Monday, December 1, 2008

It's library day

As you know by now, my Grandpa sent me his library a couple of years ago and nothing gives me more pleasure than sharing some of the books with my blogging buddies. The library in my house is also a workplace for myself and my two children, and recently it has also become the room in which my son plays Guitar Hero World Tour (at least I think that's what it's called...we have the guitars and a friend brings over the other instruments). It physically pains me to see my library used in this way, and yet it also amuses me no end. I am certain that in all of the years those beautiful book spent in my grandparents' various homes, they never witnessed four thirteen-year-old boys screeching "The Eye of the Tiger" while beating on a drum and pressing the buttons of computerised guitars, with their shirts off, and jumping...no.....leaping back and forth, immediately next door to the room of a seventeen-year-old girl who is studying for her final exams.

Anyway.

I have not been reading very much myself lately, so I thought this post would be an excellent opportunity to jump-start my return to the library by displaying for your viewing pleasure my Grandpa's "Tiny Books." They are not officially entitled "Tiny Books," they are actually "Miniature Books - Rodale Press." My daughter had a security blanket when she was a baby, which used to be my security blanket (told you, my mother keeps EVERYTHING) and the more she loved it the tinier it became, until it was finally a little square of fabric, and it was known as "Tiny Blanket." Anyway....... ahem.......... where was I? Ah yes, here are the Tiny Books:




I will list the titles for you, and then you can let me know if any one of them particularly takes your fancy. I might choose a title or two out of a hat if I get several different requests, or I might feature the most popular title, if there is one. Or I might completely neglect my real life and spend the next month photographing and describing all of the books, tiny, medium and large, in my library.

You just never know.

The Tinies are:

Old English Coffee Houses
Poor Minette - The Letters of Two French Cats - P.J. Stahl
La Belle O'Morphi - A Brief Biography
Belphagor - Niccolo Machiavelli
Bibliomania - Gustave Flaubert
My Dear Mrs Jones - The Letters of the Duke of Wellington
Voltaire - Studies by Oliver Goldsmith and Victor Hugo
A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco - King James the First
The Vindication of Wives
Satire Against Husbands
I Kiss Your Hands - The Maupassant-Bashkirtseff Letters
Daumier, Caricaturist - Henry James

10 comments:

Mary said...

Definitely Poor Minette.

Why I am so definite I do not know!

Badger said...

Oooo. I am intrigued by them all. Except the cat one, because I dislike cats, and the Flaubert, because I was never a fan.

Anonymous said...

My Dear Mrs. Jones, the letters of the Duke of Wellington, because I am a voyeur at heart and love to read other people's mail.

RW said...

I vote for Satire against Husbands. please.

trash said...

Oooooh :-( Poor Minnette. We need to hear more.

Anonymous said...

The Voltaire, please! I'd be absolutely ritmated (my wv) if you'd show us that one.

Anonymous said...

Poor Minette please.
I am intrigued.

Anonymous said...

Definitely Poor Minette.
I had no idea cats could write. And here we have the proof!

B

Sömsmånen said...

I bet those books are having the time of their lives!
Hmm, intriguing task...I think James is overrated, Flaubert -yaaawn...I think I'll have to say Vindication of Wives depending of the fact that my husband poured (ok, ok, it was accidental)a beer all over the keyboard so I couldn't use the computer for 53 hours.

That One said...

Old English Coffee Houses for me, please.

I'm intrigued to know if it's a historical recounting of the running of coffee houses or if it's stories about the patrons of said coffee houses and the role they played in every day lives. Either way would be a win in my book.