Away With the White Horses

It has been an odd couple of days. Yesterday, a man turned up at work on a white horse, as if he was inviting me to join him on a quest. I would have said yes, but I was busy trying to move ten thousand books to a new building, one car load at a time.

I never found out what he wanted.

In the evening, a friend casually told us that he had done the voiceover for an advert that was voted the greatest UK television commercial of all time. Why hadn't he mentioned it before? I'm still telling people that I was on BBC Radio Five 14 years ago.

This morning I woke up to the sound of horses hooves and as I stood on one leg to place our broken blind in the small gap between the roller and ceiling, I saw some men in chainmail walk past. Then I remembered that it was the 750th anniversary of the Battle of Lewes.

The actual anniversary was a few days ago. At least, that's what everyone seems to think, but didn't we change our calendar in 1752 and lose eleven days?

Today, the town ground to a halt and a group of volunters recreated the Battle of Lewes, following the original route of 1264:

It was all good fun, unlike the original battle.

I always mixed feelings at events like these. On the one hand, I enjoy living in a town that cherishes its past (I imagine that in a hundred years' time, Lewes will look almost the same as it does today). But I also feel conscious of being, as the song goes, on the outside looking in. Perhaps I'll never be a Lewesian.

But enough of Lewes. This is supposed to be a book blog, so I'll move on to some of my favourite discoveries from last week, beginning with this striking frontispiece:

It comes from a 1920s book on aircraft, which was surprisingly worthless. I threw away the book but kept the frontispiece.

The next illustration has a very odd caption underneath:

"A quick desperate wriggle and his legs were over the board and the rest of him followed anyhow." Well, yes.

This illustration is from a rather disturbing 1920s book about the mind:

It comes from a chapter called "Cretins and Dunces", in which the author expresses view that weren't out of step with the times. The widespread enthusiasm for eugenics shocks us today, but of course it enjoyed a wide range of supporters that included Churchill, H G Wells, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, John Harvey Kellogg and Marie Stopes.

Finally, two completely bonkers 1960s sci-fi novels:

Androids with whips? For some reason, that reminds me of this atrocious song.

As for this, perhaps it was a thoughtful novel about eugenics that was given a less than enlightened cover treatment to boost sales. I don't know. I can safely say that I will never read this book to find out.

The Downward Spiral

My book sales have been pretty awful recently. I'm not surprised, as I've felt too tired to do much since my appendix was whipped out, other than read Trollope and watch 'Breaking Bad'.

How long does it take to fully recover from surgery? My mother-in-law confidently asserted that it was one week per hour of surgery, but I'm not convinced.

This week I made a concerted effort to put some more books on sale. Fortunately, I've now reached a point where I have valued so many different titles, I can instantly identify the books that are of no value. This saves a lot of time, but the ratio of valuable to worthless books is still depressingly low.

If I open a box of random pre-ISBN books, I'm also certain that it will contain at least one copy of the following:

Little Women,
The Ascent of Everest
Heidi
Anything by Dickens
The Rose Annual
Variable Winds at Jalna, by Mazo de la Roche
Rogue Herries
The Pilgrim's Progress
A Famous Five book
A late Victorian 'penny dreadful', published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
What Katy Did
Over two dozen Companion Book Club/Readers' Union hardbacks
A 1920s title about book-keeping
The Wooden Horse
Popski's Private Army
A reference book published by Odhams

Something by or about George Bernard Shaw
Heute Abend! Book One
The Wind in the Willows

I could go on, but I'm sure you'd rather I didn't.

Any title that isn't familiar gives a little skip to the heart, particularly if it isn't published by Rupert Hart-Davis (for some reason, nearly all of their books are worthless). Perhaps this will be the book that pulls me back from the brink of penury. I type in the details and press enter. It is worth 61p.

But sometimes I am pleasantly surprised:

This signed first edition by the author of 'Goodbye Mr Chips' was a refreshing change from finding yet another novel by Storm Jameson and sold at auction for a couple of hundred quid.

Even on a bad day, I can usually rely on finding a title that will provide some harmless peurile amusement:

(I wonder if they have cottaging in the USA? I only ask because I once had a terrible time trying to explain the concept of a public toilet to a San Francisco cafe owner. He assured me that they didn't exist in America, but this seems unlikely.)

