"Definitely not buying any books today." "Ooh, quite convincing French section." "Ooh, decent on Italy, Hungary etc. too." "Nice crisp pics for 1972, and hundreds of them." Arse...
I've read a surprising amount of stuff on storage tanks while googling the real thing Easily distracted. Very easily...
.......in which case, Adam, the best sort of day out is a visit to Bovington. Lots of books......in their Library/Archive all about tanks and the blokes that served in them. Massive photo albums full of, well, photos of tanks and the blokes that served in them.....and, if you go on the right day, you might even bump into the only and greatest David Fletcher. I was there last Monday and bought quite a number of photos. Makes a change to books which all tend to include the same photos anyway. Cost?....£15 for a day visit to their Library/Archive and worth every penny (but you must book in advance because otherwise they are not well pleased).
Brilliant day last Monday. Huge tables on which to lay out the 'queue' of photo albums courtesy of their brilliant chap Jonathan. As far as readers were concerned, just me and Dick Taylor. Perfect.....and I found four photos of my fathers old tank - the actual one 20ZR65 - and a few of Fehrmann Tiger F01 that dad 'met' in Germany.
I was looking for motorcycle images (inevitably) and to be honest, most of theirs have been published - but time spent in archives is never wasted...and David Fletcher was in the back office calling out helpful hints.
Last used book sale today! Came away with Convoy: Drama in Arctic Waters, Paul Kemp (Arctic convoys) The Greatest Raid of All, C. E. Lucas Phillips (St Nazaire)
For reasons I do not understand, it was c.£20, brand spanking plastic-wrapped new on Amazon. The lowest I've seen it since pretty much 6 months after release. Naturally, I fell upon it like a tramp on chips, but it might be worth keeping an eye out as it had that 'last one, new stock soon' notice. Doubt it, but you never know. (Wonder if it's worth checking Barbarossa books site? Didn't realise they published & their pricing attitude is usually v fair.} It's very good.
I'm blaming some of you bastards for this one. Well, that & my own apparent total lack of self control. Does look very good, though. And small format so less risk of injury when reading in bed.
Adam. The 'other applications' bit of the subtitle: anything about Comet? And, if so, worth getting the book just for that?
Don't know really. The Comet section runs over six fairly basic pages & I very much doubt contains anything new to you. Though... The rest of it looks so thorough on the Meteor it might have a more general usefulness for the Comet-fixated.
That's the dread thing with looking in charity, remaindered and second hand shops. You can swear blue you won't buy today... but there's a book you can't miss as you know it costs more in knowledgable circles... (well perhaps except in the local Oxfam bookshop where the puffed up twit who runs it thinks he's an antiquarian bookseller, so takes stock he gets for free, goes on AbeBooks and shaves a fiver off the highest price he can find..)
Amen! Increasingly the case in all Oxfam Bookshops. Books deemed 'rare' with no regard to condition or actual scarcity priced to the maximum & sat there for years un-bought.
Another trick he uses (and a well-known London antiquarian book seller known for its eye watering prices did the same) is to say "1st Ed" - when there wasn't a "2nd Ed"