Bookshelf backgrounds

[Peter_Goble]

Working-from-home types seem to be in competition with each other as to who has the biggest collection of esoteric and egg-head-only volumes spread across their walls, against which to deliver their opinions on live TV (all the Covid-19 must-have prop, darling!)

I find myself sitting with my head at 90° to my trunk in an effort to read the titles, and to guess at the significance of the bits-and-bobs artfully strewn amongst the books, and the framed photographs of miscellaneous ‘family members’.

Of course, one can buy a brain-box bookcase–backdrop (see below) by the yard… and paste it on the parlour wall, facing the front window.

I reckon it’s a very British folly.

[Lily]

not mine Peter, mainly autobiography, crime thriller, Conn Iggulden and melange of others.

[Rocam]

@Peter_Goble

egg-head-only volumes spread across their walls

This my library Peter.

[Mike_Kearney]

Ours are mostly paperbacks. Not very elegant, but all actually read. . . . . and being re-read during isolation!

[Peter_Goble]

This is my ‘working’ bookcase,

one of several dotted round the house. My Oxford-Hachette French dictionary has pride of place, and is facing retirement 'cos it is falling apart. Its successor is waiting on a lower shelf.

[Fleur]

@Peter_Goble

This is my ‘working’ bookcase,

This is half of mine… a bit untidy.

[Dr-Le-Dolly]

Here’s one of mine, built this one a couple of weeks ago.

[Peter_Goble]

Invites a good nose around…

[Peter_Goble]

I am mightily impressed @LeDolly Geoff, the books can’t believe their sumptuous surroundings, they will feel loved!

[Fleur]

@Peter_Goble

a good nose around

There are four weighty volumes by Jonathan Sumption on the Hundred Years War. Those alone should keep anyone in confinement going for months.

[Peter_Goble]

@Fleur

Jonathan Sumption on the Hundred Years War.

They caught my eye. Very colourful outside, inside too?

[Fleur]

@Peter_Goble

inside too?

I wouldn’t say colourful, except maybe in the prose, but definitely well-written and most thorough. 586 pages plus appendices in Tome 1. Flicking through the pages I fell upon a phrase early in chapter 2 : ‘The English (of Edward III) did not like foreigners.’ Perhaps everything changes but nothing changes.

[DrMarkH]

In the context of Peter’s post, the above photo is embarrassing on two counts: firstly I instantly recognised the common trope of an academic’s portrait with a backdrop of books - guilty several times over with several different universities! Secondly, my study’s bookshelves bear an uncomfortable resemblance to Peter’s fake ‘brain-box bookcase–backdrop’.

However in defence, I’d argue that all these books are my non-fiction, working tools - theoretical works scrupulously alphabetically ordered by author, and the art and design books organised on a simplified version of the Dewey system - so that any source or reference can be found in seconds. Meanwhile, our fiction, cookery books and other works are on other floors, in a neighbour’s storeroom (or in untidy heaps beneath OH’s chair or her side of the bed)

All this may seem pedantic or unduly anal, but if one no longer has ready access to vast university libraries or JSTOR (an enormous database of articles from very expensive academic journals), physical books and google books become ever more essential if one wishes to keep writing and publishing in one’s field. Just like in a carpenter’s workshop, if one needs a tool it works best if readily to hand.

Apropos which, yesterday I received an e-mail from the German publisher of a translated essay of mine, informing me that the royalities on my five German sales in 2019 amounted to just under twelve euros. One’s not in this game to make money.

[Peter_Goble]

@DrMarkH

Just like in a carpenter’s workshop, if one needs a tool it works best if readily to hand.

Very true, certainly true for me. And having books on view can be a visual cue to better self-awareness and self-management. They speak to me, Mark. Each has its own voice.

And as well as being a book snob and a shameless book show-off/exhibitionist, I love giving books to others, for which my wife tells me off rotten. She can’t understand it.

[captainendeavour]

I know I’m on a loser here but after moving so many times and having paid so much in storage charges, after deep thought I made a philosphical decision. I added books and recorded music to a class of object I categorise as ‘stuff’. That means that everything is now ‘stuff’.