I was also amused by these covers:

I can only suppose that a 'slapper' was something different then, but I find it hard to believe that the book I found yesterday - a 1930s Encyclopaedia of Sex by someone called A. Willy - didn't raise a smirk in the publisher's office.

I also find titles that provide surprisingly pertinent information. For example, after my recent rant about house prices ruining the 'dreaming suburb' of Teddington, I came across this:

"In some London districts it is reckoned that more than one quarter of the inhabitants change their address each year."

That quote from a late Victorian book called 'The Problems of Poverty' by John Hobson reminded me that London's population has been in a constant state of flux since the Industrial Revolution and that the seemingly unchanging world of postwar Teddington was just a brief interlude.

However, although it's good to find titles that interest or amuse, I need to derive an income from my books. Every month I have to pay for stock, plus the rent, postage and commission fees. Whatever's left over is my wage. Last month it reached a new low.

Between recovering from an operation and dealing with a child with 'special needs' (I hate that phrase, but can't think of an alternative), it has been a struggle to deal with a backlog of work. This month, I hope to make up for lost time and perhaps in the process, I may find some more gems.

On the other hand, I may just find books like this:

If the bookselling doesn't work out, maybe I'll become a nylon pirate.

Colour Me Bad

There isn't a theme to this post, but I promise that it will not feature any animals. All of the following illustrations have been discovered during the last few days.

I've always had a soft spot for 1970s fashions, particularly the neo-Victorian style of Jon Pertwee's Doctor Who and Peter Wyngarde's Jason King. However, these migraine-inducing designs from Sewing Illustrated show a very different sartorial zeitgeist:

The woman looks a little uncomfortable, and it's not just because the man's hand is dangerously close to her left breast. She knows that she looks utterly ridiculous.

 

"A colour-co-ordinated lawn rake? Thanks Dad!" 

Designs like these are enough to make anyone yearn for the age of clothing coupons and post-war austerity. These pictures, from two decades earlier, show a very different world:

 

"I say. Awfully well done Mr Fuller. Your merrows have surpahhhssed themselves this year..."

"Ebsolutely splindid! Congretulations!"

Did these people fight for a world of patchwork denim and yellow garden rakes? No. But somehow this period was the midwife to the age of Garry Glitter, Jimmy Savile and the Bay City Rollers.

A decade earlier, the stakes were even higher than gardening competitions:

It all has me longing for a quieter, more innocent age, before people said "Yay!" and "LOL". A time when gentlemen of commerce would have to sit in silence during train journeys. Perhaps the 1880s:

 

This 1886 Boy's Own illustration looks as if it's recording the very first use of a smartphone, but actually the young man is looking at a portrait of his recently-deceased sister. In my desire to escape to the past, I'd forgotten about consumption, rickets and polio. I wouldn't have made it to adulthood.

Finally, my favourite cover this week. Did you know that Japanese women used to look like Elizabeth Taylor?

Six of the Worst

I've no idea how many secondhand books I've sorted through during the last three years, but even a conservative estimate puts the total at over 100,000. During that time, I've come to several conclusions:

• Most bestselling authors are destined to go out of print. When was the last time you saw a novel by Naomi Jacob, Howard Spring, Frances Parkinson Keyes or Frank Yerby in a bookshop?

• Publishers between 1964 and 1979 were obsessed with sex

• Almost every book published by Rupert Hart-Davies is worthless
  

• A tatty, obscure 1970s horror title will usually be worth far more than a beautiful old Penguin paperback

• The period from 1954 to 1974 was a golden age for book design, but it also saw some incredibly awful, garish covers, like these reprints of popular classics:
  

Jane Austen is synonymous with refinment and understatement, unlike this hideous jacket design. I particularly hate the almost fluorescent font for the title.

Slightly less offensive, but once again with rubbish fonts and a girl who looks like Nellie Olsen, for those who remember 'The Little House on the Prairie'.

Cor! A saucy French novel. I'll 'ave some of that! But where's the sex? I'll flick through to the end of the chapter...no, nothing there...maybe the next chapter...no, still nothing.

Maupassant and Zola may have been 'racy' in the 1890s, but I suspect that many 1960 book buyers felt that the cover design promised more than it delivered.

But the deception wasn't limited to adults. I wonder how many children struggled to read the copy of 'Gulliver's Travels' that Auntie Doris had given them for Christmas?

"Heathcliffe, it's me, Cathy, I've come home". Perhaps I'm being geeky about fonts, but this one is only acceptable in the credit sequence of a David O. Selznick Hollywood film. Like the Gulliver, this is also a children's edition cover. Lucky kids.

