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On books . . .

Started by Dave, February 21, 2018, 06:43:03 PM

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Dave

Good Noodles! For an intellectual bunch like us books seem to have been neglected a bit.

BUMP!

Having to go into town for an eye scan I could not, of course, miss an opportunity to visit Geoff's Bookshop.


(Just a bit of it)

Mainly looking for something to help me refresh my transistor theory/circuit design, so I sought "Science" and/or "Technology".

Oh dear . . . Two whole shelves, total 1 meter, for everything from earth science to psychology - nowt on electronics. Bit on computing.

But just look at some of the titles!







Just a tad of woo amongst that lot.

I ended up with "Saving Secular Society" (£2). With nothing on my desired subject I wanted a book on the history of science, coffee table job and, at £15 over my budget!

I will relate some quotations and comments on the book later, in another thread.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Sandra Craft

I'm assuming a used bookstore?  The used bookstores around here are mostly good only for copies of popular novels -- if they've even got a shelf for science/technology it's more than half soft science.  The one exception to this, Acres of Books, closed ten years ago and took a piece of my heart with it.  Now the only place I can reliably find used science/technology books is online and it's just not the same.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

xSilverPhinx

Quote from: Dave on February 21, 2018, 06:43:03 PM
Good Noodles!

May the FSM bless you with his sauciness. :spaghetti:


Quote

The Lucifer Effect! I would have picked that up. :grin:

There are a few TED talks by the author available on youtube, interesting subject.
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Dave

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on February 21, 2018, 09:14:40 PM
I'm assuming a used bookstore?  The used bookstores around here are mostly good only for copies of popular novels -- if they've even got a shelf for science/technology it's more than half soft science.  The one exception to this, Acres of Books, closed ten years ago and took a piece of my heart with it.  Now the only place I can reliably find used science/technology books is online and it's just not the same.

I agree thst it isn't the same online, no musty smell, no blowing the dust off, no interesting things (used as bookmarks) to fall out . . . No putting it carefully back on the shelf, respecting it and its neighbours, not forcing it in and sliding it over the wood.

"Bookends" closed in Gloucester a few years ago. Huge shop if you included the yard and the small wharehouse behind it. It had been a seed merchants but, long before that,  it started life as a merchant's house in the 16th century and was said to be the headquarters for the Roundheads defence of Gloucester in the Civil War. It has also been described as the largest and finest standing wood framed house in the country. Until the bloody Victorians refaced it with a plain wall. It is now a very large "antiques" shop full mainly of "colectables" from records of the "Ink Spots" to Star Wars toys, old (cheap) guitars, old clothes  etc. From cheap to bloody silly.

But, like Geoff, the staff knew their books well and seemed to feel they were selling their chiodren as they took your money.
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Dave

QuoteMay the FSM bless you with his sauciness. :spaghetti:

I have, I think, a sauce His Noodleness would approve off bottled ready for when my mouth fully heals. Tomatoes and chillis are, currently, painful to eat but having a load of cherry toms in danger of going soft and manky within a couple of days a sauce seemed a suitable solution. Thus, with sweet chillies, olives, garlic, herbs (no onions, I am anti-social after eating those) whizzed in the blender, jarred then zapped to boiling in the micro-wave and a lid quickly put on.

A very small taste was luvverly, can't wait to use in in a dish.

Oh, sorry, this is a books thread . . .
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Sandra Craft

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on February 21, 2018, 09:32:15 PM

The Lucifer Effect! I would have picked that up. :grin:

There are a few TED talks by the author available on youtube, interesting subject.

I was a little curious about The Gendered Atom.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Sandra Craft

Quote from: Dave on February 21, 2018, 09:47:34 PM

But, like Geoff, the staff knew their books well and seemed to feel they were selling their chiodren as they took your money.

Yes, just like Acres of Books.  I could go in there knowing only the bare plot of a novel I was looking for (British POWs in Japan . . . ) and clerk would be able to name it for me after only a few words of description.  Nobody else had any idea what I was looking for.

