Folio 60

Perhaps better to open a new thread devoted to Folio 60... Would someone here be kind enough to spare some of his (her) time and post here one or two scans of inside pages? I'd like to know if I miss something by not having ordered Folio 60 already. (And I just saw that it counted for the Spring Sale, so it gives ideas.) However the sale price seems excessive. It should be offered, shouldn't?

Folio 60 has illustrations on almost every page, many in colour. Some are three-quarter or full-page, but most are one-quarter-page in size. Most are illustrations from the different titles published by the society, but a number of bindings are also shown. I have already bought one FS title used because the illustration from it in Folio 60 caught my attention. Otherwise I would still not even be aware of the book.

Here is one of the pages without an illustration. All full-page illustrations face one of these pages.

Here is one of the full page illustrations.

Here is one of the pages with a b&w illustration.

Here is one of the pages with a colour illustration.

Here is one of the pages showing a binding.

I hope these help you decide about Folio 60.

Fine job, Lucas! Thanks for your efforts on behalf of the Devotees.

(Incidentally, which illustration caught your eye and pushed you over the edge? One of the illustrations for the older Folio Society first person account of Third Crusade did it to me.)

How often do they do separate printings/editions of the same book in the same year or two (ie not different editions like the Herodotus book on the other thread). In other words, how often is one printing done differently from others?

Thanks, LucasTrask. Very kind of you. It makes me water. BUT I still persist in my opinion that the price is excessive... BUT I'd like so much to get the Times Atlas as a free set, as varielle said in another thread... BUT I have also in view two books from the Dickens series... Life with FS is a nightmare...

Thank you very much, Lucas. That's really helpful.

Thank you Lucas, now I really do want it, but agree it's too pricey. I think they should have given a free copy to every member born in 1947, i.e. me, for a start.

I counted the number of illustrations in the book and (if I counted correctly) there are 262 in total among the 472 pages. Of these 251 are spread across the 372 pages of the bibliography proper, an average of 6 pages with an illustration out of every ten.

As for price, yes it is expensive, but in my opinion it is definitely worth it (although I admit I bought it at a 22% pre-publication discount). It is a large, heavy book and according to the colophon it is printed on Modigliani paper, which I think is excellent for reproducing the illustrations. Even the most detailed wood engravings look wonderful and in fact the one that caught my eye looks better in Folio 60 than in the book it was originally published in.

Speaking of which, the illustration is Freyja sat in her chariot drawn by cats by Jane Lydbury from The Norse Myths by Kevin Crossley-Holland. The illustration appealed to me since I am a cat lover, but when I saw that it was from a book of Norse myths I just had to obtain it.

So I guess my kids are out another $89.95 of college money. Thanks a lot, Trask!

Also: I had no idea they did After Many A Summer... That's a favorite Huxley book.

Folio 60 is expensive, but it is a very high-quality production, and therefore worth the cost, in my opinion. All of the many illustrations are well-reproduced. The paper quality and the binding craftsmanship are as good as any of the FS limited editions that I have. This brings to mind my only complaint about the book, which is that it does not contain a listing of FS limited editions. IMHO, this would be a greatly appreciated addition for Folio 70.

tatleriv, I am not sure if you noticed, but the full-page illustration is from the FS edition. There are currently 25 copies of the FS edition of After Many A Summer for sale through abebooks, so it seems that it so not hard to find. Folio 60 states (on the next page) that “the title-page and the other elements of display represent one of the Society’s excursions into asymmetrical typography” and “in this case the results are less than satisfying.”

teebweeb: I believe all of the limited editions are listed in the Folio 60. They just aren't called out separately; rather they are in their appropriate place by date and number. This makes it laborious to go through and find them all but and interesting and rewarding activity none the less. Who knows what books you will then have to hunt down on eBay or Abebooks or some other source...It certainly has caused me to keep my eyes open for some books I wouldn't have been aware of otherwise.

which in particular have caught your eye?

Hmmm...let's see:

Of Gods and Men by Frederick Raphael. 1992. The limited edition looks very nice. I've seen the standard edition come up on eBay a couple of times but have been outbid

The 1995 limited edition of the Wind in the Willows

Goodbye to Berlin from 1975. The binding looks awesome

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame from 1998 because I love Quentin Blakes illustrations, one of which is shown in the Folio 60.