'Stuff’ in excess lead to a condition - stuffitis. Stuffitis is the condition that develops when one is in the grip of 'thingism’. Thingism is the belief that we are defined by particular objects. Books, like sheep, is a group noun. It is rare that one book brings on thingism, leading to stuffitis but many books together certainly do. Ditto music in ‘hard copy’.

Thingism is a bane to the soul.

I had a lodger once who worked at an HMV record shop. He very skillfully erected shelving in his room for his LP, CD, VHS and DVD collection. This was immense. The shelving, to head height, filled the entire room except for space for a single bed and a small desk with a laptop on it. The shelving was in a sort of maze format, like an antiquarian bookshop - up one side, round the end, down the other.

He had 2000 DVDs alone. He had many times that of CDs. Hundreds of VHS and LPs. Of course, he needed to remove all this stuff from original cases/packaging to condense it. He had stuffitis, big time.

And another chap, in his 80’s, had amassed a collection of several thousand LPs - all jazz. Stuffitis

I had an acute bout of stuffitis, brought on by thingism associated with a nice wave-fronted chest of drawers that had been my mother’s. I’m not a fan of ‘dark brown furniture’ at the best of times and I had no use for this piece. But it had been my mother’s. The spell was broken by a friend who, after listening to me burbling on about whether to keep this thing or not, wearily saying, “Your mother was not a chest of drawers”. Out it went.

So, on the same basis, out have gone yards and yards of books. I had about 5 feet wide of sailing books, narrative and navigational. I had the same again in books on fly fishing. I have kept two, “Stillwater Fly Fishing” and “The Super-Flies of Still Water”. This last does not major on fly tying technique/construction so I have bought, “The Fly-Tying Bible.” And that will do!

All the fiction has gone. The library for that is in e-reader format. It’s what those devices were made for.

Gone also all the travel narrative -‘Slow Boats to China’ and ‘Slow Boats Home’ - that sort of stuff. All the Eric Newby, Paul Theroux, Jonathon Raban … yards of the stuff.

I can’t pose in front of my books. I deliberately made my bookshelves in the pasillo along by the bedrooms and bathroom, leading to my study.

It’s mostly mili history now, because that is, after photography, my metier. And travel guides.

However, all this lot [except the fly-tying] are for out. They are walking guides to WF engagement sites. Anyone who would like any, PM me. I’m done with The Western Front, professionally. Not to mention 1200kms south.

But this theme still has mileage.

A project I have in mind is"Nelson’s Shore Engagements"

[captainendeavour]

@Peter_Goble

facing retirement 'cos it is falling apart

Any dictionary in book form should have been retired by now. All the major publishers, inc Hachette, Webster and OUP, have dictionary apps which, in my experience, are superior.

For starters, if you press the little loudspeaker ikon some native French person will speak the word! And they don’t get irritated if you ask them to do it lots of times!

And, by installing the dictionary, you get, amongst other things, Word of the Day by SMS. Today’s is ‘overemphasize’. Yesterday’s was ‘left back’. We’ve had ‘ski pole’ and ‘wardrobe malfunction’. ‘Moussaka’ is, oddly enough, ‘moussaka’ in FR…

[DrMarkH]

I see where you’re coming from, and don’t wholly disagree, or want to knock your recommendation, but it depends on why one needs a dictionary in the first place.

Since I retired from university teaching, I no longer have free online access to the amazing full OED online, and my elderly, two volume Shorter OED seems to be still far more comprehensive than any free online UK English dictionary (would greatly appreciate being corrected, if there’s a better free e-alternative). I’v e got the Concise OED on this computer, but it’s not really much use except for checking spelling, and Word does that pretty well in english and french, and of course also does a grammar check.

I also use a hard-bound Hachette when writing essays in French in order to be make sure I’m using the correct french synonym and in addition have an invaluable anglo-french dictionary of French house-builder’s terms which covers in great detail every stage of construction from architect to interior decorator.

For those not familiar with it, the grand OED (is the print version still only 24 volumes?) in addition to definitions, shows both the origins of a word and the written evolution of its meaning. This is a valuable resource for both historians and cultural historians as it can show how the meaning of a familiar word has changed - for instance in the C18th ‘astonishing’, rather than meaning ‘slightly surprised’, meant ‘scared out of ones wits’ or ‘mind blowing’ - to use now rather dated late1960s hippie speak (in contrast to the lengthy endurance of ‘gob-smacking’)*.

