Re: The Well of Lost Plots
Posted by:
skiffle (---.range217-44.btcentralplus.com)
Date: April 03, 2003 02:45PM
Bravo, PSD:
a man passionate about books.
I collect pony stories, but for the story inside, not just for the book itself. I don't mind if my first edition has an inscription written in ink:
"To Judy, Happy Christmas 1958 from Auntie Freda and Uncle George"
The book has a history, a past life. It was chosen as a gift.
I try to take care of my books, so they will last to be enjoyed for years to come. Some of them are so beautiful. I have large, Country Life pony books, dating from the 30's and 40's, with the loveliest pencil illustrations, printed on thick paper. Sadly these have lost their dust jackets but I treasure the smaller books that have theirs, tatty though they may be. Sometimes I pick my books up and handle them just for the pleasure of doing so.
I bought an animal charity jigsaw last year, titled 'The Literary Cat'. The picture is a large black cat in a bookcase, lying on the middle shelf. Stacked here and there on the shelves are a variety of classics, all lovely old cloth-bound hardbacks: Aesop, Dickens, Myths and Legends, Gallico.... There's also some flowers and fruit, and a maddening assortment of blue and white china. It was a lovely jigsaw to do, even if I kept getting stuck on Thackery's twiddley bits.