...and on and on

Re : 18 Yes, my good jveezer, I'm aware that the limited editions are there in the chronological listing, but I'm one of those crazy software developers who expects companies who provide information in the 21st century to have all of their relevant data separately sorted and listed by category, so that you can obtain it immediately. The current result, as you have noted, is that you come across all of these other FS titles that attract your interest and cause you to purchase them as well - which is probably a very subtly-contrived marketing effect designed by the editors.

teebweeb: I think it is even more subtle and dangerous than marketing. It's a teasing ploy to seduce us and make us sit down and spend time with a book. I can't call up the data on my computer in seconds and get my instant gratification; I must spend minutes and then hours in the sensuous joy of a book. Indeed, my Folio 60 has an intoxicating smell. I love the tactile nature of the paper they used and the pleasure of the illustrations to the eye. Even the slipcase is awesome.

This laptop toting, blackberry juggling, high tech software sales guy comes down from his cloud and realizes he just spent an hour looking for all the limited editions. Wow! I think I'll do it again tomorrow. And when her sister the Folio 70 comes out, I'll probably take a turn with her as well!

As to the immediate nature of the Internet and our addiction to quick data, Crispin Elsted of the Barbarian Press has this to say:

"The internet, that cancerous growth industry of ill-digested information, has developed its own frenzied polity, making it obligatory to update websites continually when one might more reasonably be reading, flying kites, excoriating politicians, or playing with the cat. In fact, it seems to demand that people have a website even if they haven’t the slightest need for one. Thus, teenagers and other children set up personal websites in which we may learn of their fascinations with the latest pimpled pop pundits and share their inmost thoughts on the subject of the relative ‘grossness’ of kissing with, or without, tongue. So much I have learned from scholarly research. I take leave to suggest, in the face of clear popular opinion to the contrary, that the world is no better for such information, although qua information it must be said that it compares favourably with most of what is provided on the net for students in the fields of literature, history, and the arts, where tongues seem more tied than titillating.

Yet there are positive things to say about the internet. The press website has certainly brought us more contacts with people, many of whom have written to us about books or printing, attended our workshops, apprenticed with us, bought our books, and become friends. For that alone it has been more than worthwhile. But the pressure to update information, as if we were being monitored continually by hordes of what Mencken called bibliobibuli desperate for the next fine edition, is wearing. We have discovered a way around that pressure, that guilt, however - a tactic which has proven successful and which will, we hope, become popular generally on the internet: we ignore it. We get to it when we can."

Hmmmm, as a confirmed Luddite, I'm a little surprised to find myself writing this, but I think Mr. Crispin Elsted couldn't possibly have chosen a better name for his company than the Barbarian Press. His overwrought philippic against the internet is not only insufferably pompous and condescending--it is patently wrong. Wrong to the point of stupidity. The world IS a better place for the internet, and potentially could be even better yet.

I've spent time in Third World countries and have watched students devouring information of all types on computers--information that may not have ever been available to them through books or periodicals. People in those countries are having a hard time affording bread these days, let alone books (and definitely not books that cost several hundred dollars for a thin volume containing a single poem, the forte of the Barbarian Press).

Furthermore, books and periodicals can be controlled by oppressive governments, but the internet is a lot harder to control. Just about everything can show up on the internet and even if it means encyclopedic treatises on teen kissing, I still think the freedom of information it offers the world is worth it.

And if Mr. Elsted believes that print is immune to a preponderance of dross over gold, he needs to go back a few centuries and read "The Dunciad"--or walk into any commercial bookstore today. His attitude irritates me so much I have decided I will under no circumstances buy the forthcoming Barbarian Press edition of one of my favorite poems, Clough's "Amours de Voyage." I will donate the $400 US to Wikipedia instead.