Finally, here is the 31st book in the famous 'Bancroft Classics' series:

No, I haven't heard of them either, but the cover design is in a class of its own, with Jane Eyre depicted as a 10-year-old with encephalitis. The eyes follow you around the room.

If you're feeling corrupted by this horrible display, then I'd recommend visiting this wonderful collection of Penguin and Pelican covers. Here are two of my favourites:

Will book jackets go the way of album covers as the market share of ebooks continues to rise? I hope not.

The Sacred and the Profane

I'm now on Twitter. I resisted for several years but finally gave in a week ago; partly out of curiosity, but mainly because I was beginning to feel like a Luddite. After a few days in the Tweetosphere, I now realise what has happened to those bloggers who became increasingly quiet during the last couple of years.

I can see the uses of Twitter. A journalist friend of mine loves it, as he can canvas opinions, publicise interviews and shamelessly network. By the time he arrives at his desk, he has rubbed shoulders with thousands of fellow Londoners, checked out the latest business news and caught up with the trade gossip. By the time I arrive at my desk, I have passed a dead badger and wondered why people are now saying "Back in the day".

I'm not sure if I'm suited to Twitter. Sometimes it feels as if I'm at a party and although many of my favourite people are there, it's not quite working because I have to shout to make myself heard. It feels very ephemeral - a sometimes exciting, but an all-too-brief encounter, compared to the enduring relationships of the blogosphere. Perhaps I just need to give it more time.

One thing Twitter is very good for is posting amusing book jackets:

It sounds quite exciting and the couple in the photo look very animated, but a big bucket of cold water is thrown over the whole thing with the authors' names: Leonard P Barnett and Douglass A Griffiths (just so we don't confuse them with all the other Leonard Barnetts and Douglas Griffiths's).

There's certainly no adventure, unless you include trying to cop-off with someone under the disapproving glare of Leonard Barnett.

But if you're worried about young people falling under the spell of pop music, with its lustful rhythms and licentious lyrics, here is the answer:

As a bookseller, I missed out on the subgenre of novels related to the Salvation Army rock scene. Ignore it at your peril.

After church youth groups and Salvation Army pop concerts, marriage is surely inevitable and doesn't every young woman dream of a pipe-smoking, alsatian-holding man in a v-neck pullover and sta-press trousers that glow in the dark?

Look at him. He's every woman's fantasy:

I expect he has a lint-covered Murray mint in the deepest corner of his trouser pocket and a young male lover in the youth branch of the Bible Study group, but Avril won't know this until she's tidying out his wardrobe and discovers the gymnasium photos.

Bitter and disillutioned, Avril will put her old life behind her and embark on a new voyage of discovery:

This book was published in 1969:

One of the least-offensive limericks goes as follows:

There was a young lady of Cheam
Who crept into a vestry unseen
She pulled down her knickers
Likewise the vicar's
And said: "how's about it, old bean?"

As far as I know, there was no reprint.

As I've commented before, between the Lady Chatterley trial and the advent of AIDS, the media world appeared to have been obsessed with sex. Even classics weren't exempt:

Published as part of the 'Boudoir Book Selection'. I love the way it says 'COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED', implying that some very saucy bits have been left in. I wonder how many people bought this book in hope of some titilation, only to find themselves being lectured about political corruption during the reign of Louis Napoleon?

Finally, a novel which may strike a chord with zombie fans:

"Man, she had a shape to make corpses kick open caskets - and she was dead set on giving me rigor mortis".

I can't think of anything to add to that.

More Book Covers

Here are my favourite book covers from last week:

It could be a poster for the Big Society, with a young David and Samantha Cameron looking rather contemptuously at the boy from the local slums . Perhaps David is searching for a bobby: "Arrest that ruffian constable! He's stealing our snow."

This rather downbeat illustration is for a collection of stories about jolly girls doing plucky things. I think that the girl in the deck chair is probably saying:

"The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity. To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won."

Or something like that.

By contrast, this angst-free cover looks more like a 1950s glamour magazine than a children's annual. I think the artist was going beyond his remit.

Annuals may have changed over the years, but the one thing they had in common was that they were always complete crap. I remember the huge excitement on Christmas Day when I unwrapped a present containing an annual of my favourite tv programme, followed by the crushing disappointment when I realised that the contents were a selection of dull short stories and some poorly-executed drawings.

