What's This page About?
I wonder if I represent the last generation to own, and value, actual books. You know, those things that give libraries their distinctive smell (and fish-moths their distinctive diet)? On this page, I want to try to share some of the memorable books that I own; which I have, hitherto, taken for granted. I'm not convinced that we shall ever live through an age when people get emotional about their PDFs, EPUBs, MOBIs, or AZW3s.
Half Hours in the Far South - Anon.
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It took me some years to realise that "Kebrabasa" was "British Empirespeak" for Kahora Bassa, up in Tete province in Mozambique.
The date was written in by my Granddad when he gave it to me. You can see that it's written in ball-point, but he clearly hadn't lost the ability to write copperplate. I didn't realise that he could draw until, when he was in his eighties, he decided to take up painting.
(P.S. Having served in both the first and second world wars, he died when he was 93, as the result of falling off a ladder, while working on the roof of the house that he had lived in, and owned, for over 50 years). |