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.

The Roar of the Recycling Centre

I don't know if you've ever seen what happens to books at the recycling centre, and of course no doubt they are not all the same.  At my local recycling centre, the first thing you are aware of is the noise; the roar of forklift trucks, shouting, talking, banging noises.  Certainly not like any library you've ever visited, I may suppose.  Against one wall is a row of book shelves, with people unloading their unwanted books from bags and boxes.  A few people browse along the shelves, some taking one or two away  I see a child enthusing to his father about some children's books.  "You know your mother would kill me if you brought one of those home!, says the parent.  They walk away, the child walking backwards and wearing a mournful, disappointed expression.

Periodically, a young man decants armloads of books from the shelves and dumps them unceremoniously into a tall wire basket.  As this fills, other baskets appear.  Then with a roar a forklift arrives and carries away the filled basket.  As more books arrive into the new baskets, a worker in a hi-viz vest stirs the contents around and around.  When I stoop to look he sighs heavily and moves to another basket which he proceeds to agitate in the same, albeit unintentionally diabolic manner.  I root and examine and seize and rescue - he is back and waits with heavy patience until I move away. I consider his job one of the most horrific in the world.  It makes me think of the burning of books in China during the era of Chairman Mao, or the bonfires of the Nazi era in Germany.  But of course this is for environmental reasons.  Still, it's horrible.  In the back of the large recycling warehouse there are cages and cages and cages stacked high with books which will never see the light of day again.  All that print, all that waste...there are people all over the world who do not own one book, who cannot afford to buy even one book, who have nowhere to keep a book, let alone themselves.  A worker at the centre told me that it was not economically viable to send these books abroad.

Now I will tell you about some of the books I liberated from the recycling centre. First off, a slender book in cardboard covers, "The Use of Vegetable Dyes" by Violetta Thurstan, published by the Dryad Press, Leicester.  my copy being its eighth edition, dated 1964.  It is a book full of recipes for making your own dyes from plants of all sorts, including lichens and mosses.  It goes thoroughly into the methods and the plants, but it is only a wee slip of a book, numbering 46 pages and the index.  Did you know that you can make a bluish dye from whortleberry (Vaccinium myrtillus), a yellow from wild mignonette (Reseda luteola) and a black dye from the roots of meadow sweet (Spirea ulmaria)?  The latter was used in the Highlands of Scotland for dyeing the tartans.  It is a little treasure of a book..

I also rescued "Down the Garden Path" by Beverley Nichols.  I remember Beverley had a column in either Woman or Woman's Own, a magazine I used to sneak looks at when my mother was elsewhere, as she considered it not suitable for children...oh, those long-ago innocent times. If she could see the magazines children have access to nowadays... It appears that this volume had actually been a local library book, probably sold off at one of their sales, (one hopes not purloined or just not returned), so it had had a tortuous career path.  The interesting thing is that I had read it before in a tattered copy bought at a school sale which someone 'borrowed' from me and did forget to return.  The copy from the recycling centre is, except for those awful library stamps, in perfect condition.  It was first published in in 1932, and went through twenty impressions until it appeared in my copy, reissued by Florin Books in 1938, Florin being an imprint, it seems, of Jonathan Cape of London and Toronto.  It was first received into the library, the stamp informs, in 1981.  Where it was up to that date, i.e. for 43 years, is a mystery.

It is at times one of the funniest books I have ever read.  Beverley Nichols was a hugely popular writer, and he had his own sometimes quite vicious style.  He tells us in a note before the book begins that some parts of the work appeared in Country Life magazine.  The book describes his first efforts at gardening, but it is the characters who come into it who make it funny -

"I will call my next garden acquaintance Undine Wilkins, because is the sort of bastard name she ought to have had....Because she is very thick-skinned, she will not recognize herself, and I should not greatly care if she did, for she is rich, thoroughly self-satisfied, and now lives in the Colonies." then later   "......she pushed her rather large and thickly powdered nose into a bush of honeysuckle, murmured 'divine jasmine',........she was always posing in ultra-old-world positions all over the garden. While one was squashing beetles or pulling up weeds she would drape herself against a tree or a bush, fondly imagining that she thereby enhanced its beauty..."