The next book is rather unusual:

Airport was, of course, one of the most successful thrillers of the late 1960s and the film adaptation spawned a wave of disaster movies. Arthur Hailey's novel was a worldwide success, but I didn't realise that there was also an official Soviet version:

"Order of the Red banner of Labour MILITARY PUBLISHING HOUSE, USSR MINISTRY OF DEFENCE. MOSCOW - 1981"

If I had to write a list of 20th century novels that might meet with the approval of the Soviet censor, Airport wouldn't be the first book that sprang to mind. But given Aeroflot's reputation in the 1980s, perhaps this was seen as a work of social realism.

This copy is in English, but every page has annotations at the bottom in Cyrillic. I expect they're ensuring that Mr Hailey's narrative is placed within a Marxist-Leninist context.

Finally, a very different novel from the late 1960s:

Apparently, quite a few of the women who appeared on the covers of Richard Brautigan's novels were also his lovers. It's comforting to see that a dodgy haircut and moustache is no obstacle to attracting a beautiful woman:

As writers' lives go, Brautigan's was one of the grimmest. Described by Thomas McGuane as "a gentle, troubled, deeply odd guy", Brautigan shot himself at the age of 49.

His suicide note read: "Messy, isn't it?"

Perhaps he would have been happier if he'd met a crowd of nice young people:

Rubbed, Bumped and Cocked (A Post About Books*)

(*Apologies to all connoisseurs of pornography who have visited this site in error, thanks to the post's title)

I have now been self-employed for four months and seem to be settling into a routine that mirrors my old working life. I think I need the discpline of a self-imposed timetable, otherwise I'd just lie in bed looking at YouTube clips of chimpanzees playing the bassoon. Perhaps I'd start to smell too.

Every weekday, without fail, I'm out of the house by 9.00am and drive to my cowshed, listening to Radio Four podcasts. Yesterday I listened to one about the rise of megacities and how many of us secretly wished that most people would disappear, apart from our friends and loved ones. I concurred.

I rarely spend more than five minutes at the farm. The Steerforth Books cowshed is just a bare concrete shell and at this time of year, isn't the most inviting of environments. It is also surprisingly noisy, with a succession of tractors and lorries appearing at regular intervals.

I had planned to turn the farm unit into an office with two workstations, shelving for 6,000 books and a packing area. But at the moment, I just grab a few boxes of unsorted stock and take them back to the warmth and comfort of my home, where I can listen to music and make as many cups of tea as I like.

The first two hours of the day are spent valuing stock, identifying the small percentage of titles that are worth selling. Sometimes it can be quite soul-destroying to realise that books which seemed to have so much promise are utterly worthless, but at least I get to enjoy covers like this:

Shortly before lunchtime I pack the orders and take them to be posted. People often complain about post office staff, but the employees of the Lewes branch deserve a medal for their unceasing courtesy and professionalism, in the face of unremitting tedium. I'm sure their hearts sink when I walk in the door with a bag full of parcels, but they never let on.

After lunch I begin logging the valuable books, adding them to the sales inventory. Each title requires a full description of the book's condition, listing every fault. Phrases like 'cocked binding', 'bumped corners' and 'light rubbing' are part of my small lexicion of bibliographical terms. I avoid acronyms or excessive jargon.

There is a repetitive, machine-like quality to the work and I know that it drives some people mad, but the reward is the ever changing selection of books, many of which are unintentionally amusing:

'Staring at her offensively were several villagers'

'Where did you get this pass from, Missy?'

"Pull, Jill, pull" cried Laura, exerting all her strength

"And if anyone asks what we're doing, tell them you dropped half a crown down your dress and I'm helping you find it"

'Sheelagh bore the new girl off in triumph'
(clearly unperturbed by the fact that she was an identical clone of 'Sheelagh')

"Gosh, after all that fresh air I can't wait until we get to Radclyffe Hall!"

"One of these is a genuine Louis Vuitton, the other's from Primark. Can you tell them apart?"

Obviously I made some of these up (and refrained from publishing the ruder ones), but the original captions often contain unintended double entendres and there's something poignant about their innocence. Today, the small white object in the policeman's hand would be a sachet of cocaine or a cloned credit card.

Finally, a superb dustjacket for a novel by a writer who was, to George Orwell's dismay, one of the most popular authors of her day: