Member: brunellus

Yes, I drop in at the Crossword Centre from time to time (http://www.crossword.org.uk/); won their monthly clue writing competition a couple of times several years back (which contributed a couple of volumes to my library!). My results have been somewhat poorer recently, for which my excuse is the increased number of entrants (rather than a drop in my quality)... {ahem}

posted by dtw42 at 11:19 am (EST) on Jan 17, 2010

Are you disappointed that there's so little traffic at the Cryptic Crosswords group?

posted by dtw42 at 3:20 pm (EST) on Jan 16, 2010

I should've guessed that you'd be the other person on LT to own a copy of the new translation of Bacon's Art and Science of Logic.

posted by Aryanhwy at 10:35 am (EST) on Nov 16, 2009

Hi there thanks for letting me know about Waterfields! I can't believe it's closing. What a shame!

C

posted by charlottestar at 5:15 am (EST) on Aug 14, 2009

Mark,
Waterfield's is closing? Please say it isn't so.
It is one of the chief pleasures of Oxford. I bought
a lovely 1729 Isaac Watts there in June, with thoughts
of many more such to come.

Yours,

Paul
http://www.umich.edu/~pfs/
former medievalist and cambridge anglo-saxonist

posted by pfspfs at 11:07 pm (EST) on Aug 13, 2009

Hi Mark

Thanks for letting me know about the cryptic crossword group. I've joined the group and look forward to improving my ability to solve these infuriating and addictive crosswords.

Jenny

posted by socialpages at 4:45 am (EST) on Aug 7, 2009

Funny, I've been looking at the Baudolino translation. It's really quite good, but the text is nonetheless more entertaining in the original.

posted by dcargnello at 10:46 am (EST) on Jun 23, 2009

Ah, what an appropriate comment. Just a few days ago I asked myself whether I should adopt the policy of stop buying books after I reach 3,000. Thanks to you I now know there's a better alternative--and one with a distinguished history behind it.

posted by Benthamite at 12:50 pm (EST) on Jun 14, 2009

Hello Brunellus....

Glad to see you added Borders Oxford to the bookstores on Librarything. Along with being a committed librarything member, I also happen to manage that particular shop. We don't stock much Bencivenga, but we have plenty of Richard Scarry!

posted by whiteroseofyork at 5:17 pm (EST) on Jun 3, 2009

Thanks for the invite. It's a growing interest and I'm putting together a course on it at the moment.

posted by johnsellars at 12:34 pm (EST) on May 1, 2009

(re: Granite and Grit)
Thanks - I've added it to my wishlist.

posted by r.orrison at 4:09 pm (EST) on Mar 25, 2009

Thanks for pulling me in to that thread about cryptics in the States.

posted by 530nm330hz at 9:55 am (EST) on Feb 25, 2009

Hi, thanks for flagging my library as interesting! And thanks also for reminding me of the Minster Gate bookshop in York, which I've now added to my favourites. I had probably been suppressing my memory of that place, since (as I now recall) I spent far too much money there on one occasion...
pfs

posted by pfspfs at 10:40 am (EST) on Feb 10, 2009

Alas, instead of the book, what I got was a belated email apology from the bookseller for having sold the book to another customer. :(

I guess I'll just have to buy a copy at Borders...

posted by Benthamite at 6:53 am (EST) on Jul 11, 2008

Belatedly, Thanks for the invite but I get enough to do without embroiling myself further in anything!

gge (9,3)

Regards

posted by Gateaupain at 10:58 am (EST) on Jul 5, 2008

Hi Mark. I just ordered Los crímenes de Oxford, by Guillermo Martínez. It should arrive in a couple of weeks, by which time I'll let you know whether the poor quality of the film can be traced to the literary merits of the book which inspired it.

posted by Benthamite at 5:00 pm (EST) on May 19, 2008

Thank you so much! LibraryThing seems like an inspiring place...

posted by NuffieldLibrary at 11:18 am (EST) on May 5, 2008

Hi, Brunellus! I'm afraid I keep my wiki protected by passwords so that only I can get to it... You might post to that conversation and see if anyone there has one that isn't password-protected, or that they could let you see. Some personal wiki hosting companies have some sample wikis that you can look at - if you google for "personal wiki", you might find some there. If you're having trouble finding a sample personal wiki to look at, let me know, and I might be able to create a temporary guest account or something on mine. Let me know if you have any other questions!
Gwendydd.

