what I did on my holidays

Been back from holidays about a month now but haven’t really hit my groove. I have at least done lots of reading and am a fair way through Bob Carr’s book roundup which continues to be a pleasurable read to dip into. Amusingly I’ve been interested in reading the memoirs of Peter Costello but wasn’t keen on paying the full $55 for it. In Kmart the other day I found it discounted to $30, which means someone’s losing money on it somewhere. Suits me fine :-) Also well engrossed in the new Dessaix and have made a start on Battles’ “Library: An Unquiet History“.

Have been meaning to post a summary of what I did on my holidays, and the best way to describe it is that I visited a few countries and bought lots of books. I’ve been to the self proclaimed “World’s Biggest Bookstore” in Toronto, Canada (amongst others), not to mention completing something of a pilgrimmage by visiting Hay-on-Wye. Wasn’t there for anywhere nearly long enough but did manage to make it to several bookshops and made too many purchases…actually managed to talk myself out of some books too. With the weather against us, we hightailed it to London (flooding in Wales the day after we left) where we bought even more books. Purchases include (but not limited to):

• Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr Johnson’s Dictionary by Henry Hitchings
• Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey
• The Voynich Manuscript by Gerry Kennedy, Rob Churchill
• Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
• The 351 Books of Irma Acuri: A Novel by David Bajo
• The Mystery of Snailsbury Pond by Hugh Silvey and Wally Jex
• The Snailsbury Pet Show by Hugh Silvey and Wally Jex
• Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman
• Inventions of the Middle Ages by Chiara Frugoni (translated by William McCuaig) (Folio Society ed)
• The English Language by Robert Burchfield (Folio Society ed)
• An Introduction to Library Science by Pierce Butler (pub: 1933)

…and there’s a few other titles that I need to list as well. These include a few tracts (I s’pose you’d call them) from the Society for Pure English, a series of which some can be found online. Some of the tracts were authored by the early editors of the OED. If I get round to it, I’ll post separately on such and see if I can provide a little background. I found 4 of them (out of a total of 60 odd I believe) and at 2 quid a pop were a nice little bargain.