My book-buying "problem"

Discussion in 'Books, Films, TV, Radio' started by Chris C, Jul 6, 2018.

  1. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    I started my trip by going to my parents' so we could fly together. I brought with me a copy of Armoured Guardsmen by Boscawen.

    The next day I did some research at the Canadian War Museum library, and in their used book room I bought Assault on Germany by Ken Ford. This seemed so promising that I left Armoured Guardsmen behind when I took the plane to the UK.

    In Plymouth I found a copy of Marching To The Sound Of Gunfire by Delaforce and bought that. Good book!

    I got a copy of The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry 1939-1945 by Major Godfrey at the Cornwall Regimental Museum. And they had a used book room and I also bought Dilemmas of the Desert War by Carver.

    At this point I said "enough! I"m stopping", but at the Tank Museum there was also a used book sale put on by the museum staff, and I found a copy of Armoured Odyssey by Stuart Hamilton and as this was on a list I had made of tanker memoirs I had to get it as well.

    So to sum up, I brought one book, left it behind, bought 5 more books, and have only read two of them!!

    (I'm halfway through Hamilton's book, and I've read a couple of chapters of the DCLI book though)
     
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  2. idler

    idler GeneralList

    It's a common noob problem but there is an easy answer. Simply stop reading the books (except perhaps the shopping lists (though these might be labelled 'bibliography')) and you will find you have lots more time to devote to the actual buying.
     
    Rich Payne, SDP, Tricky Dicky and 2 others like this.
  3. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    All perfectly normal.
    Last few days:
    The Sharp End of War - Ellis
    The Coming of the Third Reich - Evans
    Slim, Master of War - Lyman
    Airfix Guide to Russian Tanks - Zaloga
    Plus a couple of other things on witchcraft and death.

    What's the 'answer' to this so-called 'problem'?
    Stay out of secondhand and charity shops?
    Pfft. Yeah right. Then I'd have no reason at all to go to town.
     
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  4. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    Idler, you're a riot!
     
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  5. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Hang on.
    'Reading' them?
    Oh, yeah... Sometimes. Eventually. Even if not about tanks.

    Not the fun part though, is it.
     
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  6. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    Seems quite normal to me. I'm re-reading a few books currently as I always pick up something I missed first time around.
     
  7. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    I'll admit that sometimes poking my nose into a second hand bookshop is the reason I come up with to go downtown. And it's healthier than many other addictions!

    The thrill of discovery is quite something.
     
    SDP likes this.
  8. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Just popped into town to look at oscillating saws.
    Bought this secondhand pristine copy of N&M reprint instead.
    All perfectly normal.

    IMG_20180706_134134993-01.jpeg
     
    mark abbott, stolpi, SDP and 2 others like this.
  9. idler

    idler GeneralList

    Your problem is that you didn't already have it!
    Or is it a spare?
     
  10. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    I know! Highly remiss, but never had it.
    Got it now.

    Next - a History of the OBE.
    Definitely didn't need that, but two quid is two quid.

    And now for the Age UK dedicated bookshop.
    Lethal stuff...
     
    SDP likes this.
  11. Markyboy

    Markyboy Member

    My missus is convinced that every pilot/aircrew wrote a memoir. It's the only way she can explain my constant finds at boot fairs and charity shops.
     
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  12. Old Git

    Old Git Harmless Curmudgeon

    I've been an inverterate bookbuyer since my teenage years, not helped by running my own Academic bookshop, at age 17, with an attached second-hand section. Having a stack of unread books is nothing new to me. Ordinarilly I stand them in a pile in the middle of the room and when the pile gets too big to get passed, without knocking it over all the time, that's the time I take a weekend and sit down and read as many as I possibly can!
     
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  13. SDP

    SDP Incurable Cometoholic

    All so true - don't think I've 'liked' so many posts on a thread for ages, if ever...….

    The thing about books is that they're tactile and easy to pick up and put down. I can't actually remember reading a book from beginning to end as I tend to look on them as reference material rather than a 'story'.
     
  14. Stuart Avery

    Stuart Avery In my wagon & not a muleteer.

    For what its worth, one has a few shelves of books. You do buy them has cheap has possible ( normally of the originals) when the opportunity slaps you in the face.. The last book that i read in a weekend was called, MUTINY AT SALERNO by Saul David. I had to read it again in another weekend & Its cheap has chips! I must start taking more books to work.

    Regards
    Stu.
     
  15. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    I think about this slightly random purchasing of 'whatever the charity shop provides' sometimes.
    It's a symptom of not enough decent dedicated Military bookshops, I reckon.
    It's fun, and right & proper, but if my local towns each had something like the Lewes bookshop I suspect I'd buy far more books genuinely linked to my interest, maybe in the £20-50 range rather than the £1-5.

    This is all doubtless bollocks, though.
    If I had a Lewes or Meekins sort of supply, I'd be buying those and the sodding random stuff.

    My book-buying intensifies this time of year as holidaying with family & parents looms.
    If I've a large stack of military books to throw at my father it means he sits happily for days in the garden smoking cigars & complaining about the authors of such.
    Far better than him getting all involved in peoples day-trip plans. That always turns nasty... :unsure:
    Praise be the recent Works Haynes manual bonanza...
     
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  16. SDP

    SDP Incurable Cometoholic

    Adam. Any Haynes Manual in particular?
     
  17. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    T34, Mosquito, Stuka, Great War Tank, Chieftain, Sherman.
    Each for the price of a magazine (have you seen the price of magazines these days!?)
    Each will distract him for at least half a day...
     
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  18. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

    I have two major book-buying difficulties which most of you probably don't suffer from:

    A) Almost everything I buy is ordered online and sent 5,500 miles by airmail. With an average size/weight hardback, the cost is at least another £10-£12 per book and sometimes more since Sterling nose-dived a few years back. I refuse to contemplate how much that has come to.

    B) Feel my pain. When I first applied for a credit card here (in Korea) I was working on some kind of peasant visa and the bank were a bit dubious about issuing me with a card as--in theory--I could just disappear far overseas. The compromise they offered is that they'd give me a really fancy one, but as a subsidiary card on my wife's account. With a woeful lack of forethought I happily agreed; alas, since then, whenever I order a book online my wife gets an instant text notification on her phone!

    I have become a master of strategic purchase-timing.
     
  19. Stuart Avery

    Stuart Avery In my wagon & not a muleteer.

    The wife is a saint.

    Stu.
     
  20. SDP

    SDP Incurable Cometoholic

    Ah! Chieftain. Written by Dick Taylor: top chap and has posted a few times, albeit not recently, on this Forum. That Manual also contains photos of another chap who also posts occasionally on this Forum.
     
    Chris C likes this.

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