Gerry Wolstenholme's Blog - Posts Tagged "bibliophile-collecting"
Rambles Round My Bookshelves 2
There are many book shelves around my house and every shelf I look on intrigues me and I wonder what the books must think of their neighbours, who often have little or nothing in common with each other; how do they converse I wonder?!
For this second ramble, I am picking a different shelf in a different room from the one I looked at for the first ramble. This is because, apart from my Dickens’ collection, which I try to keep together – at least in the same room – books of different genres nestle next to each other everywhere. You will soon see what I mean!
Books on war, or should that be military history (the heading I used for such in my catalogues in days of yore) are not my favourites but I do have a number of them scattered around the shelves (and the wardrobes). And one leapt off the shelf I am concentrating on and it is Ian McDonald’s The Boer War in Postcards. I am interested in the Boer Wars, perhaps because Conan Doyle wrote about them, and me and Linda were always postcard collectors so the two subjects combined endeared me to this book.
The book provides a vivid record of the way that the war was seen by the people and countries involved as it unfolded before them. The thing that somewhat surprised me from the images within was the number of comic cards that the war spawned. All together with the battle scenes and troop shots they do provide a useful historical record of the conflicts.
Sitting nearby is another military history volume, The Battle of the River Plate. My interest in that battle was pricked when my Dad took me to see the film in 1968 and as a youngster it made a massive impression on me with its high drama; I can still remember the scene in Montevideo harbour with the British ships standing off, the American commentating from the quayside and then Captain Langsdorff scuttling his ship the Admiral Graf Spee. High drama, indeed! I must read it soon to remind of the battle, not least because the book’s sub-title is a somewhat bewildering The Grand Delusion.
Close by is a book that sounds military, Brothers in Arms but its sub-title tells us The Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder. I have always had a fascination for the Kennedys that probably developed when a friend walked into our dormitory in London in November 1963 and announced ‘President Kennedy has been sot.’ We were stunned. So this book could be interesting especially as Lee Harvey Oswald, with his supposed Cuban connections will undoubtedly feature in it.
The nearest a neighbouring book got to warfare was the fact that the subject had a Prussian childhood. The book is Dietrich A Biography. Finely modelled cheekbones and a broad smooth forehead define Marlene, although my early, and perhaps abiding, memory of her was as she appeared in the film The Blue Angel. Once she arrived in Hollywood she became the highest paid woman in the world and this book looks at the lady behind the glittering image. She did visit my hometown of Blackpool in 1954 but I was too young to appreciate it … pity!
And from a movie star we move on to a traveller and explorer in the Last Voyage of Captain Cook as told by John Ledyard (1751-1789) who sailed with Captain James Cook and it is the only account of Cook’s third voyage to be published by an American. It vividly covers life aboard the first ship to sail to the Hawaiian Islands and Cook’s tragic death on an Hawaiian beach. Also in the book is Ledyard’s harrowing journey through Russia and his spell in pre-revolutionary Paris.
A far cry from Paris is Steven Watts’ Mr Playboy: Hugh Heffner and the American Dream. Watts suggests that Hefner ‘profoundly altered American life and values’. This is quite surprising considering Hefner’s Methodist upbringing. My interest lies in reading how he established his publishing empire as Playboy became such a cultural phenomenon. As a bookseller, collections of the playboy magazine would come up in various private libraries that I purchased and I was always pleasantly surprised when I came across serious literary articles within its covers; I distinctly remember one learned one on PG Wodehouse and things like that always helped to sell the magazine to collectors of, in that instance Wodehouse material.
I had never read any Terry Pratchett books, or even owned any of his books as they do not appeal to me. But when I saw Dodger on a bookseller’s shelves and realised that it had undertones of Oliver Twist, I just had to purchase it. It remains unread so far (with hundreds, nay, thousands, of others) but at least own it and can read it when ready – its strapline of ‘a scavenger in the squalor of Dickensian London’ is certainly appetising.
Mention of Dickensian London takes me to a nearby book, The Mile End Murder, which was billed as ‘The Case Conan Doyle Couldn’t Solve’. Author Sinclair McKay writes of the murder of Mary Emsley, an East End girl who was killed in what is described as ‘a veritable locked room mystery’ that took place in August 1860. Investigations revealed a variety of suspects and a sensational public trial followed. Arthur Conan Doyle believed that an innocent man was executed in one of the final executions at Newgate. The author follows this through and ends with a sensational revelation.