And my very best memory of the place is walking by one day and noticing in the display window a copy of one of my favorite books (The Forest and the Sea, by Marston Bates, my introduction to Earth sciences and ecology), that I'd lost years before to mold and hadn't been able to find another copy of.  This was pre-personal computers and internet, of course.  I ran in and told them I had to have that book right away and they let me go into the display window and take it out myself.  I was so happy.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Dave

Quote from: BooksCatsEtc on February 21, 2018, 11:38:34 PM
Quote from: Dave on February 21, 2018, 09:47:34 PM

But, like Geoff, the staff knew their books well and seemed to feel they were selling their chiodren as they took your money.

Yes, just like Acres of Books.  I could go in there knowing only the bare plot of a novel I was looking for (British POWs in Japan . . . ) and clerk would be able to name it for me after only a few words of description.  Nobody else had any idea what I was looking for.

And my very best memory of the place is walking by one day and noticing in the display window a copy of one of my favorite books (The Forest and the Sea, by Marston Bates, my introduction to Earth sciences and ecology), that I'd lost years before to mold and hadn't been able to find another copy of.  This was pre-personal computers and internet, of course.  I ran in and told them I had to have that book right away and they let me go into the display window and take it out myself.  I was so happy.

I know the feeling and effect from the other side. Whilst running the local Oxfam book depot I was called out front of shop where a customer asked if we had a copy of one of Jean Auel's "Earth's Children" series, "The Mammoth Hunters" IIRC. After a moment's reflection I said, "Yes, one of each edition but the newer one is in the worse condition." I actually surprised myself! The boss was impressed.

Had it been a crime or historical novel I would have had to go back and check...
Tomorrow is precious, don't ruin it by fouling up today.
Passed Monday 10th Dec 2018 age 74

Icarus

One of the principals at my local library happens to be a black woman with a masters degree in a field other than library science.  Pneu She is one of my favorite people and she is one of those who can tell you where, in her library,  to find damned near any title you mention.  Her name is Brenda.

She even knows whether the library has the particular title.  Our county has an exchange program where you can ask to get a book that the local library does not have but a neighboring city library may have.  On request the other libraries around the county will send the book to my library where I can borrow it.  Amazingly, at no cost.

I was surprised when Brenda told me that there is an international title arrangement where I can get a book from New Zealand or Zimbabwe or any place else in the system, to loan to my local facility. 

So many books, so little time.

hermes2015

As a schoolboy I lusted after Private View, the huge, pricey book on British artists with photos by Lord Snowdon. I actually shouted with joy when I found a new copy on sale at a ridiculously low price and grabbed it to make sure nobody else would pick it up. That's the kind of thing I did when my contemporaries were being butch on the rugby field. I still have that book on my shelf after all these years.
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

Icarus

I am deep into a library book, a recent release by the publishers.  The title is; In The Enemy's House. by Howard Blum.  Blum is a writer of substantial skill, investigatory effort, and experience. His book is almost a thriller even though it is factual, not a novel.

It begins in the pre- WWII era when we were  asleep at the switch.  Soon enough it gets into the details of our code breaking systems that tried to decipher German, Japanese and Russian clandestine coded messages.  The Russians had gotten wind of the US efforts to produce an atomic bomb. They already knew about the potential of Uranium 235 and/or Plutonium.  We were two years ahead of the rest of the world with our efforts to produce an A Bomb. The Russians wanted to get our information so that they could catch up to the madness.

There is great detail about our code breakers who were overwhelmingly female. The tale continues with descriptions, names, backgrounds, of KGB agents who were stationed here in the US.  This is an astoundingly well researched book about the spooks and counter spooks that both sides utilized so stealthily.   It is a bit too detailed and there are so many different operatives it can become tedious but it is still a near thrilling account of what the enemy was and still is capable of.