Django: I hear you. I was too tired to follow up the lengthy quote with my own view of the internet, which is generally positive and agrees with your points as well. The freedom of information and the difficulty of government control alone is worth the wading through some of the problems Crispin points out. This also illustrates how taking a couple of paragraphs out of context can make it sound harsh or allow us to form a possibly wrong impression of a person...witness the election year crap we are subjected to daily if you are unfortunate enough to turn on your TV. I believe he had more positive things to say about the internet outside of the two paragraphs I quoted; his point was more in the context of expectations of daily updates on a book-making process that takes six months. I suppose his point is that if he updated daily it would be something like: Today we set the type for the first three verses of the second Canto of...

Anyway, I'd never heard of Amours de Voyage until I received mine. It's a fabulous, albeit slim, edition of the poem. I highly recommend Venus and Adonis as well. They really do make fabulous books even if Crispin comes off as a grumpy old codger sometime. I found him very nice on the phone and his love of books, bookmaking, and literature was obvious.

You are absolutely right about judging someone from quotes taken out of context. Perhaps my reaction was so strong because I saw a part of myself mirrored in his fogeyism. I tend to be intolerant of a lot of what's new in popular culture (especially music, movies, etc.), and I need to keep reminding myself that though these things may not speak to me, they must speak, and speak meaningfully, to a lot of people.

Even though I'm not relenting about boycotting "Amours de Voyage," I have to say I'm envious of you for owning a copy. Clough is a great poet too little known these days. I doubt that many today even know his "greatest hit,"--"Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth." Although I do think an entire volume for just "Amours de Voyage" is a little extravagant ("Dipsychus" might have been included without spoiling the book's design integrity), I would have welcomed a fine edition of Clough as the type in my Oxford Standard Authors edition is painfully small for my aging eyesight.

Re 22: jveezer - I most heartily concur with with your opinion of Folio 60 and I also love Quentin Blake's Illustrations on the slipcase. The book is a complete delight and I treasure mine.

As to the internet and some of the unfortunate effects of the Information Age upon human behavior and expectations (e.g. impatience, a desire for instant gratification, et. al.). I see both sides of the coin but also consider it to present a primarily beneficial face.

I have spent a good deal of time enjoying Folio 60, learning more about the publication history of the Society and having my bibliophilic appetite whetted for yet another title which is typically acquired by turning to a computer and analyzing its availability at the various websites. I do remember a time when I had to call dealers across the country on the telephone or place enquiries with book search agencies and would not care to return to that.

A quick, and probably ignorant question...

Could anyone illuminate the reason as to why Folio 60 is titled '1947 - 2006', surely it should be 2007?

Re #27: This is one of those mathematical quirks that drove me into literature. It's akin to the problem: "is the year 2000 the last year of the 20th century or the first year of the 21st century?"

In fact, the years 1947 through 2006 number 60 years (inclusive). As a quick demonstration of how this works:

1. 1947
2. 1948
3. 1949
4. 1950
5. 1951
6. 1952
7. 1953
8. 1954
9. 1955
10. 1956

Extending this on out will show you that 2006 is the 60th year.

Perhaps one of our members who reads things like Newton's Principia Mathematica can offer a more elegant explanation.

Thanks Django, I thought it might be something like that. Although I did wonder if it was connected to the month the society was founded?

Still a tiny bit irritating to me as (to my mind) in order to get the round number it makes more sense that it starts with the seven on the end & finishes with the seven on the end. ;p

My copy of Folio 60 came two days ago, six days after I clicked for submitting my order on the Web (a new record, my good teebweeb? ;-). I must say that it is a fabulous book. I like the smell and the creamy paper and the curved spine... My only problem is that I dare not leaf it through for fear of finger prints. And as I often eat chocolate while reading, I'm afraid for the creamy paper...

Re #30: Pepys, have you sought professional help for your condition?

Re #30 - Your new record is duly (and enviously) noted, my good Pepys. My wife is a chocoholic, so I can empathize with you here. I would suggest a box of alcohol wipes to accompany your box of chocolates. We are Neuhaus fans in our houshold. My youngest son sent us a box from Belgium while on a business trip there and we now require regular reminders of that revelatory occasion by ordering additional boxes. (I swear that it has to be addictive.)

32> Rather than alcohol wipes, wouldn't liquor-filled chocolates be a better solution to my problem?

