« Books and literacy »

Introduction

I thought about the direction of this web site for a while, tossing ideas about with various degrees of success. It's about what I have to offer, and about expressing myself. As is often the case, the answer was literally under my nose!

I read in the same way other people breathe, constantly and almost without thought. At one point my own book collection numbered well over 7,500 books, covering everything from Archery thru "Teach yourself Swahili" and into Zoology. It also took up several rooms in my offices, home, my mum's...   Needless to say I've had to whittle this down to my favourite few thousand!

Anyway, given that in any given week, unless I'm busy on the computers, I will read up to a dozen or more reference books and novels what better than to dedicate a whole division to literacy.

• Copies of the books etc I've written myself
• Searchable database of my own little 'library'
  I've entered a third or so - and it's at 1,200 titles (including 200+ of OOP "wants")
• The rest I'll flesh out later. Probably interviews with writers and publishers and your own reviews of books, should you wish to offer any.

Sobs!!!
As I said, I got rid of a LOT of books over a few garage / car boot sales a while back...

"You can never read that many books, not in a lifetime..."

Well, I've just had them valued. This title $40, that title $385 and so on over several thousand novels and reference books in some thirty languages. The vast majority were long out of print and ... Sigh.   The minimum value was estimated at $20,000 and I really don't want to consider if I valued every title...

Sooo, before you toss aside those dusty old tomes, have a look here at their value...

For the increasingly popular eBooks you'll need Adobe eBook reader.

Personally I much prefer the feel and portability of a paperback, but that's the price of progress. Make the books cheaper and saves a few forests mind...