Well, it is an old book, so I supppose we'll have to overlook the bit about squashing beetles.

"...She had, for example, a huge hat with ribbons, which she swung girlishly over one arm.
'This is for making hay,' she giggled.
'It looks as if it were made of hay already'.
'Oh let's..let's make hay...now! Lots of it'
I would very much have liked, at that moment, to take her by the neck and rub her nose in an ants' nest. Instead, like a perfect gentleman, I said 'Hay isn't made till July'. Then I added hastily, 'At least, I think it is. At any rate it isn't made in June'
'Oh, but let's make it earlier...and sell it...and make lots and lots of money!'

And then there is Mrs. M.  "She is damnably efficient.  She spends next to nothing on her garden, and gets astonishing results.  She shows you a blaze of delphiniums. 'All out of a penny packet,' she croons. You pass a bank flaming with golden broom. 'All from seed,', she declares. 'A shilling packet I bought years ago'.There is a lot more of Mrs. M., and if you want to see it, I recommend the book.

The BBC Woman's Hour Book , compiled by the Editors, Joanna Scott-Moncrieff and Madge Hart and published by arrangement with the BBC by The World's Work (1913) Ltd. of Kingswood, Surrey in 1957 is a compendium of different essays which were obviously read on the radio.  I have read a great article in it on bloodhounds from which I learned that the breed almost disappeared after the second world war, that bloodhounds will check and examine and turn over several times meat given to them even by their owner, before even considering consuming it, and that their ability to follow a scent has never been surpassed by any other breed.  This was a piece by a lady known as Viscountess Waverley of whom I know nothing, but the book is full of wonderful writing, from 'Starting a Tea-Shop' by one Philip McCutchan to a sad and funny tale of unrequited love, 'The Doom of Being a Clown in Love' by Pamela Frankau.  Why is that name familiar!  The pieces are so short that they could be read while waiting, for the kettle to boil, or the TV ads to finish, or something in the oven to bake.

I wanted to tell you about more of these 'rescues' but time is running out.  But I must tell you about 'A Guide to the Languages of Europe - A Practical Phrase-Book'  by Archibald Lyall, published in London by Sudgwick & Jackson, Ltd.from 1932 until my own copy dated 1948.
I must confess that I have a 'thing' about languages, and I couldn't believe my eyes, I was so pleased when I reached in and retrieved this book from one of the baskets.  The languages are French, Italian, Spanish, Portguese, Romanian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian....I had better stop before you flee...but entrancingly Albanian, Arabic and Esperanto are included in the languages dealt with, 26 in all.   Lyall deals with the pronunciation, and gives some useful phrases and a handy dictionary for each language.  I am the possessor of some multi-language electronic dictionaries,  but I still love this book.

I end by recounting what a friend said when I told her about my adventures at the recycling centre -"Oh, I would be embarrassed to do that..."  I can be shy at times, but when I want a book, and particularly when it's free, embarrassment is not in the equation.
You see, by the way, that I am now capable of making a mathematical reference, having reached Page 55 of  'Mathematician's Delight', see above.

Good night for now.

Happy New Year, everyone. I've been at the shelves again...

The first book today has memories for me.  I found it in a little bookshop off the main street of a nearby town, the proprietor of which wore a single earring and had a baleful expression permanently fixed on his face.  He responded to questions about his stock in monosyllables, all the while adopting a threatening stare.  Having received a particularly terse response to a query re. the location of his language section, I decided to forage alone, only to hear another browser I had noticed earlier tell him that his rudeness was insufferable and he should apologise to me.  I instantly grabbed the nearest book I could find in which to bury myself, which proved to be Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish.  I have always loved Spanish, having studied it in school with a sweet little nun who was only two years older than myself.  The convent which ran the school recruited novices for the South American missions, gave them basic lessons in Spanish and set them loose on a class for teaching practice.  I recall clearly the day this sweet little nun was told she was going out to Chile...she spent the hour with her head on the desk weeping, while we sat as quiet as mice and absorbed our verbs in -ir.  I sometimes wonder about her, did she really go, is she still there? ... you know the way you wonder about people and things in the past. I don't wonder about that particular bookshop owner, though.  The economic recession carried him and his shop into oblivion...it's a pity really, there were great books there.  However, I may well have come across some of them again at the recycling centre.



