My book-buying "problem"

Talking about cheap, there was much mirth in my household over the xmas period when it became obvious that my requested presents, were all second-hand books off Amazon and that sum cost of presents from my Wife, four children and father-in-law, came to the princely sum of just under £30 before postage was factored in! Apparently, I'm a very cheap date! But in my own defence I read the lot over the Xmas hols and they kept me quietly sitting by the log burner for days...that and the alcohol

Incidentally. my wife's gift cost her £1.50 and she and her friends still mention it 'in passing' every other weekend. They all find it very amusing...probably because none of them would ever dream of accepting a gift of something so cheap!

 

Wives can be placated with crime novels: I balanced the acquisition from an Oxfam shop of three essential titles ( obscure, now buried somewhere in the glory hole ) with three green backed marvels: " An Oxford Tragedy" by J.C. Masterman, 1954 Penguin reprint, "That Yew Tree's Shade" by Cyril Hare ( 1956 in Penguin ), and "Don Among The Dead Men" by C.E. Vulliamy ( 1955 in Penguin ). She's read two, now on a third, and may well go back to charity for another happy reader.

I had a good book-buying year last year acquiring very rare volumes but some books just found me. My big discovery was a battered and damaged original collection of volumes originally published between 1823 and 1830, and to complete the set I came across the modern reprint in a publisher's sale at a mere £1 a volume. In the original set I was missing the last volume, in the reprint I was missing the first volume, but had it printed on my demand for about £20. Originally published by " Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown" of Paternoster Row. Modern publishers Cambridge University Press.

The books are called " Royal Navy Biography" by John Marshall ( c. 1784 to 1837 ). He went to sea aged nine and by 1815 had reached the rank of Lieutenant. After the Napoleonic war he started to research the lives of contemporary high-ranking naval officers, some of whose service began in the 1760's. Some of the biographies were contributed by the officers themselves.

It is a joy to read.

To further placate a wife, or, at least, confuse her, get a battered old copy of William Thackeray's "Vanity Fair", stick a bookmark in it, and say it is better than Jane Austen ( which it is ). Actually reading it is an option, but it is a fabulous book, for all that.

Current page-turners are " Aerial Locomotion" by E.H. Harper and Allan Ferguson, Cambridge at the University Press 1911, original, got for a snip ( modern reprints cost more ) and a real joy: " The Story of The Victoria Line" by John R, Day, pub. by London Transport, 2nd revised edition, 1972, price then 40 pence.

Fascinating fact: The sleepers for the Victoria Line track were made of wood from Jarrah trees ( Eucalyptus Marginate ) and 42,000 sleepers were shipped from Western Australia. There were a lot of Jarrah wood sleepers on the underground, some had been in use since 1909, according to the book.

Which reminds me, I should really be reading a new book by someone who gave me some Jarrah and which arrived from Western Australia on Wednesday,

Owning books is never the owner's problem, it is like quantum physics, the observed knows it is being watched, so sends out an answer even before the question is raised.

 

I don't have so much of a placating problem with my wife. Most every book I want these days tend to be OP so, be default, they're all second hand and a lot are ridiculously cheap (the happy joy of being esoteric). My wife is now in the enviable state of feeling exceedingly guilty of not having bought me anything 'satisfactory' (i.e. high monetary worth) for quite some time and is always urging me to splurge a little (although I do note that she's never quite specified her own definition of 'a little'). That said, I do have my eye on a couple of late 19th Century Baedeker guides for Greece and Central Italy & Rome. I'm hoping to get one of those well used copies with the pressed flowers, train ticket stubs etc. So I can follow whomever owned it around the med in about six years time when the youngest finally goes off to Uni. I bought one of these some years back as a gift for my eldest sons Classic's Master who was retiring. A top chap, taught my boy Latin, AND Ancient Greek in his own time! Came time for retiring so we had a whip round for him and I actually topped up the sum so I could buy him this Baedeker guide. When it arrived it was clear someone had done the tour and it was full of ticket stubs, little notes and pressed flowers and scribbles. It was exactly what I wanted for myself and it absolutely broke my fecking heart to have to wrap it and give it away! It was a touch and go moment there when I nearly replaced it with a mug that said 'World's Best Teacher!'.

Do you know.... we ought to start a thread called the "Books I want to be buried with!", or more simply "Fahrenheit 451", dedicated to those books on your shelf that bring a smile to your face every time you see them, simply because the sheer joy of owning them outweighs everything else.

 

Perhaps not necessary with cheap used books but almost every man wishes their favourite pursuit (motorcycles, guitars, golf, fishing, etc.) had this enlightened feature available. For that matter, a few wives I know would also be enthusiastic fans.