And moving on to Edwardian times, there is close by The Peasenhall Murder in which Martin Fido and Keith Skinner collaborate on a 1902 case from the sleepy Suffolk village. It is billed as ‘one of England’s most extraordinary real-life murder mysteries’. We shall see when we read it one of these fine, or not so fine, days.
To crime of a different sort in Scene of the Crime for the book is sub-titled A Guide to the Landscapes of British Detective Fiction. The book represents my interest in crime fiction, particularly from the so-called Golden Age, say 1920 to 1950. The authors Julian Earwaker and Kathleen Becker use a regional approach and also picture selected authors with their comments on their choice of location. For instance, Peter Gutteridge is pictured outside the Half Moon pub in Plumpton where a good part of A Ghost of a Chance was written with the suggestion, ‘The 1979 painting on the wall here provides a vital clue’ – perhaps best not to see it before the book is read!
On a much lighter note The Really Lancashire Book sits alongside and this is a series of essays from a relatively short-lived magazine of the mid to late 1990s. There are historical, topographical, amusing and even dialect essays within its covers (I don’t understand a word of Lancashire dialect although born and bred in the Red Rose county). Two of these are entitled ‘Med I’ Lancasheer’ and ‘Jugglin’ Wi’ Fawse Teeth’, both of which titles are just about understandable, even if the contents of the stories aren’t! ‘Lancashire’s Mormon Connections’ is alongside ‘Southport’s First Car’, which was owned by Felix William Isherwood Hudlass; it apparently claimed a top speed of 15mph! I also noticed ‘A Dedicated Amateur: WW Parr of Blackpool FC’ by a certain Gerry Wolstenholme … enough said, let’s move on!
And finally on this ramble two arty books rub covers with the more macabre titles, Luke Hermann’s 1963 JMW Turner 1775-1851 and Herbert E Binstead’s 1929 The Furniture Styles. I first appreciated Turner when visiting the National Gallery and my interest was increased when Linda and I visited an exhibition of his work at The Tate Gallery. ‘Yellow Billy’ with swatches of his colour on show really captured my imagination from then on! The furniture book comes from our shared interest in furniture design and this one, under the Sir Isaac Pitman imprint, covers many of the style used from Elizabethan through Queen Anne, Chippendale, Sheraton, Adam, Hepplewhite right through to British New Art. And with 177 line drawings it is a real treat.
Oh, well … and so to bed!
For this second ramble, I am picking a different shelf in a different room from the one I looked at for the first ramble. This is because, apart from my Dickens’ collection, which I try to keep together – at least in the same room – books of different genres nestle next to each other everywhere. You will soon see what I mean!
Books on war, or should that be military history (the heading I used for such in my catalogues in days of yore) are not my favourites but I do have a number of them scattered around the shelves (and the wardrobes). And one leapt off the shelf I am concentrating on and it is Ian McDonald’s The Boer War in Postcards. I am interested in the Boer Wars, perhaps because Conan Doyle wrote about them, and me and Linda were always postcard collectors so the two subjects combined endeared me to this book.
The book provides a vivid record of the way that the war was seen by the people and countries involved as it unfolded before them. The thing that somewhat surprised me from the images within was the number of comic cards that the war spawned. All together with the battle scenes and troop shots they do provide a useful historical record of the conflicts.
Sitting nearby is another military history volume, The Battle of the River Plate. My interest in that battle was pricked when my Dad took me to see the film in 1968 and as a youngster it made a massive impression on me with its high drama; I can still remember the scene in Montevideo harbour with the British ships standing off, the American commentating from the quayside and then Captain Langsdorff scuttling his ship the Admiral Graf Spee. High drama, indeed! I must read it soon to remind of the battle, not least because the book’s sub-title is a somewhat bewildering The Grand Delusion.
Close by is a book that sounds military, Brothers in Arms but its sub-title tells us The Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder. I have always had a fascination for the Kennedys that probably developed when a friend walked into our dormitory in London in November 1963 and announced ‘President Kennedy has been sot.’ We were stunned. So this book could be interesting especially as Lee Harvey Oswald, with his supposed Cuban connections will undoubtedly feature in it.
The nearest a neighbouring book got to warfare was the fact that the subject had a Prussian childhood. The book is Dietrich A Biography. Finely modelled cheekbones and a broad smooth forehead define Marlene, although my early, and perhaps abiding, memory of her was as she appeared in the film The Blue Angel. Once she arrived in Hollywood she became the highest paid woman in the world and this book looks at the lady behind the glittering image. She did visit my hometown of Blackpool in 1954 but I was too young to appreciate it … pity!