The first interesting thing about Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish is that it teaches Spanish through identifying the parts of it which are close to English, taking English nouns and substituting Spanish endings for the English ones, turning them - Hey Presto - into Spanish...at least that's what happens in the early chapters of the book and I haven't gone further than those at the moment...there is a by-the-way subtle introduction also to words which are quite unlike English ones, which the student absorbs along the way. it seems a pretty good system, with a modicum of the grammar you can invent endless sentences using your English nouns converted to Spanish.  I would imagine it would be particularly good for those who are aiming at a reading knowledge of the language.

However, there is another, even more interesting aspect to this book: illustrations are by one Andrew Warhol.  I went online to investigate, and yes, it seems that this is the famous Andy Warhol, who earned his bread and butter in his early days as a book illustrator.  The illustrations appear at the start of each lesson, and they are like nothing so much as little doodles e.g. a guitar, pipes (for smoking), a postcard.a bicycle...  The only ones I can find in colour (or color, since this is an American book) are the three sombreros on the front cover.  The book was published by Doubleday & Company Inc., New York. and the last date on my copy is 1953. I do not recall what I paid for it but inside the front cover £1 sterling is marked in pencil.

I have to thank the local public library sale for the next two books.  The drawback to books bought at such sales is that they have labels or the remains of them, as well as stamps on some pages.  I have seen first editions of books, signed by their authors, sadly defaced by these labels or their remains.  No effort is usually made to remove them gently, and the inside covers, back and front, bear glue or paste marks, traces of white paper, and that dreaded 'withdrawn from stock' stamp which legitimises the purchase.  However, if you have had a favourite book which you have borrowed again and again, as in my own case, there is a high chance that you will eventually be able to call it your own. 

"Games with Pencil and Paper", by Denise and Norman Williams, came from one of these library sales.  From what I can see, you only need a pencil, paper, and sometimes a die to amuse yourself and your companions with the games from this book published in 1951 by the Blandford Press. London.  It is a product of pre-  personal computer or laptop days, of course, but its very simplicity without any need for an electric socket or various cables, let alone a keyboard or monitor, to my mind makes the contents vastly appealing.  But I am old-fashioned.  Still, if ever batteries become unobtainable and electricity in very short supply, this book will have a particular value if Scrabble or Monopoly pall.  In the menu, sorry, Contents, good old Battleships and Noughts and Crosses appear among many other games.  Actually, on looking at the rules for the games in general, and the necessity for 'supervisors', as well as the rules for players and teams, time limits, scoring  and the totting up of results, I feel exhausted already.  Many of the games involve being able to spell also, and being aware of a certain amount of acquaintances who can't write even a brief note on computer without the help of spellcheck, I have a feeling that this book would have a limited appeal.



"The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin" was donated to our local library by The Sufi Trust, and I am very glad it was.  The author is given as Idries Shah and the publisher was the Octagon Press, London.  My copy is dated 1995, and since I have it a few years now, it didn't stay too long on the library shelves.  In fact now I see it was admitted to the hallowed walls of the library in 2001, firmly stamped on the back of the title page. It is in beautiful condition except for that stamp and the dreaded 'withdrawn from stock'. Basically it's a volume containing many really short anecdotes relating the adventures of the intrepid Mulla Nasrudin.  The inscription on the outside of the back paper cover tells us that "Nasrudin is an international folk hero of medieval origin but timeless appeal.  ...Whether his anecdotes are studied for their hidden wisdom, or enjoyed for their pungent humour, they are an enduring part of the world's cultural heritage."  I'll go with that..I have read many of them, and enjoyed them, laughed at some of them, and been struck by the wisdom of a lot of them.  So now, a short example...