That sounds more like a better problem to his solution.

34> Too clever for me... My head aches...

Re #32 - My good Pepys, I believe that I've discovered a possible solution to your problem. Several of the chef's supply companies online have chocolate forks with very narrow tines that are used when making handmade chocolates. You could employ one of these while enjoying your chocolates, regardless of variety, thus keeping your fingertips free of chocolate while caressing the pages of your prized Folio 60. Just perform a Google search with "chocolate fork" and you'll have several such sites returned in the listings.

Well, teebweeb, at least I learned the word 'tine'. I didn't know about these 'chocolate chipper forks' and 'chocolate dipping forks'. Amazing how Man can be ingenious to produce such instruments whithout which life wouldn't be worth to live! (But we'd better stop here our digression before being called to order by other serious LTers...)

I suppose so, my friend.

I just finished reading my Folio 60 from cover to cover and am very glad I bought it (and notice that it's at a very good price now in the winter sale).
It has brought to my attention several books that were published fairly recently but which somehow I missed - The Compleat Angler with Rackham's illustrations is one. Was it a special edition? And The Third Policeman - I'm very intrigued by that (especially the drawings); can't find it in my old prospectuses and it isn't available on the website.

I bought a copy of The Third Policeman on e-bay a few months ago and was delighted to receive a perfect copy, probably unread. Do you know if FS have published any more of O'Brien's books?

I dont' have Folio 60 but will probably buy it in this sale.

John

overthemoon- You read it cover to cover?! Wow..wasn't it a bit like reading an encyclopaedia? I only read the essays at the front and go for occasional dipping, I can't imagine reading everything in one go! Still..kudos to you!

Just bought in in the sale. I've often thought of picking it up, but I was never sure I'd actually use it, or even look at it.

But the reviews and the price have suckered me in!

Lady_Lulu - it took me a long time! Just read a few entries every now and then. Yes, it is a bit like an encyclopaedia. But in between the details you sometimes find interesting little snippets of information that make it worth while.

#s 39, 40 The Third Policeman was a Castaway's Choice selection, which often seem to have patchy availability. I doubt they're completely out of it - might be worth an email? They haven't published any other Flann O'Brien but I hold out some hope for At-Swim-Two-Birds and (less so) the Best of Myles.

Thanks for the information, oldrottenhat - that explains why I never knew about it (the brochure must have found its way to the bin with all the junk mail before I got a chance to see it). I will send an email - I found two copies on Amazon but they were $57 and have now gone!

RE #44 oldrottenhat

I have just finished reading the Dalkey Archives and found it very dissapointing after enjoying The Third Policeman so much.
Like you I would like to see a FS edition of At Swim two Birds

>44 oldrottenhat:, FS replied, they are completely out of stock and do not intend to reprint The Third Policeman. So if anyone sees it on ebay, please let me know!

Have just received my copy of Folio 60 and am very taken with it. It is wonderful to be able to see the selected illustrations and detail. A very well priced Winter Sale bargain - but I already feel a hankering for one of the Paula Rego illustrated volumes.

and the more you read, the more you get hankerings.

Re #47:

Overthemoon, here is one: http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1252300650&searchurl=kn%3Df...

ooh thank you, Boris, will go for it!

Found this one for you too (unless its same one?)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FOLIO-SOCIETY-THE-THIRD-POLICEMAN-FLANN-OBRIEN-UK1-1_W0QQi...

I doubt it's the same one, KentishDan, as that one is supposedly winging its way to me right now - and I paid more than £8 which is the starting bid for this one ;-( But never mind, I'm not registered on ebay anyway and am trying to avoid it. Actually the dealer I bought from has several more that interest me; I'm just waiting for this one to arrive to make sure it's OK before ordering the others. Strangely, all the second-hand books I get from UK smell a bit musty.

Re #53: It's odd, but I have had the same experience, overthemoon. I bought a copy of the Folio Society's edition of Scenes de la vie de boheme and on a separate occasion a copy of Folio's Trilby, and both, from UK booksellers, have this musty smell, though none of the FS books I have purchased from USA booksellers do. The high postage costs have dissuaded me from testing whether this is a matter of course, so we may have just had some bad luck, but since I can only find secondhand copies off the FS editions of Surtees from UK booksellers, I may be forced to put this theorem to the test.