And from a movie star we move on to a traveller and explorer in the Last Voyage of Captain Cook as told by John Ledyard (1751-1789) who sailed with Captain James Cook and it is the only account of Cook’s third voyage to be published by an American. It vividly covers life aboard the first ship to sail to the Hawaiian Islands and Cook’s tragic death on an Hawaiian beach. Also in the book is Ledyard’s harrowing journey through Russia and his spell in pre-revolutionary Paris.
A far cry from Paris is Steven Watts’ Mr Playboy: Hugh Heffner and the American Dream. Watts suggests that Hefner ‘profoundly altered American life and values’. This is quite surprising considering Hefner’s Methodist upbringing. My interest lies in reading how he established his publishing empire as Playboy became such a cultural phenomenon. As a bookseller, collections of the playboy magazine would come up in various private libraries that I purchased and I was always pleasantly surprised when I came across serious literary articles within its covers; I distinctly remember one learned one on PG Wodehouse and things like that always helped to sell the magazine to collectors of, in that instance Wodehouse material.
I had never read any Terry Pratchett books, or even owned any of his books as they do not appeal to me. But when I saw Dodger on a bookseller’s shelves and realised that it had undertones of Oliver Twist, I just had to purchase it. It remains unread so far (with hundreds, nay, thousands, of others) but at least own it and can read it when ready – its strapline of ‘a scavenger in the squalor of Dickensian London’ is certainly appetising.
Mention of Dickensian London takes me to a nearby book, The Mile End Murder, which was billed as ‘The Case Conan Doyle Couldn’t Solve’. Author Sinclair McKay writes of the murder of Mary Emsley, an East End girl who was killed in what is described as ‘a veritable locked room mystery’ that took place in August 1860. Investigations revealed a variety of suspects and a sensational public trial followed. Arthur Conan Doyle believed that an innocent man was executed in one of the final executions at Newgate. The author follows this through and ends with a sensational revelation.
And moving on to Edwardian times, there is close by The Peasenhall Murder in which Martin Fido and Keith Skinner collaborate on a 1902 case from the sleepy Suffolk village. It is billed as ‘one of England’s most extraordinary real-life murder mysteries’. We shall see when we read it one of these fine, or not so fine, days.
To crime of a different sort in Scene of the Crime for the book is sub-titled A Guide to the Landscapes of British Detective Fiction. The book represents my interest in crime fiction, particularly from the so-called Golden Age, say 1920 to 1950. The authors Julian Earwaker and Kathleen Becker use a regional approach and also picture selected authors with their comments on their choice of location. For instance, Peter Gutteridge is pictured outside the Half Moon pub in Plumpton where a good part of A Ghost of a Chance was written with the suggestion, ‘The 1979 painting on the wall here provides a vital clue’ – perhaps best not to see it before the book is read!
On a much lighter note The Really Lancashire Book sits alongside and this is a series of essays from a relatively short-lived magazine of the mid to late 1990s. There are historical, topographical, amusing and even dialect essays within its covers (I don’t understand a word of Lancashire dialect although born and bred in the Red Rose county). Two of these are entitled ‘Med I’ Lancasheer’ and ‘Jugglin’ Wi’ Fawse Teeth’, both of which titles are just about understandable, even if the contents of the stories aren’t! ‘Lancashire’s Mormon Connections’ is alongside ‘Southport’s First Car’, which was owned by Felix William Isherwood Hudlass; it apparently claimed a top speed of 15mph! I also noticed ‘A Dedicated Amateur: WW Parr of Blackpool FC’ by a certain Gerry Wolstenholme … enough said, let’s move on!
And finally on this ramble two arty books rub covers with the more macabre titles, Luke Hermann’s 1963 JMW Turner 1775-1851 and Herbert E Binstead’s 1929 The Furniture Styles. I first appreciated Turner when visiting the National Gallery and my interest was increased when Linda and I visited an exhibition of his work at The Tate Gallery. ‘Yellow Billy’ with swatches of his colour on show really captured my imagination from then on! The furniture book comes from our shared interest in furniture design and this one, under the Sir Isaac Pitman imprint, covers many of the style used from Elizabethan through Queen Anne, Chippendale, Sheraton, Adam, Hepplewhite right through to British New Art. And with 177 line drawings it is a real treat.
Oh, well … and so to bed!