"You may have lost your donkey, Mulla, but you don't have to grieve over it more than you did about the loss of your first wife" "Ah, but if you remember, when I lost my wife, all you villagers said: "We'll find you someone else"  So far, nobody has offered to replace my donkey".
 
Well, yes, of course the book may well be one you might have to acquire a taste for, as I have.

At the end of my first week blogging, I will take a photo of the books I have mentioned, so if you are really interested, you can see what they look like.  I am sure they will be no more nor less photogenic than the rest of us.

Two Books on New Year's Eve

I have finally arrived at the computer to begin my blog.  No sooner had I pulled the first books from a shelf where they leaned companionably on one another, than an obstacle arose, in the person of myself.  I began to read, which was definitely not conducive to blogging, and had reached Page 45 of my first book before I realised that this was not going to get the project started.

This first book is the most amazing thing.  It is a Pelican Original paperback first published in 1943, reprinted several times - my copy is dated 1960.  For a reason I don't properly understand, the writer's copyright is dated 1959.  No doubt someone will be able to explain it to me.  The author is one W.W. Sawyer, and the book is 'Mathematician's Delight'.  I opened it at the first page and was hooked - it will not be returning to the shelf for a while.  On the blue and white cover is a rough outline of a head full of numbers, a nice design really.  I am amazed that I am even reading it.  Basically it is an approach to mathematics which would not be out of place today, not just for people like me who know very little about maths, but for any person who might hope to make it part of their life's work.  The author addresses the fear of mathematics, tells us what the uses of mathematics are, explains the difference between applied maths and theoretical maths, and chats about it in a easy-going, pleasant fashion which is quite unputdownable.  This opinion, I assure you, is all the more surprising coming from myself, who last week came upon some school maths lessons online, clicked on 4th class, skipped to the end and took the four multiple-choice questions offered, and got two right. Which sounds better than "got two wrong".  I don't know if this book is in print anywhere still, but it should be...I wish I had come across it when I was at school...

Its provenance is that I bought it with some language books at a school sale in a small town near here..it bears an inked stamp proclaiming that it came from a Christian Brothers' School in Limerick, Ireland, and I consider the pupils who were educated from it lucky indeed, for no doubt they are now well-versed in mathematics, have never had a fear of the subject, and may even now be involved in some ground-breaking work in physics or astronomy or the like which has given them enormous joy and fulfilment over the years.  They may even have been able to do the puzzles offered daily in the more upmarket newspapers...
Someone has splashed white paint on the back cover, but somehow, it does not take from the beauty of this book..

I really don't know who wrote the next volume, which I found in the local recycling centre.  It's called 'Excursions in Thought' and the author is "Imaal".  I googled him but all that came up were loads of sites about Glen of Imaal terriers.  I know the Glen of Imaal is in Wicklow, Ireland, but why the author took this pseudonym is a mystery.  There is a printed dedication inside:
"To each of his fellow voyagers in the ship of life, the author dedicates this book, but in especial to his friend, Daniel Corkery."

Daniel Corkery was an Irish writer, teacher, literary critic, nationalist, I found when I googled him, so it's a safe bet that "Imaal" is Irish, although the phrase 'in especial' struck me as a little peculiar...Anyway, this book, published in 1921 by The Talbot Press, Dublin jointly with T. Fisher Unwin Ltd. London basically seems to be a work of philosophy, or perhaps even of religion.  It is quite 'wordy'  and does not really read easily.  It is a pity I can't find out who "Imaal" is.  Someone has written notes in the margins of the book, and there are pressed flowers between the pages 94 to 95.  There is a 'holy picture' also being used as a bookmark, in memory of someone becoming a priest, which explains the many religious references,  The date of his ordination was interestingly enough July 12th...

man, the author says, "...can fly now, but he must fly faster;,,,,,,,,,,,,,He never asks himself what fine thing he will do when he reaches his destination by an aeroplane that outstrips the swallow, or with the time gained by manufacturing things faster than they are wanted.  He drugs his soul with speed...St Paul could not fly; he could not outstrip the swallow. Slowly, upon foot, he bore immortal tidings in "weighty words" over many lands.  ....Flying is not an evil, indeed; yet, as Keats said, it is nobler to sit like Jove than to fly like Mercury.....The power of putting words on paper by machinery has not made the words any wiser or the writing any better." Sadly, how true.