Incidentally, that "hankering" (messgae #49) that is engendered by reading the Folio 60 can be dangerous--I'm currently searching online at the secondhand stores for a copy of Folio's Limited Edition of The Golden Ass, in the Graves translation, illustrated by (and signed by) Michael Ayrton, who did memorable illustrations for the Limited Editions Club's Oresteia and selected plays by Euripides. I doubt I will be able to resist acquiring a pristine copy.

The Third Policeman arrived and it looks fantastic, probably unread. And it doesn't smell musty though it came from UK; I can recommend the dealer, Eric T. Moore. Now off to order more books as other hankerings are demanding satisfaction.

A winter's tale about Folio 60:

When I got my Folio-60 copy last year, I noticed that it listed the fac-simile Johnson dictionary as a 3-volume set: two volumes for the dictionary itself, while volume III consisted in a 12-page (unbound) leaflet, loosely distributed with the limited edition, and entitled "The Making of the Great Book of English".

Damned it! I bought the dictionary in 2006, and I couldn't remember having got rid of any brochure that went with it.

Yesterday afternoon, my wife decided to burn old papers in the chimney. And to my surprise I saw the brochure there. To my great joy, I could save it from the flames just before it was burnt.

But I still wonder, looking at the 12-page stapled brochure, if Folio 60 is right in listing it as "Volume III". It seems to be a joke when you compare it to the massive first two volumes...

I ordered the folio 60 after all the raves about it and it seemed like a steal but i have to admit (and this is due in part to not reading all this thread fully) it isnt completely what i expected.....well it is...everything it says it is...but...it literally is technical details and spec ABOUT the books...but not what the book is ABOUT..
Im no literature expert...im mainly here for the Darwin and natural history based stuff....so, like they do on the website...i thought the folio 60 would give a little description for each book as in what category (fiction, history etc) and what its about? the story...or the subject....not just the tech details...

Im guessing this would be a lot of work and a much bigger book but for me would help decide what books i might want to order or search out...if i had a clue as to wether im going to like the content ha ha ;)

(and i accept the title should give some idea but its not always that obvious)

Dan

Oh, dear ... I received my copy of Folio 60 today and I can see how dangerous it is. I've already, after a cursory flip through, discovered that the Society did a set of E. Nesbit (Five Children and It, etc.) that I may just have to track down ....

I also received The English Year, which looks delightful.

#57: I partly share Dan's point of view when he writes that it isnt completely what [he] expected (although this thread contains several good pictures of inside pages which should have allowed Dan to make his opinion). For myself, I would like Folio 70 to show a cover picture for EVERY book listed. This would be an extremely interesting improvement. Hard work, but they now have 9 years left to complete it.

Ha ha ha !

I would like Folio 70 to both show every cover for every book and include a description, plus still include the current information.

It would be very hefty! the number of books published each year is ever on the increase. Though they could use a lighter-weight paper, I suppose.

Re #59 & #62: To print every cover could get tricky, since when some books are reprinted, as in the latest version of The Riddle of the Sands, the covers are drastically different. That version (Folio 70?) might require multiple volumes. (PLEASE DON'T USE A SMALLER FONT!!!!)

Multiple volumes would be fine.

Django, that is why I would want every cover printed. When FS republished it the description of the story interested me, but the cover put me off. Then you mentioned the wonderful original cover design, so I bought a used first edition based on your preference for it (and I must say I agree it a much better cover).

As for being a multi-volume book, I am not sure that would go over too well. Many on this board thought that Folio 60 was overpriced and I can only imagine what Folio 70 would cost every cover for each entry.

Personally, I think a better approach would be to simply publish updates every ten years, so the next volume would contain years 61-70. (They could at the same time reprint the Folio 60, for any newcomers who wanted to complete their collection.)

Of course, the logical approach would have been to start this with the Folio 60 (being only years 51-60, combined with a reprint of the Folio 50). And since they didn't start there, I doubt they'll prefer to take this approach for the Folio 70. But cost contraints could force the issue.

