Anyone Can Find a Book Gem

Before I start talking about today's books, I want to tell you that you can indeed, in your book forays, whether in the recycling centre, secondhand bookshops, car boot sales or jumble sales find books of incredible value.  I am talking about monetary value.  It has even happened to me.  One day, at a school Christmas sale, a good few years ago, I was checking through the tables and tables of books on offer.  The vast majority were fiction, to my disappointment.  I had come to the sale with a 20 Euro note in my pocket, ten of which rightly belonged to the milkman, and with which I intended to return home. As I looked around the room, crammed with people pushing and pulling mainly paperback books in every direction, under signs proclaiming "Ten books 1 Euro", I realised that there was nothing I wanted.  Then my eye was drawn upwards to some books standing partly open on the top of a cupboard emblazoned with very large drunken letters of the alphabet in psychedelic colours. "What are they?" I shouted to the nearest seller while pointing.  She looked up "Oh, just some non-fiction. Come over here and I'll take them down for you".  Sellers at these school sales are nearly always helpful like that..  She spread them out on a little side-table for me, and  I dismissed immediately the other five which were cookery books. The last had an attractive cover - it was about gardening and I didn't mind how many of those I had. Also, I refused to go home empty-handed, I decided to buy it..."How much, please?"  "Oh, dear, it's quite expensive - the lady who donated it said we should get a good price for it..."   then looking at the book  -  "She said it was worth at least 20 Euro!  Of course, it is a good cause, dear.  "  I probably looked quite taken aback. She looked at me and wiped her brow.  She was probably longing for a cup of tea.

Now €20 is not very much, though it was worth more at that time than now...and I would be spending the milkman's money, though naturally he knew nothing of this.  I hummed and hawed, then saw myself leaving, bookless - a wasted afternoon - not to mention the look of defeat which seemed about to manifest itself on the poor seller's face."I'll take it.."  After all, it was in absolutely perfect condition, and it was for the school funds, and I knew I could dock a few items from the grocery list and have the milkman's money for Thursday when he called...she wrapped it very carefully in a plastic bag for me.

I soon realised that here was one major drawback to possessing this beautiful book, full of prints of paintings which looked very well executed by an artist I'd never heard of...the problem was, I couldn't sit down and read it at table in case I splashed tea or worse on it, I couldn't leave it handy on a table or chair, to be retrieved whenever I wanted to look at it or read a few pages - because it was not small-house-full-of-big-people friendly, not to mention the dog.  So, after it was duly admired by the teenagers and a spouse who raised his eyebrows when I told him what it had cost, it was rewrapped carefully and stowed away safely in an old wardrobe.

A few years later, at an antique book sale in Dublin, I saw my book, and it was priced at some thousands of Euro...without giving away too many secrets.  So you can find a treasure.  But be careful what you wish for.  Because you will never, ever, get the pleasure from such a find that you will get from any of the other wanton, marked, foxed books which are considered the lowlife of the secondhand book world but which contain gems of information or elucidation which you may never come across again in your lifetime.  Because that is the value of 'finds' like my old, often decrepit books - I didn't go looking for them in particular, but they found me and are willing to shower me with their wealth, which cannot be counted in numbers.

Speaking of which, the first book I look at tonight is "Maxed Out - Hard Times, Easy Credit" by one James Scurlock, who looks by his photo inside the front cover of this tallish paperback far too young to have acquired all the experience he writes about inside.  The book was published by Harper Collins in 2007, and appears to have become a film  because he gives a website www.maxedoutmovie.com .Basically it's about so many things financially speaking of which we are all now very aware, the disasters that come from borrowing by credit card or by taking on mortgages which one cannot afford,  the sinister ubiquity of subprime lenders, the global catastrophe it would lead to...this book, as I said, was published in 2007 and I read it from cover to cover, so I was not as dumbfounded as many who lived through the boom years, when the door opened and the vulpine-featured recession came in without knocking.  But it's not too late to read this book, and to think about what is really wrong with the whole darned system.  How we are educating our young people to be the slaves of a system which supports, not just the strong, but the avaricious, the unscrupulous, the downright wicked.  How there must be better than this for us all...and as you read, ask yourself, has slavery really been abolished?

If you are really worried about the future, and spectres of famine and starvation people your dreams, "Eat the Weeds", by Ben Charles Harris is one book for you.  A small paperback published by Keats Publishing, Inc., of New Cannan, Connecticut, its subtitle is " A Fascinating Guide to Sources of Free, Flavorful, Delicious Food."  You may not need this book today, but put it on a shelf, keep it safe, and at least you and your descendants won't starve, That is, if we still have those plants known as weeds, which are trodden on with contempt by those who are unaware of their qualities of nutrition, or of medicine, I bet you thought only pigs could eat acorns, and why did you think Scurvy Grass was so called?  I do beg you, though, first get a good book on wildflowers and weeds, and if you cannot find one at a sale or the recycling centre, do buy one in a bookshop before you test out the fruits of the countryside for yourself, for the aim of the exercise is survival, not eradication of your bloodline by poisoning.

"Traditional Irish Recipes" by John Murphy, is published by .Kilkenny Press, New York, 1988, and printed in wonderful old Irish script such as you might see in the Book of Kells...It's full of, as you might expect, old Irish recipes, and because it's after Christmas and you're sick of all that rich food, in fact you can't bear the thought of it, here is the recipe for Colcannon, which was traditionally eaten at Hallowe'en, many months away unless you're looking backwards...

"You need butter, one half pound of cabbage, three pounds of potatoes a small onion and salt and pepper.  Boil the potatoes, drain and mash well. Chop up the cooked cabbage and mix in with the potatoes, cook the onion gently in butter until soft, and mix into the potatoes and cabbage.  Serve on hot plates with a well of butter in the middle of each mound."  Uh oh, and watch out for the health police...

And that's it.  You would wonder what all the fuss was about, but there you are, a magic food, taken at Hallowe'en and any other time you like, I suppose.  If, like me, you're vegetarian, this is not really the book for you, but the green lettering is very nice indeed, and that is what attracted me to it.

I end tonight with "The Pictorial Encyclopaedia of Railways" by Hamilton Ellis..at a quick glance I thought it was by Havelock Ellis, which caused me some astonishment...but no, it's by Hamilton Ellis, AIMechE, FRSA, and is published by Hamlyn of London. New York. Sydney. Toronto .
In this edition of 1976. Hamilton Ellis writes:

 "It is of course impossible to describe all the things which go to make up the world's railways purely by an illustrated commentary."

...and then proceeds to do just that.

I love railways, they're in my blood, my maternal grandfather and great grandfather were railway engine drivers, my father and uncles worked for a railway, as did a sister and brother.  We were lulled to sleep at night by the sound of shunting trains and the occasional distant whistle. This book has passenger and freight trains inside and out, engines, railway bridges, passengers, railway stations, the world over...it is a magnificent book.  I wonder why someone threw it out?  Was it cast away by an irate spouse, sick of trains and everything to do with them?  Was it a child's beloved book?  Someone treasured it, because it is in top condition for a book rescued from the wire baskets at the recycling centre...

As I say, out there there are gems to be found.