stolen from boglin

[cybermule]

1. The Haunted House - Jan Pienkowski. It's just a wicked pop-up book, OK?
2. Danny, the Champion of the World - Roald Dahl. He lived in a carvan and defeated some posh people by liberating their pheasants. Story of 5 years of my life. [in my head *ahem*]
3. Milroy the Magician - Paul Theroux. This one is just deeply strange. It's about a little girl who goes to live with a health-freak magician in an airstream. And it's aimed at adults :) Paul Theroux also introduced me to the joy of travel writing, and spawned Louis Theroux :)
4. The Feynman Lectures. Hard maths made easy for chemists/physics properly explained.
5. The Lord of the Rings. Just because.
6. One of my OU course books last year, because that part of the course got me interested in both Old English and linguistics.
7. Circles of Stone - Aubrey Burl. Nice archaeology pics.
8. Fungus the Bogeyman - Raymond Briggs. This just had a profound influence on me - I am Fungus. I was going to say Eeyore, but I don't like the books at all.
9. Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake. More dark fantasy.
10. Crime and Punishment. Just because I finally read it, understood it and liked it.


That was really hard - I might well change it in the morning.

Comments

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Oh, I loooooooove 'Danny, the Champion of the World'! The villain is just so very, very... loathsomely rich.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

Yeah - Roald Dahl was excellent at making loathsome characters. I nearly put "Fantastic Mr Fox", just because of Boggis and Bunce and Bean, but that one was less personally relevant.

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

My favorite Dahl was 'The Twits', for the villains.

My favorite Dahl of all time is 'The Witches' - I read two copies to shreds, and had to buy a third by the time I was ten.

I like the autobiographical ones, too :)

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

I like the autobiographical ones, too :)

Me too. Did you ever read "The Story of Henry Sugar", though? I think that's my absolute favourite.

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

YES! I did. About the very rich man who could see the future (or something like that, it's been a while) and looked into the mirror and saw his own death in the form of a bloot clot moving towards his heart.

I think.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

Yeah - that's the one. He learns to see through cards after he reads a book on yogic mysticism in a friend's library.

That's so neat - you're the only person I know who's read that. Or at least, the only person who I didn't harrass into reading it :)

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

I think I was about eihgt last time I read it though - I'm surprised I remembered as much as I did :p

[amiga500.livejournal.com]

Ack, I was always sort of afraid of Roald Dahl, but managed to not be upset by the Matilda movie. It probably helped that I was 20 when I saw it, though.

I don't have enough books. I did, but had to leave them with my parents, so now I have Banana Yoshimoto, a Penelope Lively book my mum gave me, a science fiction book about Buddy Holly (seriously), the old Our Bodies Ourselves, old Moosewood cookbook, and a reprint of a cookbook from the 1910's. Oh, and some really flaky guide to palmistry from the seventies. I don't like to think what those say about me, though at least having the cookbook without pictures or even cooking instructions in half the recipes probably means I'm okay in the kitchen.

[kidkarrot.livejournal.com]

Roald Dahl was the author of Matilda as well? I didn't know that, but I do remember really enjoying his James and the Giant Peach book from eons ago.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the cartoon of "James and the Giant Peach"? It's quite good!

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

I like old cookbooks and stuff. I used to have an old nurses' text-book from the early 1900s, and it was brilliant!

[fyatuk.livejournal.com]

Oooh, nice list... So many I have never heard of and a few I want to read...

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I hadn't heard of many of yours either :)

[fyatuk.livejournal.com]

There were a few I had to leave out, like Hyperspace (a book on superstring theory), The Message of the Sphinx (a discourse on how the sphinx might be as old as 12,500 BC and how it may have played a part in pharoanic ceremony), and a few miscellaenous others that I'm not remembering while I'm here at work...

Dang, woke up too early... Would have gone back to sleep put I spilled water all over my bed trying to drink while 3/4 asleep and that woke me up...

I hate when that happens...

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

I spilled water all over my bed

Arse! I've done that, and it sucks.

[unsane1.livejournal.com]

This would be easy for me to do, seeing as how I own about 12 books in all. :P

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

LOL - which two would you leave out?

[unsane1.livejournal.com]

Heh my guesstimate was a little off, I have 26! Decided to go ahead and make my list after all, gonna post it in my journal in a bit.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Mmmm Feynman....