 

This current pile of unread books is what I privately call the "decoy stack". I leave it in plain sight for the missus to see and comment upon as she will.
It distracts her from the much larger quantity which are strategically dispersed in various parts of the house. Also the garage and basement!

 

I was thinking that if I took up smoking for a month or two, I could then quit and claim the money saved on cigarettes to be an economy that justified a higher book allowance.

On second thoughts, with the cost of all these fine first editions, I'd better make it cocaine.

 

Would you be able to perform has a teacher if you decided to dabble with Charley?.. If i packed in smoking, I'd be able to buy more fine first editions. I'm not packing in with ale though..

Stu.

 

The pile has grown !

 

I teach all ages and have gone to work with a hangover once and only once: being around groups of kids in that state is close to hell on earth.

I'm already a bit manic in the classroom; I fear that the white stuff might cause me to explode.

Books: joking aside, wife is pretty indulgent about my book addiction--and they certainly make the living room look nice--but she's less convinced about the need to have files copied from the National Archive. Miss Fortnum (aged 3) is a valuable ally; the other day she told my wife that Daddy needs books.

Next time my wife clocks Andy's name on my bank statement, I should tell her that he's a relationship counselor or something.

 

The wife would not be convinced on you doing a Battlefield Study to Cassino. I'm sure if you convince Miss Fortnum (aged 3), then you could all come together? Daddy needs to go on the above.. I've seen it in the past with a young kid..

Regards.

 

I'm very keen to go, but I only get to see (properly) parents and (now elderly) grandmother every eighteen months or so and the trip to Italy means missing a visit home. Miss Yith wouldn't need convincing--she likes to be beneath the open skies wherever.

 

If anybody deserves to go, then its yourself. I really do hope that you all get the chance in time to come.

Regards,
Stu.

 

“To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.”

― Robertson Davies

I've pulled this quote out a couple of times when asked to defend my "problem" and why I can't part with certain books, even though I've read them. Davies was a huge collector himself so knew the addictive aspect of bibliomania. I was infected from an early age thanks to a heavy dose of parental reading to us and the pernicious influence of W H Smith book tokens. Seeing those little envelopes at birthdays and Christmas, my mind started racing ahead to the ensuing trips to the store where the latest release would be mine, all mine. Fast forward to university and a degree in history where I frequently overspent my book budget by buying books for courses I wasn't even taking just because they caught my eye. I haunted second hand stores, their unique smell enticing beguiling and seducing me as I scouted their shelves for hidden gems. Things took a turn for the worse (or better) when I got a job at one of Canada's top independent book stores, moving from floor staff to shipper/receiver to manager. Books at cost, readers copies, free copies from publisher reps.....huzzah and the monkey on my back became King Kong sized. Moving on and becoming the history buyer for one of Canada's national book chains did not help my issue as the freebies flowed even more!
Fast forward to now.....I have a basement full of books, a wife who can't understand why I need another book on World War Two or the Spanish Civil War and the thought of moving house fills me with sense of impending doom (pack them, get rid of some, refuse to move ever?).
Yes I have an issue. But I enjoy it... And even in these Kindle happy times, those pernicious pushers of publishers still keep issuing new things I must have.
So I remain most sincerely
An unrepentant bibliomaniac.

 

Davies provides another compelling rationale for holding onto all those old volumes:

"A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight."

Robertson Davies is a well kept secret and a man I regard as arguably the best Canadian novelist of all time. It warmed my heart to to see that quote.

 

Just got back from one of the four giant used booksale that happen on U of T campus each fall This year I plan to visit them all!

I tried to be picky, so I only came back with A Full Life by Horrocks. (1962 paperback)

Other Toronto area people, if they are interested in Mike Bechthold's excellent book, Flying to Victory: Raymond Collishaw and the Western Desert Campaign, 1940–1941, or the Haynes manual for the Tiger tank, or for the Sherman, those were all at the Victoria College book sale for $8 Canadian. If I hadn't already read Flying to Victory I definitely would have bought it.

 

Love a good booksale but Toronto a bit far for me.

For those of us in the UK we have the PBFA (including a specialist Military fair in November) but my favourite is Churchdown Fair near Gloucester Airport which is non-PBFA.

Don't know if it's been mentioned on here but there's a good site listing all (or nearly all) 2nd hand book shops in UK, The Bookshop Guide which is great for planning days out (but don't tell the other half beforehand - "Oh, look Darling, a bookshop!")

 

Tolbooth, you are doing your country's tourism board a good turn by telling me these things. Thank you !

It reminds me of a fellow scale modeler who works at the Sharpshooters Regimental Museum who described the castle it is housed in as a distraction for the rest of the family!

 

Chris,
What location at U of T?

 

Hi Canuck, it's in the "Old Vic" building. Here's a link to the sale site.

Book Sale | Friends of Victoria University Library

Cheers!
Chris