So, traditional dictionaries are bulky and inconvenient, but I’d argue that they’re still necessities for many of us.

• Second post this week where I’ve used the term!

[vero]

@captainendeavour

I have kept two, “ Stillwater Fly Fishing ” and “ The Super-Flies of Still Water ”. This last does not major on fly tying technique/construction so I have bought, “ The Fly-Tying Bible .” And that will do!

I tied the black zulus when I was about 10

[captainendeavour]

@vero

I tied the black zulus when I was about 10

Very impressive! But when was the last time any of those got wet? You have a number of doubles there, salmon-size and smaller - sea trout? Funny how salmon flies are traditionally tied on up-eye hooks. Can’t make a blind bit of difference. In fact nobody has ever worked out why a salmon would take a fly, anyway. And none has ever taken one offered by me.

At about the same age you were tying the Zulus I made my fly-tying case, in school woodwork. A briefcase-size box, varnished, with brass handle and catches, about 150mm deep and a shallow tray which holds the rows of tying silks, arranged by colour. Tying vice, scissors, all the kit. Very useful are surgical forceps my mother gave me which can be clipped closed in two or three tensions.

Many years, possibly 15, went by and I never tied a single fly or even went fishing. There was a weekend in Peshawar where some general was for going into the mountains to fish but the weather was so bad we never went.

Friends now own a lovely country house only 15 minutes from my favourite trout lake, Clatworthy, Exmoor. So I fished out [sic] my fly-tying box with tying a few in mind.

Horror show! Over the years the dreaded moth had laid generations of larvae and all that was left of anything of fur, feather or thread was dust. Moleskin, rabbit foot, all the bobbins of silk eaten down to the wood … All the buzzers were down to the last turn of thread on the hook shank, which had had a lick of clear varnish to make it sticky.

One thing you will note if you go looking in any current trout fishing magazine - ‘Trout Fisherman’ is my go-to - is that the flies in the tying supplements/articles are a world away from out beloved Zulus, Teal and Silver, Bloody Butcher, Wickham’s Fancy, Peter Ross, Invicta.

Obviously, the ban on using many of the trad feathers - the Invicta is tied with a throat hackle of the blue feathers of a jay’s wing - makes it more difficult to tie trads but the modern fly tier has largely moved on from natural materials and a great deal of the materials for tying now can be found in the crafts section of art supply shops. The 21C buzzer: a tungsten bead for a head and not a feather to be seen …

[captainendeavour]

@DrMarkH

nglo-french dictionary of French house-builder’s terms

My ‘dictionary’ of house-building terms was, appropriately enough for a photographer, perhaps, the Wickes catalogue, book version. A picture being worth …

The only time when we - my Spanish building team and I - got really stuck was on the word ‘regatta’. This word was responsible for 800€-worth of work, so it was important to find out what it meant.

All dictionaries came up with the boaty meaning. My English friend, 20 years in Spain and for years in the holiday villa business, had never heard of it in building lingo.

It took 10 seconds of mime to reveal it meant chasing channels in the walls to take cables. It’s possible that the word they used was from their prime language - Valenciano, a dialect of Catalan.

I understand that for an academic or for academic purposes, all dictionaries in any form are ‘tools of the trade’ and as such one must have a comprehensive selection.

Of you ever get access to the OED again I wonder if you could look up the word ‘skanking’. This is Jamaican. It occurs in Bob Marley’ s song ‘Easy Skankin’ ’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlqB13iJu2o song starts at 30"

Easy skankin’
Skankin’ it slow.

I got the meaning of this word from a member of a reggae band which had hired my location truck as a cafeteria to make ‘soul food’, on a tour of UK, back in 1986.

At the time the OED only had the meaning as in Marley’s song, to do with a reggae dancing form. But it’s original meaning was of a low-life person, thief/hooker and their behaviour [eg “skankin’ the tourists”]. I sent it in to OED and they replied with gratitude. I wonder if the earlier meaning is now listed - with attribution!