posted by Gwendydd at 12:10 am (EST) on Apr 17, 2008

Thank you for the Cryptic Crosswords invitation - don't do many these days, apart from the Listener occasionally. Perhaps this will encourage me to be less lazy.

posted by affle at 7:35 am (EST) on Mar 26, 2008

Thanks for the invite to the Cryptic Crosswords group. I'm delighted to accept.

posted by finebalance at 5:19 pm (EST) on Mar 18, 2008

Thanks for the invite to Cryptic Crosswords group which I'm taking up. By the way there was some discussion not too long ago in the Anglophiles group here http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=29300.

posted by PossMan at 10:56 am (EST) on Mar 13, 2008

Thanks for the invitation - I'll keep an eye on the group. To be honest, the number of crossword books I have is more to do with a past enthusiasm for collecting Penguin first editions than cruciverbalism. I can't cope with 'Premiership' crosswords - Ximenes, Listener, etc. - but I look at the Times most days and finish it occasionally. Best wishes.

posted by abbottthomas at 10:54 am (EST) on Mar 13, 2008

Thank you for adding me to your "Interesting Libraries" list. I'm honoured.
Today we have 20 books in common, nearly all very classical works. Many other will follow, I guess, perhaps some less classical too...
Happy reading!

posted by JanWillemNoldus at 5:19 pm (EST) on Mar 11, 2008

I haven't heard of _The Blackest Bird_ but I'm intrigued. Do you plan on reading it?

posted by lorirorke at 10:58 am (EST) on Feb 6, 2008

I had to smile when I saw your comment on the Corman/Price adaptations. They are among my favorite films! I would watch them much more frequently if my husband didn't find them so awful. I own nearly all of them - I also love the Les Baxter soundtracks. (I love 50s/60s horror films in general, and in addition to the Corman flicks, I'm a big fan of Hammer Studios and Mario Bava.)

A fairly recent discovery of mine are the 30s/40s/50s radio dramatic adaptations of Poe (programs such as *The Weird Circle* adapted a few of his stories). Like Corman's work, these are fairly loose, but delicious in their own way. You can check some of this stuff out at www.archive.org.

I've come close to purchasing *The Poe Shadow* and will have to give it a second look. I will _definitely_ be checking out *Visions of Poe* - sounds right up my proverbial alley.

I'm hoping to visit the grave in Baltimore within the next few months. I went to college in Philadelphia (which is where Poe lived when he wrote *The Black Cat*), and I used to spend a decent amount of time at his house (now a National Historic Site). It actually has a false chimney in it, and the curators like to think this was his inspiration for that story.

The *Oxford Book of Gothic Tales* is fantastic - I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I haven't heard of *Titus Groan*, but the title is intriguing.

posted by lorirorke at 7:27 pm (EST) on Sep 5, 2007

Thanks so much for the Penguin book recommendation. Not sure if I can get it in the US, but I'll do a little digging. I'm looking forward to checking out your catalog, especially as you're a fellow Poe-fan. I live only an hour from his grave but have yet to visit it; I'm hoping to make it to the site this October.

posted by lorirorke at 5:42 pm (EST) on Sep 4, 2007

I'm not surprised at all to see you on here!

I'm even less surprised to see that half of the books that we share are Iain (M) Banks...

I just took a look at your tag cloud - I wonder if there's a name for when there are two neighbouring tags that are the same size and inadvertently create a whole new genre.... I did think for a second that you were into "dictionary drama"...

posted by HughMacdonald at 8:58 am (EST) on Aug 29, 2007

Well, quite a coincidence -though I have some way to go before matching your library! As it happens I do have a number of questions...I just received a 1/2 in STEP II/III - is that a decent standard in Mathematics for an academic college like Balliol? Are tutorials predominantly done by college lecturers/fellows or are graduate students involved? What are the Maths/Philosophy faculty at the college like? Finally, is the philosophical atmosphere at oxford quite open? (As someone with interests on both sides of the philosophical divide, I find myself quite worried by some of the mud-slinging that seems to go on.) Apologies for the deluge - any answers would be hugely appreciated

posted by carnelevare at 9:48 am (EST) on Aug 16, 2007

hey mark! good to see you're a paul auster fan - no-one else i know seems to have heard of him. how've you been anyway - read any good books lately?

chica

posted by cheech at 6:43 pm (EST) on Jul 2, 2007