B is for Books We Have Known

Bit of a nostalgia hit here, sorting the stuff to throw forward to 2024, which has joined the queue in 2023 (and 2022), but not been published, nor been thrown back to 2004, or a specific zone (I have a system, it may be chaotic, but it makes sense!), I found a few books worth half a mention . . . 

While I was clearing out the Natural History bookcase, next to the fireplace in the front room over a year ago, I found, behind the larger volumes, a small stack of the childhood Observer books! I actually still have two of mine out, here, an earlier and a later version of 'Flags', and I do also have my own adult collection of them in storage,

 

So I'm looking forward to unifying the three lots (the above have also gone to storage), and perhaps making a single box shelf for them, which while high enough for a leveraging finger, and deep enough, will be much-longer than needed, so I can collect a few more!

 

I'm looking forward to reading this, it's relatively well known, and you won't be surprised to learn it was published in 1930! Some things were quite prescient, some not so, as with all futurism, the timescales of when we (humanity) will achieve what, are greatly exaggerated, in the shortening of time-passed, for more;

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_in_2030

 

The sweet Boysy-boy investigating! These were four of my late Mother's volumes in the Pleasures and Treasures series of collectables titles, by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, published through the 1960's, some were later republished by Octopus, in the early 1970's. I already had a few, including both versions of Henry Harris's 'Model Soldiers', so I now have 13 plus the Octopus duplicate, and like the Observers, there are more to find.

 

This seems to have been a Christmas present from my late Uncle to Mum, he died in a hooked-up missile incident flying out of what was then HMS Fulmar (ex-RAF Lossiemouth), and she never really got over his death, so this must have been a real treasure for her, especially as it must have been found among his 'things' as the euphemism goes, he died in June of that year?

 

We loved it as kids, without perhaps realising the significance of the note, as Max (quite famous back then, there are other volumes), is a totally textless Everyman, the idiot in all of us, and was very relatable, even to 5/6-year-olds!

 

I don't know quite where the rest of these are, I know we had several, including a space one, I can't remember if it was the solar system, the universe, or something more esoteric like space exploration, but if it turns-up I'll be sure to blog every page, just to get it in the tag list, what do you think readers! And there was a dinosaur one, another on butterflies I think? Several anyway! They may have gone to storage with me not really paying attention, as some books were in boxes already.

From the childhood section I've inherited all these, really nice editions of mostly classics, although some which were 'classics' in the age of Empire, have now fallen from favour, but I will enjoy re-reading them all. Mum read most of them to us as kids, and the Wind In the Willows is a later imprint from the 1970's. The family Bible is on its side above, and I will re-read that too, it's worth being familier with what you're arguing against!

And these are real treasures - four of the 'coloured' fairy books. Beautiful stories, wonderfully told, and the books themselves are tangible treats! The books are 'fairy tales' rather than just 'fairy' tales, although there are a lot of fairies in them! And they were gathered from all-over what was then (the turn of the last century) the whole developed world.