, but didn't recognize it while I was looking for it.  But when I wasn't looking for it, and I wasn't remembering what it looked like, I saw it as it really is, and it jumped out at me. I was very happy.)

The book is, "The Outline of Knowledge Edited by James A. Richards, Travel Vol. XV (15)".  It is copyright 1924. 

The reasons this book is so memorable for me...

"Housekeepig Near the North Pole, Home Life on the Yukon when the Thermometer Registers 70° Below 0" by Blanche Vaughan Nesmith.  It is a very interesting account of her life in a cabin as a pioneer in Alaska. I found her account of making doughnuts interesting. And then there's the time she slept in and didn't tend her fire.  She had to chip her way through ice to make breakfast after the water pipes burst.

"From Rostov to the Murman Coast During the Reign of Terror in Russia-- Bolshevik Rule in the South with, "Liberty for All"-- The Criminal's Paradise" by Rhoda Power.  This is her account of an escape from Russia during the revolution.  It is from the book called, "UNDER THE BOLSHEVIK REIGN OF TERROR".

"At Omsk and Tomsk an Intimate Portrayal of two Great Siberian Cities--The Social Whirl of the Tomskians--Cleanliness as the Siberian Considers it--The Fine Art of Begging Fully Developed" by Richardson L. Wright and Bassett Digby.  I remember bits and pieces of this.  Life there seemed very gruesome.  As far as I know life in Siberia is still gruesome.  A person has to be very tough to live there. 

It is very late as I finish this.  I am trying to get sleep so I can make our Bible Fellowship breakfast in the morning (later today Feb. 5).  Perhaps I will write again to this sooner and more often than I have been.  I am in the process of starting a reading journal of sorts.  I am making a reading list.  I tend to read haphazardly. I want to read the, "how to write" books I have bought lately in some sort of order.  I'll have to stick on here my views of the books as I read them. 

July 26, 2012 (I kept thinking [hoping] I wrote about this but...)

I thought I wrote about, Gertrude Stein's, "How to Write", but evidently I haven't. 

I have, "writing" and "how to write," books saved as a search on eBay.  I get an e-mail every day with, new listings of how to write books.  I mainly look for recent and vintage Christian, "how to write," books, "good," modern books that are recommended in other books, and, "old," "how to," books.  (old being 1980's back to the 1800's --- not that I buy many of them) 

One book that has come up quite a bit is, "How To Write," by Gertrude Stein. The version that comes up is normally a paperback reprint.  These are ones published anywhere from about 1975 to more recent times.  They are intended for use as university text books from the looks of things.  I see one and say to myself, "Who would want to write like Gertrude Stein?" and then I skip over it. 

One day in July of 2011, a listing came up for a book called, "How to Write".  The photo showed an old looking hard backed book.  In the title of the auction telling what the name of the item is, there was no author's name.  That is common at times, as there is limited space to write an attention grabbing title. I would have had no idea how old the book was or who the author was, until I clicked on the listing.  It could have been written by anybody.  There are lots of books with, "how to write", or similar phrases in the title.  There are, books on how to write cookbooks. I've seen, "How to Write Children's Books".  One odd one claims that the reason someone is overweight is because they have pent up, "creative," energy. If the overweight person would turn to writing they would turn their energy into something, "creative," rather than overeating. [At least that is my simplistic interpretation from reading the Amazon page for it.]  That one is called, "The Writing Diet". There is even an, M. L. Stein, who wrote, "How to Write Plain English," and, "How to Write better Compositions, Term Papers and Reports". 

When I looked at the auction page for, "How to Write," on eBay, the seller did not list the author.  They only wrote that the book is called, "How to Write"; it is a, "first edition," a "limited edition," and it was published in Paris at the Darantiere Press etc.  They also said it is an ex-library book. The seller probably had photos on there.  And I think they showed the rough condition of this book. I wanted to know the name of the author.  I wanted to know if I had this book already.  I also wanted to know if I would even be interested in owning it.  A lot of the time I have to say, "I don't really need it". 

Out of curriosity, I went to www.bookfinder.com and I typed in, "How to Write," as the title, and, "Darantiere Press" in the, "key words," field.  Up came listings for Gertrude Stein first editions of the book.  The ones on Bookfinder start at nearly $200.00 and go up.  The ones she signed and gave to her inner circle, go for well over $1,000. 

I did win the eBay auction.  Dollar signs flashed before my eyes briefly. I think I knew the book looked, "rough".  I did know it was an ex-library copy.  But the library it came from is the, Beverly Hills Public Library.  At one point I noticed that one of the top priced copies on Bookfinder, had a sticker from Sylvia Beach's bookshop, "Shakespeare and Company," on the inside of the back cover. I waited and hoped that when my copy arrived it would have such a sticker on the inside back cover.  No.  It had a sticker from, the "Gotham Book Mart". That was a famous bookshop in New York City.