Unrelated: I received my Folio 60 from the Winter Sale a few days ago. Gorgeious book. Unfortunately it took a rather hard knock in the post, resulting in a crushed corner of the slipcase and a severely dented corner of the book itself. Normally I'd ask for a replacement, but I bought the book at such a sale price that I'm not sure that's appropriate. It's still perfectly useful for my purposes.

It would be wonderful if FS were to create a website with cover images of every book published. It could be cross-referenced to the Folio 60 (publication number and edition). I'm sure they must have an archive of their old prospectuses; even if those were simply scanned and searchable by year, it would be a great supplement to Folio 60.

And also cheap for us!

Hi all,

Just wanted to let you all know that this post was really helpful for me as a newbie - I was so excited to find that there is a source to find out about all Folio Society publications! I therefore just ordered a copy of Folio 60 from abebooks and hope that it will help me find out which Folio books I want to prioritise purchasing... although I have a sneaking suspicion that it will just make me want to buy everything!

Just for those members who don't know: The Folio Society is offering the Folio 60 right now for 25USD.

So if you're a member, I think you're much better off buying it new, directly from FS, than from Abebooks.

If you're not a member, then of course you can't!

You guys are evil! I didn't even know what Folio 60 was until I read this thread, and now I have a copy on the way. At least it was only $25.

Man, reading this forum is dangerous to my wallet.

Indeed,

Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here!

Just my luck, to get my copy of Folio 60 right before our district announced upcoming budget cuts to the tune of $13 million for next year --- hopefully there won't be layoffs but we will definitely have to give up days/hours which means less money to buy books with. Oh, and less money for food and clothes and all those other less essential things. :)

I joined FS on the last day of the sale, 2nd March, and snapped up some good deals, including Folio 60 for £12.95. It is well worth it, a beautiful book, but I doubt I would have bought it at it's original price. I have already used it a lot to check out what is being sold on Ebay.

With the Folio 60 being $20, I'm seriously considering it. For those of you that have had it awhile, do you find yourself referring to it frequently? I'm not the type who keeps old Folio catalogs and ephemera, so will I quickly grow uninterested in this book?

In all honesty, I think I just want to look at this book. Badly. But I'm not sure I need to own it. But the only way to look at it is to own it. Unless one of you lives in southern California and wants to invite me over to see it.

I have it! A friend gave me her copy. But just in case she decides she wants it back, I bought the 20.00 one, too! I couldn't refuse it at that price! I love it and you really ought to get it. I am constantly looking back at it and getting books that were previously published. I received 2 today and expect 3 more in the mail! One of the best moves I have made in a long time!! Just expect your pocket money to empty quickly!!

Wanna trade your extra copy for 4 Folio tote bags--brand new, never used? ;) I ended up with a stack of those things!

I'm a little frightened of the Folio 60 for the reason you mentioned; I mean, I know that the more I stare at the website, the more books I buy. So the more I stare at the Folio 60, the more books I'm going to start trying to dig up on resale sites.

This could be one dangerous $20 book!

I couldn't resist purchasing this at $20. I don't think it will effect my purchases to much as I tend to want them all anyway.

It is indeed a dangerous book. I bought mine in the Christmas Sale and once it came I used it to complete my collection of P.G. Wodehouse (a 6-book set and 2 singles) and it helped me make up my mind to buy three of the books from my Summer Sale order. Thanks to a really good deal on the Folio 60 I've bought eleven books since January that I (a) wouldn't have known about otherwise or (b) wouldn't have bought without the information from Folio 60. Beware! Beware! :-)

All right, you all convinced me to order it. But I'm not happy about it. ;)

On the other hand, it can help make you happy about something you've already ordered.

I ordered Three Men in a Boat based on what little I know about it (some reviews here, some reading of it on google books).

The Web site gives very few details. In fact, here's ALL it says as far as production details:

"Bound in cloth printed with a design by Paul Cox."

After ordering it, I looked it up in the Folio 60. Why not earlier? I have no idea.

The Folio 60 informs me that there are 85 color illustrations spread throughout a book with 216 pages.