One day, I realised that I Finally Had Some Money
Went right out and bought the full set of the big red ones. Bit like boglin's OED (only much cheaper).

Apart from Circles of Stone and the Theroux (and obviously the un-named OU's), I think I have all of those on the shelves here. Even the Pienkowski ! I love making my own pop-up paper or card stuff.

Have you read Copey's Modern Antiquarian ?

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

Mmmm Feynman....

Exactly - I was lucky in that my boyfriend was a theoretical physicist, and hence acquired them as a Christmas present. And no, I don't choose my partners based on how well their library supplements my own *ahem*

Did you do any photos of your pop-up stuff? Sounds cool, but I wouldn't know where to start at all.

Oh - which reminds me... vaguely related... I was going to ask you if you knew anywhere I could offload some tools. Probably slightly less classy than Bristol Design, but nonetheless clean and respectable carpentry stuff. Doesn't matter if you don't - just a random shot in the dark :)

And no - I haven't read the Cope book, although I have riffled through his website. Have you read it? I've heard quite mixed reviews, but then that market is quite polarised between the archaeological and the pagan interests.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Pop-up stuff. Never thought to photograph any of it! Ought to really. There are really only half-a-dozen basic mechanisms, and the rest is just putting them together. This book: Paper Engineering for Pop-up Books and Cards describes it pretty well. I always make my own Xmas cards, often something like this.

If you're ever looking for this sort of stuff (and where I got the book) then go to the stationers in Bristol, on the corner at the top of BlackBoy Hill (top of Whiteladies Road). The shop is huge round the back and they have a huge range of odd little stuff-to-make books by Tarquin Press. I found the ideas for my sundial from another of their books.


Tools. Bristol Designs is OK, eBay is probably the best. There's a busy collectable tools listing, and a more mundane listing that's usually full of cheap import stuff. What sort of stuff have you got ? Any chance of a photo ? Most is worth tuppence, but odd things (and the strangest !) can be worth good money. Billhooks, unusual corkscrews, old American tools, planes with iron soles and wooden infills, some named makers are the things to look for. Some comments of mine on sellng old tools. You'll not get beans for them at a "car boot" or similar, even if there's good stuff in there.


I knew Copey a bit, years ago back in Liverpool (yes, and her too). The book is really good. Like his (almost unfindable) book on Krautrock and even his autobiogs, he's nothing like as barking mad as a writer, than he is as a musician and Drood. You'd have to say that the megalith book is well-considered, well-researched and downright erudite. He probably believes that they were all built by pixies in flying teapots, but he doesn't let it spoil the writing.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the links - I think I might get that pop-up book next time I raid Amazon. Is that stationery shop at the Westbury end of Whiteladies? Or the city end?

The tools are quite a mixture, but with a leaning towards good woodworking tools - a few planes, lots of boxsquares and measuring tools, sets of chisels and stuff. There's some crap in there, which unfortunately was what I dredged up today, but when I winkle the better stuff from my brother, I'll try photographing it. My dad was an enthusiastic collector/carpenter for a bit - I think he had some American planes and some Rabone stuff. Stacks of big clamps. But I can't pretend to know which bits were which, other than the basics :) Like I said, when I get it all together, I'll have a better idea of what the best of it is.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

The stationer's is on the left hand side as you go up Blackboy Hill, just as you reach the Downs. It's on the near corner of what I think is the last block. Good for hand-made paper, nice fountain pens, general art stuff, and cheap little "How to make" books for bright nieces and nephews.

Good shop - I hate going to Clifton (you can't park to drive, and I can't really buy paper if I'm cycling) but it's a regular visit if I do happen to be up there. Nice tex-mex takeaway just a bit further up too.

Best thing is a photo of the tools, or else a list of names cast into the ironwork _and_ the patent dates. Planes are pretty easy to date / value, just by their labelling. You'll have at least one Stanley Bailey No 4 in there (there's always one) which is so common as to not be worth much, but if you have something rare like a 164 it's worth more than my Alfa Romeo 164 is, and easier to recognise. You can never have too many clamps !

[cleverkat.livejournal.com]

I absolutely adore pop-up books. My personal favorite out of the ones I have is based on Coleridge's Kubla Khan. I also like scratch and sniff books for some odd reason.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

I haven't ever had a whole scratch and sniff book, but I used to love the stickers :)