I didn't pay a lot for this book.  I figured that if I couldn't make any money on it, I would at least have an interesting book in the collection.  Since this volume was once in the Beverly Hills, (California) library, I imagined someone like, Clark Gable reading or thumbing through it.  I don't know if Mr. Gable read books much.  I heard that when he wasn't working, he was busy chasing women.  I regret not printing out the description the eBay seller had on there.  I am not sure they knew what they had. 

Bought, (auction ended) July 19, 2011.  Price, $3.00.  Economy shipping, (USPS Media Mail) was,  $2.42.  The total price was $5.42.  It was shipped, July 20, 2011.  It arrived, July 26, 2011.

How To Write

Gertrude Stein

First Edition

Plain Edition

27 Rue De Fleurus Paris

November 1931

“Of this book there has been printed for Plain Edition by the Darantiere Press at Dijon, France one thousand copies.”

Ex library, “Beverly Hills Public Library”
 

August 18, 19, 2012 (What a surprise!)

I would like to get a copy of, "How to Enjoy the Bible," by  E. W. Bullinger, for a teaching I have a desire to do. I want to get one locally if I can to save on shipping.  So I keep trying to get to our local Christian used book shop on Fort Street.  They are either not open when we arrive or they don't answer the phone.  The shop is still there and it is not empty.  Hope everything is ok with them.  I didn't find a copy closer in on Michigan Avenue.

I have, "Books About Books," saved as a search on eBay.  On August 14, 2012, a book, came up, in the e-mail, "The Power of Print- and Men," by Thomas Dreier.  It was published by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company.  The title of the auction had in it, "Linotype History".  I was curious and looked at this auction.  My father once owned two Linotype machines.  I have no idea whether they were Mergenthaler ones or not, or whether there are any other kinds (brands) of Linotype machines.  The book is from 1936.  Which is from a decade I like to collect stuff from. Initially, I was interested in the book.  I thought about it a few seconds and decided against buying it. The seller wants $50.00 for it and I am supposed to be on an eBay diet at the moment.  Besides, I have no room for such a book. 

Well, as I was reading the description of the book, I came to the part where the seller writes about the, "Provenance" of the book.  They said it was once on the shelves of, "Booked Up," in Archer City, Texas.  And that it was sold via, "The Last Book Sale" of August 10-11, 2012.  I was in shock.  I had visions that one of my favorite places was closing or had closed. I know that things can't remain the same forever.  But I didn't expect it to happen, now. I looked up the sale via Google.  I found that it was two thirds of the books that were sold.  The shop wasn't closing. 

I was still very disappointed.  June 4, my sister contacted me saying she needed help with some things at my stepmother's house.  This would mean a trip to Texas in the fall (autumn).  I have spent a great deal of the summer imagining myself spending an afternoon in, "building four" at Booked Up in Archer City.  As far as I know, that probably won't be available.  At least not in the same way as I imagined it all these weeks. 

Normally, we start out in, "building one," looking at Biblical books and usually not finding much we would like to own.  Then we head to, "building four,".  We usually go there during the heat of summer, which in Texas anymore starts in spring and ends in winter more than likely.  We would head out from, "building one" down the sidewalk across the front of the court house and then across the street to, "building four".  I would usually be squinting trying hard to keep my eyes open in the bright sun.  (I don't like wearing sunglasses.)  And Douglas would be wearing a hat, plus his cave glasses, -- very dark sunglasses.  I would normally leave the water bottle in the car.  But in 2011 I took it and left it outside or just inside the door.  It would normally be very hot inside there.  I would get extremely thirsty for some reason.  When we arrived, Douglas would usually find a larger coffee table type book on some military history subject.  He would find a spot on or near the floor and begin perusing the book.  It was an effort to try and keep himself from being bored while I looked for books.  His attitude was, "Why look at books I might want, when I can't afford them and don't have time to read them or the space to properly care for them".  At least he was available if I needed him to help me gently take a book off the shelf or retrieve a book from a shelf higher than I was willing to go.