I assume that the illustrations are small, but 85 is a pretty big number! And now I don't feel iffy about the purchase and am more excited than I was.

#82 I have the 3 Men in the Boat. It is a delightful book. The illustrations are of various sizes, some full page, some interspersed with the text. It will be a joy for you I'm sure.

Thanks Weimar!

> 82 Some illustrations are DOUBLE page. If you ever feel depressed or downhearted (and I hope you never do), this book will cure you in seconds - which is more than can be said for our poor narrator in chapter one.

On topic . . . Folio 60 is very useful when cataloguing Folio books and is actually a very beautiful book in its own right.

Three Men in a Boat is a book I wasn't even remotely considering......until I read this thread.
I love Cox's illustrations and the thought of a book filled to the brim with them - and in COLOUR! (I cannot stress how important that is to me after my disappointment with The Best After Dinner Stories) - is just too much to resist. Although, perhaps I'll wait a week or two just to give a chance for my bank account to recover...

I think you guys have sold me on "Three Men In a Boat." Would you consider it a good book to read aloud? I read out loud to my spouse frequently, and we enjoy gently humorous books like "My Family and Other Animals" for this practice.

I'm now feeling very eager to get my copy of "Folio 60."

>87 maisonvivante: - It's an ideal book to read aloud, being written in a highly conversational style. Ideally, though, you need to read it with a Bertie Wooster accent (or, at the very least, Hugh Grant).

>89 Foxhunter: -
Yes, I would go for Michael Palin or Richard Briers.

And Diary of a Nobody also gets my recommendation for anyone who hasn't read it - only 140 copies left on the FS website today. Another classic is The Young Visiters (sic) by Daisy Ashford, which I see from Folio 60 was published in 1956 and is long overdue for a reissue.

After reading the comments here about Three Men in a Boat, I took the plunge last night and ordered it.
I just hope it is as good as you all say.

Re #91: One man's meat, as they say. Comedy is notoriously difficult to recommend to anyone else. What sets me in paroxysms may make you yawn (or worse). I'm always surprised by the number of women to whom I have recommended a W.C.Fields movie come back saying, "that wasn't funny."

English comedy can be as unfunny to American sensibilities; to wit, I was disappointed in Cold Comfort Farm and Augustus Carp, Esq. when I read them, and was only mildly amused by Diary of a Nobody.

All that aside, I thoroughly enjoyed Three Men in a Boat, but don't blame me if you don't think it's funny.

>92 Django6924: - You've got me worried now. I agree with your observations that humour can be very idiosyncratic in its appeal and so I'm now a little worried that I plugged Three Men in a Boat so wholeheartedly to your fellow countrymen (and women). I really hope all those who ordered it enjoy reading it. It IS very English, as is Diary of a Nobody. However, as an Englishman, I can and do appreciate a lot of American humour. Perhaps it's because we are so saturated over here with American views and culture in a way that is not so strongly reciprocated over there.

By the way, you may know that Cold Comfort Farm was intended, in part, as a parody of the novels of Mary Webb, so it can be appreciated beyond its face value. However, as Mary Webb is largely unknown these days, I appreciate that Stella Gibbons does have to entertain on her own merits.

Thanks to you all, I just ordered Folio 60. This is a dangerous little group.

93: For those of you interested in Three Men in a Boat (or practically anything else), may I suggest Google Books.

They have the full text for lots of books, and limited previews for lots more.

Here's the link to a limited view of Three Men. You can read 30 something pages of the book. Sometimes they'll take out a page or two in the middle. The idea is to give you a preview, rather than let you read the whole thing (so it's perfect for what we want).

http://tinyurl.com/m8uj8n

>95 gistak: - Thanks so much for posting that link. I'd about been talked into buying "Three Men In A Boat" by the comments here but reading the first few pages of it didn't raise even the flicker of a smile -- proof again that humor is the most subjective of things.

I'd also agree about humour being very personal. Personally, I enjoyed Three Men in a Boat, but it was mildly amusing not roar out loud funny. I thoroughly enjoyed Cold Comfort Farm, but it was a 'smiler', not a laugh out loud; but you need to understand the context of the book to really appreciate it (spoofing a genre particularly popular at the time). Diary of a Nobody I found very unfunny.

