How funny, I was looking for a good book as an overview for the Falklands the other day. I've been on the look out for a South Atlantic Service Medal group with a strong Liverpool connection for my collection and wanted some background reading in preparation. I was two years older at the time, but still spotty!
I would have cracked by now as the subject is worthy, but it is quite a chunk of cash when I don't really know how well he writes/compiles. Has the N&MP sale all gone a bit DFS? Will it ever end, or does the winter sale just slew into the Christmas, the new year, the spring, forever? £12 a pop is not fair on the weak-willed among us.
Nobody on this yet? MILITARY SUN HELMETS OF THE WORLD RRP: £35.00 Winter Sale: £6.39 This is a definitive and beautifully illustrated history of the military sun helmet from the British Raj to the Vietnam War and beyond. This book at last gives this helmet its place in the sun. MILITARY SUN HELMETS OF THE WORLD - Naval & Military Press
I was looking at another one. I don't know the first thing about the subject, but 'underground' & 'cold war' is hitting something subliminal and I'm thinking Threads and Blake's 7 meet Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy with retro-consoles all over the show. UNDERGROUND STRUCTURES OF THE COLD WAR: The WORLD BELOW RRP: £25.00 Winter Sale: £4.79 The secret subterranean structures featured in this fascinating book range from small shelters designed to house three men from the Royal Observer Corps, to a giant bunker where 600 people would have tried to carry on governing what was left of Britain in the event of a nuclear attack. Intriguing and chilling combined.
After a bit of bartering I've managed to snap up a copy for a tenner of the Folio edition of Xan Fielding's classic account Hide and Seek of SOE activities in Crete. There's a lovely reproduction map included complete with annotations by Paddy Leigh-Fermor. Happy days.
I could go off you. Though... That would make a fine present for a dad that spent far longer than in in the ROC, so I will forgive. That is handsome. And slipcases. Mmmmm.
Not a bad haul, if you like dead museum guidebooks & Osprey. (I know I'm in safe company to admit this...) As an aside, the charidee shops are choked with instantly discarded military history of the sort confused people buy their dads. Get in there if looking for something recent & 'popular'. And before D says something sarcastic; there are vehicles in each one, so nyah. And Osprey books don't count anyway. One is obliged to buy them for a couple of quid.
You're not helping with that nagging self-awareness, y'know. Am definitely currently 'going a bit wrong' with books again. Passing envious of JB etc's focus, & purchase of single exquisite volumes, but that dread urge to collect, combined with improved finances (and beautiful beautiful shiny/old/weird vehicle books, & N&MP, & Abe, & Amazon & Charity shops) is creating a growing future market for our local suppliers of shelving material. Telling myself I'm not as bad as some others I know visit here, but I'm just the same really, only not as far down the track. New reading specs next... which can only increase the current affliction. I know people who don't really collect things. They live in neat, minimal, uncluttered houses. Ghastly.
This thread is no support group, though. It's the equivalent of someone standing on a corner whispering "pssst, wanna see a shiny SOE book? Cheap."
"It says here the charge is aiding and abetting a bibliophile in the acquisition of six rare volumes..."