Books and Stuff

A regular round-up of my book news.  I'm changing it to a monthly rather then weekly feature, as it must be getting rather repetative.

What I've read this month...

I carried on with Paul Vallely, Pope Francis: Untying the Knots and started Cressida Cowell, How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel.

I finally finished A Pound of Paper.  It's an interesting read.  It's a sort of memoir by an Australian who's saved from suburban drudgery working as a railway clerk by his love of writing science fiction and collecting SF magazines.  After ten years on the railways, he chucks it in and moves to London where he becomes involved with the bizarre (and frankly shady) world of book collecting.  He becomes a broadcaster, spends a year teaching in an American college, and ends up in Hollywood.  At the end of the book, he's moved to Paris with a new (fourth) wife and is settling into the bibliophile scene there.

I had to check that the author of all this, John Baxter, was a real person.  Apparently he is a respected critic and writer: author of books on film studies, erotica and at least another three volumes of memoirs.  Not a person I'd like to spend much time with, but an engaging raconteur nevertheless.

What I've bought this month...

Kenneth Floyd, Floyd on France - £1.00
Kenneth Floyd, Floyd on Fish - £1.00
Bruce Fogle, The Dog's Mind - 50p
M Haag, Templars: History and Myth - £1.00
A Satterley & G Scott, Battlefield Bravery: The Courage of Ordinary Men, 1914-1918 - £15.01

Giles Foden, Ladysmith - 50p
E M Remarque, All Quite on the Western Front - 60p