Hi again,
Thanks for the recommendations. I have the Brickhill book (and read it in 1979!). The book by Larry Forrester is new to me - I'll see if I can track it down.

I have read about Douglas Bader in a number of other books - he was one of the true heroes of the Battle of Britain and WWII.

posted by hashiru at 5:22 pm (EST) on Mar 30, 2008

Hi, got here via the 50 Book Challenge group. I browsed a bit and discovered the Biggles books by W. E. Johns. I am a great fan of historical fiction and have always thought that nautical fiction too far outnumbers aviation fiction. It looks like Biggles might just redress that imbalance. It seems that most of these are out of print, but Amazon shows many available used. Do you have specific ones to recommend?

Aviation related historical fiction that I have enjoyed include: "Piece of Cake" and others by Derek Robinson, "Three Cheers for Me" by Donald Jack, "Winged Victory" by V. M. Yeates, "Lafayette Escadrille" (sometimes called "Falcons of France") by Nordhoff and Hall.

I'll return to your library for more browsing hoping to uncover other unexpected gems.

posted by hashiru at 8:07 am (EST) on Mar 28, 2008

Merry10 Thanks for that and for sharing about the Bernhard Sclink link with The Odyssey. On the strength of you recommendation I am going to put The Homecoming on my tbr pile. I have enjoyed browsing your books. ENjoy your reading Julie

posted by juliette07 at 2:08 am (EST) on Mar 27, 2008

Hello merry10
We have been talking on another thread. I enjoyed our conversation especially the laugh regarding The Iliad. All the more so as I came over and browsed your very impressive library. Thank you !

posted by juliette07 at 4:27 am (EST) on Mar 25, 2008

Meg

I also meant to say that cataloguing ONLY works when I remember NOT to open the book, and DO NOT start reading any excerpts, portions let alone from the beginning of said book as I can get caught up in it and all attempts at putting book details online have gone until ....

posted by Caesia at 6:41 am (EST) on Mar 23, 2008

Meg

I can only support the buying of books - especially as there is no available library. I was lucky enough to have parents who thought similarly and have always appreciated the access to good books that this gave me.

As for the popping of books onto librarything - what can I say other than I am "addicted" (although I have to confess that I refer to it as slightly obsessed - hoping that it will disspiate once the bulk of the books are nicely detailed online and I only have to make sure that new additions to the bookshelves are catalogued as they come into the house. Only 2 bookshelves to go (although they do haold a fair number of books .....)

Take care

posted by Caesia at 6:26 am (EST) on Mar 23, 2008

Meg

I have just had a most enjoyable browse through your library - I was impressed by your detailed tagging -especially for all yout books for children, as well as for your literature. It has given me much to think about.

I had a group of books that were all published well before ISBNs were even dreamed about - and oufnd, to my surprise, that putting in the title and author (and occassionally publisher) was actually rather nice.

Enjoy

posted by Caesia at 6:37 am (EST) on Mar 22, 2008

Meg

Thank you for your comment - you have worked out my answer to the question "what I did on my holidays". I am trying to keep up the impetus to get the remainder loaded so that I can go back to spending my time READING!

I had noticed your libarary - I grew up in country NSW but moved to go to Uni.

posted by Caesia at 6:06 am (EST) on Mar 21, 2008

Hi, you asked a question on the 50 book challenge that I thought I'd answer here. Some of the ones listed I teach 3-5 times a year but I don't re-read them every semester (bad me!!!). As for translations, some people consider the Heaney _Beowulf_ the easiest to read ever -- but it is not accurate at all. Heaney adds lots of Christianity that is not in the original and relates the GEATS (somewhere between Denmark and Sweden in the 500s) to the modern "Irish troubles". It's a good read, and there are better translations. As for reading fast, I've really slowed way, way down from my pre-doctoral studies level. There was a time before doctoral studies and before children in my life that I regularly read 3-5 books per day, at least 6 days out of the week. I was very sickly as a child and could not do much running about, so I read, and read, and read -- getting through the children's section and into the adult section when I was about 10.
I love the variety of books that you are reading. One of these days I'll get variety back.
Fran aka medievalmama
I assume NSW = New South Wales???? I really like Arthur Upfield's "Boney" books.

posted by medievalmama at 5:12 pm (EST) on Feb 8, 2008