OT8: Victoria Day 2014

The last Monday before May 25^th is celebrated as Victoria Day in Canada in honour of our dominion’s first sovereign, Queen Victoria. Luck was not with me this time and I didn’t receive any tomes pertaining to this monarch from the Biblio-Mat so I dug up the next best thing I had.

Victorian-esque. Kind of.

While not related to Queen Victoria, Self-Reliance was written in Victorian times. The kicker is that this copy was printed in 1902, one year after the end of the Victorian Era. Not quite dead-on but it’s the closest I’ve got to a Victoria Day related book.

The straight man to Thoreau's tree-hugging land-squatting hippy.

I picked this up from the Monkey’s Paw a while ago and it was an instant buy as soon as I saw it on the shelf for two reasons. The first being that Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance is one of my favourite essays and it was actually the subject of the last paper I ever wrote in university. The second was that this copy is an amazingly preserved specimen from the Roycroft press, which was one of the earliest art collectivesfor printing. The sheer history of it was too great to pass up.

Light reading on a long weekend.

The Roycroft press was essentially an artisan press, focusing on craftsmanship over mass production. The cover to Self-Reliance appears to be rough cut leather with a satin lining. The interior pages are very much handcrafted and naturally uneven. There’s a gorgeous inscription on the inside cover that is interesting in that it’s in raised ink, which combined with the penmanship would lead me to believe it was created professionally either by the press or another print shop.

Because it's more fun to stylize an X than a C.

Beautiful pages and layout designs make this a gem to hold and read. Considering it was printed just after the Victorian Era, the condition is impeccable.

As artisan as it gets.

S12: The Field Book of the Horse

This week's book submission is a throwback to one of the books I received during last year's project.

Book: The Field Book of the Horse

Submitted by: Michelle L.

Less catchy title, though.

Published in 1955, The Field Book of the Horse appears to be a book on show horses with a few images of fox hunts sprinkled in. With a vintage cover and black and white photos, it does date itself a bit but embraces the retro look of a text meant for the wealthy back in the day.

S11: Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study

This week's Biblio-Mat book submission comes from a sender who didn't care to have their name published.

Black on black is always an interesting choice.

Book: Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study

Submitted by: Anonymous

It looks to be an interestingly designed book, opting to leave the embossing on the cover colourless. From the submitter:

"The books looks like it's been used a lot but is still intact. The black on black cover has the price of 19 cents pressed into it, as well as a seal saying it's 'Authorized by the Minister of Education'. Inside, the publish date is 1915 - almost a hundred years old! The rest of the book looks clean and it contains a bunch of study guides."

From what I can tell from the pics, there's slight a fixation on trees. Would be interesting to see how relevant the information is nowadays.

OT7: Flow Books

I recently took my first trip to Hong Kong and after spending the first two days doing all the touristy things, I decided to hunt out some of the more unique cultural offerings. On a recommendation from a friend, I checked out the Hong Kong Film Archive and started discussing books with a woman who told me there was a secondhand bookstore in Central that specialized in English books.

Even though Hong Kong is officially bi-lingual Cantonese and English, the majority of people speak Cantonese and use Chinese as the written language so an English bookstore is quite uncommon but they do exist. An English used bookstore, though, is downright unique.

After a quick search online, there appears to be a small handful of stores. One of primary ones, The Book Attic, sadly closed down a few months ago (a fact I didn’t discover until I was in the dark corridor of a sketchy building trying to read room numbers by cellphone light). The other main one, though, was still in business.

A Hong Kong bookstore.

Flow Books, located at 38 Hollywood Road in Central, is exactly what I pictured an English secondhand book store to look like in space-starved Hong Kong. Packed floor to ceiling with a mix of bestsellers, classic lit, travel guides, and art books, it easily consumed the better half of a day.

Could lose yourself for days.

Spent half the time digging for interesting finds and the other half chatting with the proprietor about the state of the used book market in Hong Kong. Bookstores have it rough nowadays and even heavily bankrolled stores like Chapters are folding left right and center. Used bookstores have it even rougher with erratic sales and relatively smaller selections. Used bookstores that carry books servicing the native language of 5% of the population is just ridiculous.

A labyrinth of literature.

Nonetheless, he was in high spirits and obviously genuinely loved books to run such a business. I ended up telling him about the Biblio-Mat and the Monkey’s Paw, which blew his and everyone else’s mind at the store with everyone looking at me skeptically until I pulled up pics of it. Hopefully he’ll make the journey to Toronto to check it out.

Score!

I did end the day with two awesome scores by one of my favourite authors. If you like digging for random books and find yourself in Hong Kong, I highly recommend making a trip out to the quaint lil store:

Flow Books

1A – 38 Hollywood Rd. (Wing On Bldg)

Central, HK

https://www.facebook.com/flowbooksnet

S10: The Ancient East and Its Story

Freshly back from my trip to Asia and I’m hit with this:

Not literally, though. Cause that would hurt. A lot.

Title: The Ancient East and Its Story

The ancient east, in this regard, refers to what we now consider the Middle East. Centering on Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria, it’s a thick 472 page history tome that makes me glad I stopped doing the ‘read a book all the way through each week’ project.

So happy that's done.

Written by James Baike, it has no publishing date but it was prior to 1928. How do I know? Cause the book plate on the inner cover states that this was one of the prizes presented from the Strathcona Trust for good work in physical exercises for the year 1928-1929.

Yep, you can be both a winner and a loser.

This appears to be a standard history textbook and contains a variety of black and white photographs. However, it also has a handful of colour plates. The best aspect of it (beyond functioning as an effective doorstop, anyway) are the pseudo-deckle pages that are uniformly miscut.

Riddle me this...

Colour makes everything better.

After three weeks abroad in Asia, though, reading more about any parts of Asia seems like overkill.

OT6: Needlepoint Redemption

Flying to Hong Kong from Toronto was a good 26 hours. Instead of packing something entertaining, I used the time to needlepoint. This was theonly uncompleted project from last year and has been the bane of my existence ever since I failed to finish it in week 22.

Greatly underestimated this.

The view from the back.

 

30 odd hours from beginning to end, it’s now complete.

Signed and soon to be sealed.

Never again.

S9: Switzerland

On the eve of my first vacation in a long while, the Biblio-Mat throws a curveball, which should surprise no one.

Quite European.

Title: Switzerland

It’s an interesting title as the original plan for this year was to head to Europe for a trip but instead plans have been sidelined and I’m now heading to Asia instead to meet up with family. As a reminder of what was supposed to be, Switzerland is a nice kick in the pants.

Pretty dustjacket, though.

Yep, that's Switzerland.

Written by John Russell and published in 1950, it does have a pretty interesting dustjacket. The interior 152 pages contain a nice assortment of black and white photographs on Switzerland. However the only colour piece was the title-facing plate.

Not quite a selling point.

Much better.

Reading through a few pages, it’s a little dry but most travel books are. Who knows, though, perhaps next year Switzerland will be a travel destination.