Dear List
It has been a bonus month for books!
You may remember I culled by collection a few months ago. No bibliophile culls his collection for any other reason than to make space for new and better books.
There has been a bumper crop.
First off, all of you are assigned to look up the web site for "Broad Street Books" in Branchville NJ. This is a VERY upscale second hand book store which deals ONLY in non-fiction. The prices are shockingly CHEAP! I got a full folio oversized book of the complete works of Da-Vinci as a present for a friend for $15.00 USD. The second on World War Two is 12 feet high by 20 ft long. Other history sections are comparable. They in fact are now expanding to another store.
Second is "Twice Sold Tales" in Farmington Maine, which accepts novels and all other kinds of books with comparable prices to Broad Street Books. Amazing stuff. I go there every time. If any of you ever visit me in Maine and you all have a standing invitation anytime after the house is built (which is going up as we speak) you will be brought here as well. Bring money.
Third was the local thrift shop where all books go for .50 cents.
I sense a number of deaths in the local area which always shake loose long held books sent to the thrift stores and others by essentially uncaring and imbecilic relatives.
Anyway the following treasures have been acquired.
As my birthday is coming up Dot got me a Birthday present, acquired through no little wheedling and begging of my own. It is a boxed, five volume set of gorgeously engraved covers of the five great works on the Middle Ages.
H.St LB Moss, The Birth of the Middle Ages.
R.W. Southern "The Making of the Middle Ages"
Geoffrey Baraclough The Crucible of the Middle Ages 1000 to 1100
John H. Mundy- The High Middle Ages
Jan Huizinga- The Waning of the Middle Ages.
All of these are world class medievalists and all of them have no need of introduction. The books are excellent, and the paper is heavy thick non-acidic and of course-- Anything like a black and white picture would NOT be allowed and all of the illustrations are in full color.
At $75 USD for the set it's a lot but at $10. USD or so a book still cheap for the engraving and status.
For snob appeal alone it's worth it.
From "Broad Street Books"
William J. Bennet "The Book of Virues" : A treasury of Moral stories."
______________" The Moral Compas" "A companion to "The Book of Virtues."
I love fairy tales. These are fairy tales for the adult and they are wonderful. They are tales of heroism and perserverence and moral exeplaries.
I just leaved through it at the store and found a poem that is exactly what I have said in many words but reduced to a few.
It goes for war games as well as the world.
"It Can't Be Done."
The man who misses all the fun
Is the man who says "It can't be done."
In solemn pride he stands aloof
and greets each venture with reproof.
Had he the power he'd efface
The history of the human race;
We'd have to radio or motor cars
No streets lit by electric stars,
No telegraph or Telephone
We'd linger in the age of stone.
The world would sleep if things were run
by Men who said "It can't be done."
50 cents each at the Thrift store.
Richard S. Lewis "From Vinland to Mars" A Thousand Years of Exploration. So-so standard, good for a read. Then we shall see if it's a keeper.
50 cents from the Thrift stoer.
Marina Warner "Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism." Not your usual man-hating Hillary book of the martyrdom of La Pucelle. She makes the case of the examination of the myth of the maid Warner seems to take Joan at face value and never leaves the opinions of her contemporaries and examines here heroism In medieval terms, and does not appropriate her for presentist politics.
.50 cents at the thrift store.
Claudio Magris "Danube: A journey through the landscape , history and culture of Central Euorope." This is NOT "Danubia" but a separate work. I have bought this as a hard copy replacemen of a book I have in paperback.
$6 USD at Broad Street books.
Adrian Tinniswood "The Vernays: A true story of Love, War, and Madness in seventeenth Century England."
A history of the family in the English Civil War
.50 cents at the Thrift store.
Henry Kissinger "Diplomacy"
The author and the title says it all. I suspect this is a discounted book from Sussex County Communit College, which shows no sign of ever having been read. I was not a fan of Kissinger nor of his diplomacy but one must read all sides of a question.
Susan Pederson "The Guardians: The League of Nations and Crisis of Empire"
.50 cents at the thrift store.
Jacob Bronowski "The Ascent of Man."
I am a sucker for books like this. Brownowski is attempting to tie the ascent of man to science and I think biology. It will be interesting to read. I have my own theories and these are well known. But again one must read all sides in a question.
$4 USD at Twice Sold Tales.
James McPherson "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era." Talked about this many times before. Bought it as a hard cover replacement for my much worn paperback.
$9 USD at Twice Sold Tales.
Anne De Courcy "The Fishing Fleet:Husband Hunting in the Raj." The "Fishing Fleet" is the name used to describe the flow of women from England in the 19th century to India in search of husbands who were employed in the British East India Company, and later when it was incorporated under the Viceroy. It is, in fact, the back history so wonderfully illuminated by Kipling in his plain tales from the hills.
It is in fact a hoot to read! De Courcy notes early on that a woman had to be extremely ugly or over-picky not to find a husband in 19th Century India and fes of them had to suffer the ignomy of going back to England after a year or two under the slang term "returned empties." I am reading it now and it is great. The book only deals tangentially with Indian women who married British officers and officials, but this book on the English side brings to mind Kiplings words about one of them. It seems this Englishmen went out to "Tea" that is run a tea plantation, where after a time he forgot most of his friends in England and looked upon India as "his country." He married a girl, Dunmaya , daughter of our regimental Subhadar, who had a strain of hill blood in her, and who dressed in European clothes of yellow and black in which she look extravagantly fine, and within six months had made him a perfect wife, reproving his profliagate ways and running his home. Now a Hill man, no matter what his exposure to the ways of a white man remains a hill man to the end of his life, but a hill woman within six months will adopt all of the ways, manners, speech,a nd society of her English sisters to perfectly that you will think her born and bred in England."
A fascinating tale. it is one further plank of proof that I find to my belief that the British Empire, or ANY empire, for that matter will only prosper and thrive once the women get control of it through their husbands, who tend to be very great fools indeed.
$7 USD a Twice Told Tales
Robert K. Massie "Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman." This is the only paperback I bought, and like all Massie books it is a Massive book. But it seems to be a good one. I will read it until I bump into a hard cover.
50 cents at the Thrift store.
On the whole a good haul.
Otto