I find the reference to the pagan Jove and Mercury following on St. Paul quite curious...then, another curious remark "As man has multiplied genius has dwindled."  So what happened to the virtues of "Go forth and multiply..."?

It seems that the authors of  'Mathematician's Delight' and "Excursions in Thought" might have a few disagreements. "Imaal" writes "We may divine, then, that the Arts were not meant to wed with mechanical means, nor the Sciences to serve violent or ugly ends."  While on Page 38 of his work, Sawyer writes:
"It is true that pure mathematicians, working in this way under the inner compulsion of an artistic urge, have not only enriched mathematics  with many interesting discoveries, but have also created  methods of the utmost value for practical men....It pays humanity to encourage the artist, even if the artist does not care in the least about humanity." Two different points of view, certainly I have come to the conclusion, skimming through the work composed by "Imaal", that it may well have been self-published.  I don't think I will be reading much more, so whether it was a worthwhile venture all-in-all I will not be able to decide.  There is a handwritten note in stern black ink written between the end paper and cover, unfortunately it is largely illegible.  It would be nice if it turned out to be penned by someone famous...

I intended to include more books in today's blog but discussing the first two has taken its toll on me...and after all, it is New Year's Eve. The next instalment will be in 2012..

I have decided to become a book blogger

I think actually the books themselves have decided this.  They are everywhere in this house.  They live in sheds outside too. There is not a surface covered from the weather in and around our house where a book does not recline.  When someone decides to tidy them away, hey presto, more books take their seats.  Here is total book anarchy. They follow no rules of shelving, as to genre, alphabet or even size.  I was looking at them, and they were looking back, when suddenly I got the idea - I feel, I am sure, that they want me to blog about them.  I am going to talk about them, but I will not be reviewing them, not in the normal sense, anyway.  Each book here feels it is, an individual, and so I will treat them that way.  Every day I will pull a few books off my staggering shelves and talk about them.  Some I have read; many more, I plan to read; some I just hope to read but recognise that I may never do so.  But I can justify their existences by writing about them.

You know the joke about the person who can't think of a present for a friend, certainly not a book, because she has one of those?  That is one sort of person who won't be interested in this blog.  Then there are people like a neighbour of mine, who spends some days reading a book, following which he immediately unloads it onto someone else.  He has a coffee table with a tenancy of about three books, changing all the time. He does not understand how you can be fond of a book, as an item.  He has one he is reading, one he is going to read, and one that has outstayed its welcome, but will be gone as soon as he can get rid of it.

Books are a tradition in my family.  Not for literary reasons, though.  For books to read we went to the library. But as a hobby, my mother and my aunt went to auctions.  They frequently bought joblots, in many of which books figured largely.  I recall many days through the years when trunks, boxes, bags of books were delivered by the local auctioneer's man to our front door.  We pored through them for hours, admired them, but rarely read them.  Some were valuable.  Most were not.  Many have found their way to my house.   Mostly, however they are not fiction.  I find it hard to read fiction, and only then short books. So the only fiction in the main are so-called classics, a few additional solated favourites, and books in particularly  beautiful editions. Non-fiction books are my thing.  I stand holding a book on shoemaking, painting, handreading, meteorology, and I am the owner of these mysteries.  Or so I like to think, if I were only to start at the beginning of these books and follow through to the end.  These books empower.  In my case, they could empower. It is the possibilities within their covers that entrance me.  That is why they share my home. And that is why I want to write about them.