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The Bibliophilia Thread

This should be right up our poltergeist-infested street. Has anyone read this?

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Unfortunately I'm easily-swayed by incontestably-excellent recommendations, and have therefore ordered this book right now <stares at the ever-growing piles of brilliant books towering the walls of a mouldering hovel>
 
This should be right up our poltergeist-infested street. Has anyone read this?

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Quite like the cover.

It's this chap, isn't it?

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This should be right up our poltergeist-infested street. Has anyone read this?...

I had a flick through in Topping & Co, Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago.

First impressions (and I may be being totally unfair, because it really was a quick glance): an attractive book, physically chunky, but maybe a little lightweight otherwise.

And on the matter of Topping & Company: I'd never heard of them before, but their Edinburgh branch is the kind of place bibliophiles go to die of happiness.
 
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I had a flick through in Topping & Co, Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago.

First impressions (and I may be being totally unfair, because it really was a quick glance): an attractive book, physically chunky, but maybe a little lightweight otherwise.

And on the matter of Topping & Company: I'd never heard of them before, but their Edinburgh branch is the kind of place bibliophiles go to die of happiness.
Toppings of Bath has been my go-to haven of sanity for years.

I go there regularly to enjoy their free tea, which is very good - though as I spend an absolute fortune there I don't feel guilty.

And if I get to Edinburgh - or Ely or St Andrews - I shall make a bee-line for their shops there. Toppings is one of the things that gives me hope for humanity!!
 
This should be right up our poltergeist-infested street. Has anyone read this?

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I saw this recently in Waterstones Chelmsford but the blurb on the back didn’t excite me enough to buy it. If anyone has read it and can recommend it I will give it a go.
Thing is you get to an age (60 in my case) and have read that many ghost books that you have seen (or read it) all before and you need something with “a little bit more to offer” to inspire you.
 
...And if I get to Edinburgh - or Ely or St Andrews - I shall make a bee-line for their shops there. Toppings is one of the things that gives me hope for humanity!!

I agree, although I can't speak for any but the Edinburgh branch, which manages to be both huge and cosy, with a meandering layout, and...ruffle my hair and call me Frankie...library ladders, and makes you half wonder if you haven't walked onto a film set for a Carlos Ruiz Zafón adaptation - or maybe into some Borgesian storyline (but on one of his happy days).

Daunt Books, Marylebone has been my favourite bookshop in the UK for many years - but it's now got competition.
 
...Thing is you get to an age (60 in my case) and have read that many ghost books that you have seen (or read it) all before and you need something with “a little bit more to offer” to inspire you.

Totally agree. The older you get the harder it gets to fix that particular jones. And the internet - which you would think should make the data more diverse - only seems to have degraded the subject overall.
 
...Thing is you get to an age (60 in my case) and have read that many ghost books that you have seen (or read it) all before and you need something with “a little bit more to offer” to inspire you.

Don't want to swerve too far off thread - but if you haven't already, try reading True Ghost Stories of Our Own Time, by Vivienne Rae Ellis. I've recommended it many times before, and it's a book I've gone back to several times - usually when I haven't had a decent fix for a while. Fortunately, there's generally enough of a gap between readings that I've forgotten at least some of the stories within. Available for less than the price of a pint.
 

Darwin Online has virtually reassembled the naturalist’s personal library

Famed naturalist Charles Darwin amassed an impressive personal library over the course of his life, much of which was preserved and cataloged upon his death in 1882. But many other items were lost, including more ephemeral items like unbound volumes, pamphlets, journals, clippings, and so forth, often only vaguely referenced in Darwin's own records.

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Oil painting by Victor Eustaphieff of Charles Darwin in his study at Down House. One of the many bookcases that made up his extensive personal library is reflected in the mirror

For the last 18 years, the Darwin Online project has painstakingly scoured all manner of archival records to reassemble a complete catalog of Darwin's personal library virtually. The project released its complete 300-page online catalog—consisting of 7,400 titles across 13,000 volumes, with links to electronic copies of the works—to mark Darwin's 215th birthday on February 12.

Darwin was a notoriously voracious reader, and Down House was packed with books, scientific journals pamphlets, and magazine clippings that caught his interest. He primarily kept his personal library in his study: an "Old Study" and, after an 1877 addition to the west end of the house, a "New Study." A former governess named Louise Buob described how Darwin's books and papers inevitably spilled "into the hall and corridors, whose walls are covered with books."

The French literary critic Francisque Sarcey remarked in 1880 that the walls of the New Study were concealed "top to bottom" with books, as well as two bookcases in the middle of the study—one filled with books, the other with scientific instruments. This was very much a working library, with well-worn and often tattered books, as opposed to fine leather-bound volumes designed for display. After Darwin died, an appraiser valued the scientific library at just £30 (about £2,000 today) and the entire collection of books at a mere £66 (about £4,400 today).

The two main collections of Darwin's books—amounting to some 1,480 titles—are housed at the University of Cambridge and Down House, respectively, but that number does not include the more ephemeral items referred to in Darwin's own records. According to the folks at Darwin Online, tracking down every single obscure reference to a publication was a case study in diligent detective work.

One of the project's major sources was a handwritten 426-page compilation from 1875, whose abbreviated entries eventually yielded 440 previously unknown titles originally in Darwin's library. They also scoured Darwin's reading notebooks, Emma Darwin's diaries, a 1908 catalog of books donated to Cambridge, and the Darwin Correspondence (30 volumes in all), as well as historic auction and rare book catalogs.

https://arstechnica.com/science/202...les-darwins-complete-personal-library-online/

maximus otter
 
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First edition from 1943.

The pages are slightly browned and wavy owing to wartime economy paper, and some clown put a sticker over an inscription on the ffep, but it's a lovely read.

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Found this one in a charity shop for £3.99 Batsford 1950 2e 1952 Illustrations from drawings by Eric Fraser. It remindd me of two Christmas presents I got from an uncle about 60 years ago which I'll put in separate posts as I'm having problems with positioning images and text!
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