I would start off looking at the travel books.  There was a huge section of guidebooks with some nice old Baedeker's and such like on the shelves.  I would look at guide books for, London (England), England, Scotland, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Latvia, Russia, and Paris.  I don't know how many books I bought from this section.  As I faced the Travel section, behind me were the cookbooks.  I really wasn't allowed to look at those, but I did it anyway.  I have one or two from there.  At one time the foreign language books were in there.  That is the books written in a language other than English.  I can't remember, but I think those moved?  There were language instruction books in there.  I looked through those for German, Russian, and Latvian etc.  I think I got something from there before.  Down the way from the travel books were also things like dictionaries and writing books.  I did get some from there.  I got a really good Oxford Dictionary of Surnames one year. (for naming characters)  Just past the dictionaries and writing books, were the ones about sport.  I looked through those trying to find a book explaining Football (Soccer) to people new to the sport.  I have a British book for, "Football widows," that I got online.  It kind of insults my intelligence. I am on the look out for one that doesn't insult. As you walked in, "building four" all the books dealing with, "entertainment" were along the wall to the left. Books of plays, playwriting, biographies of authors, actors etc., books about journalism, movies, television and radio could be found there.  I can't remember everything.  One year I found a coffee table picture book on the history of soap opera.  I thumbed through it.  It was $15.00 so we didn't get it.  I did see in this book a mention of an early book about the soap, "Guiding Light".  It is a book from the days when, "The Guiding Light" was on radio.  I already knew about the book, "The Guiding Light," by Dr. John Ruthledge. Re-reading about it in the history book was a reminder of it. "The Guiding Light," was copyright in 1938 and is supposed to be by the character, Reverend John Ruthledge.  It is a book with photographs of the actors and actresses in costume, and gives the back stories of the characters and the soap in general.  When we got back to Olney that day, Douglas let me off at a second hand shop on Main Street.  I went to look at the books they had.  One book, "leapt off the shelves".  It was, "The Guiding Light" from 1938.  I had probably seen it the last time we were in Olney.  I believe I pointed it out to Douglas.  We would have thought it an, "objectionable type," religious book and ignored it.  This time I knew what it was.  I was very happy to find it.  Another time or two I found old, "how to write for radio," books along that wall in, "building four". (trying to learn to write radio drama)  I would look at other sections of, "building four," too.  I looked for older picture books of Paris the last time I was there. (2011-- I want them as inspiration for my "Osbert Pickle" story.)

We would make our way back to, "building one," with purchases.  Sometimes Douglas would leave me there so he could look at militaria books in another building.  It was a tradition that on the way back to Olney, we would make a very sweaty stop at the Dairy Queen for, "lunch".  It might be a lone chance for me to get a, "Dude" (chicken fried steak) sandwich which are a favorite and aren't available at Dairy Queens in Michigan.  Of course if you get one of those, you have to drink a Dr. Pepper with it.  (I forget what Douglas would get.  Probably something different each time?)  It always felt wonderful to cool off in the air-conditioned restaurant. Knowing me, I would probably get cold sitting there eating. As we left, the heat outside would really hit you as you walked to the car. (I rode a bicycle and Douglas walked up to our Dairy Queen recently.  I think I asked for an iced tea.  They didn't have any-- as in, they don't make it there-- and we had to get soda pop. How weird is that? August 31, 2012 They don't serve Dr. Pepper either.)

I really li ke to find surprises like the time I discovered, M.V. Hughes in Booked Up. ("About England")  I call such surprises, "fun books".  I never know what these are, until I find them.  If I don't know what to call it, then it is difficult to describe books like, "About England". It is not quite a travel guide book.  It is full of anecdotes, and history of the places and people of England. I didn't know I wanted to read it until I found it.  I liked it so much when I read it that I wanted to find more like it by other authors.  I can't just walk into a shop and say, "Where do you keep your fun books?".  The reply would be, "What do you mean by, 'fun,' books?".  And then what would I say?  I like non fiction that doesn't have to be read, "all at once," to get the meaning or story from it.  I like books you can pick up and put down as you get in the mood to read them.  I usually have several books going at once. (I'm presently reading, "London At Home," by M.V. Hughes.)  Another, "fun book", which I discovered at Booked Up is, "A Dictionary of Dates," from the, "Everyman Library".  How do I describe these books in such a way that I will be able to find ones like them on different subjects, by authors I may have never heard of?  I found a, "Dictionary of Fictional Characters" in, "building four,".  I think I found, "Gilbert and Sullivan Opera," by H. M. Walbrook in Booked Up.  (If it wasn't found there, it was probably the, "Big Book Sale".)   Another example of a, "fun book," is, "Social and Industrial History of England," by F. W. Tickner.  I found the first one I got at the "Big Book Sale". (I write of it in more detail above.  See the entry, "July 17, 2007 Non-Fiction".)

 Although it won't be the same, I hope to visit Booked Up if I go to Texas in the fall, (autumn).  I'll make sure to write about what I find there.