My favourite 'humour' book is JL Carr's "The Harpole Report" (now there's an FS must!), but then I'm a teacher, so it's very relevant and still topical. On the whole though I get most of my humour from radio, theatre and older TV (I don't rate modern TV very much) than from books, and find a lot of so-called funny writers distinctly the opposite!

BTW, I'm a Brit; I gather we're more into irony and satire than the Americans. I'll leave others to say whether that's true or not.

Humour is indeed so very personal. Bill Bryson has never winkled so much as a smile out of me. I thought Lucky Jim was very funny but passed it on to an American friend who was not the slightest bit amused. And an American friend recommended Lake Woebegone and Confederacy of Dunces as hilarious books but they both left me cold. I think it also depends on your mood and circumstances at the time of reading.

Too true. I appreciate Cold Comfort Farm as a parody but as comedy I can't say it did much for me. The same would go for 1066 and All That, although in this case the only appreciation I had from it was for the cover design.
To find books that make me laugh out loud is rarity and so Bill Bryson is a bit of a treasure.
Three Men in a Boat seems good though!

Humor is very individual thing. The only thing that I have ever read that made me laugh out loud - and then laugh so much that it really, really hurt - was the description of Irma Prunesquallor's attempts to produce a bust for herself in, I think, Titus Groan. I thought I was going to do myself a serious injury I laughed so hard.

This has been a very interesting discussion on humour. I have learned enough to determine now never to recommend any book in that category again! A lot of comic writing brings with it cultural references which resonate in subtle and subliminal ways with the reader who has grown up with it. It is only when those references are absent or mismatched that this deficiency becomes apparent. Thus the greatest works are those which concentrate on universal truths.

However, I must put in a word for Pepys' Diary, currently being discussed on another thread. This is a fantastic work which you must all get immediately.

Oh no, there I go again . . . .

I have a complex and uninteresting theory about irony in the US vs. the UK.

In short, I don't really think that one group appreciates irony over the other. Many of the most popular TV shows and movies in the US rely on irony and a deadpan delivery for the humor.

But I have found that when Americans actually deal in person with British people, there can be a disconnect.

The Americans just aren't as acquainted with the British as the British are with Americans. I think that the lack of acquaintance translates to the American not knowing when the British person is joking.

>103 boldface: boldface, Pepys' Diary has been on my list for a while. I'm hoping to order it by the end of the year.

104 - "I don't really think that one group appreciates irony over the other. Many of the most popular TV shows and movies in the US rely on irony and a deadpan delivery for the humor."

I agree. Wodehouse in his heyday was very popular in America and still makes me laugh out loud -- one of the few writers who can do that, another being Ring Lardner, who has a distinctly American voice and style. I think it's usually more of a personal than a cultural issue with humor.

Humour can cross the pond, as some have showed here. Personally, I think Tom Lehrer is brilliant!

I agree with gistak that I don't think any culture necessarily has more appreciation for irony over another (except maybe the classical Greeks), and that appreciation for it is intensely personal, rather than based on national or ethnic lines. (Of course there is humor that appeals almost exclusively to a specific audience, but that is outside our discussion.)

Americans have generally taken to British comedy enthusiastically, if you judge from the appeal of comedy groups like the Goon Squad, Beyond the Fringe, Monty Python, Fry and Laurie, etc., and shows like Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Rumpole, Keeping Up Appearances, Mr. Bean, AbFab, etc. I think you have to say that a large percentage of Americans are unreservedly (perhaps even uncritically) amused by some British humor.

But deadpan parody is a tricky act to pull off. And some of the works mentioned above don't seem to have the more nearly universal appeal of Wodehouse and E.F. Benson. Maybe it's because the characters in these books are not mere simulacra created to parody a certain genre, but only slightly exaggerated portraits of real people--real in the sense that we all know characters who exhibit the traits of a Mapp or Lucia or Bertie Wooster.

Incidentally, Lloydville mentioned Ring Lardner, and I have always wondered what non-Americans would think about Jack Keefe in You Know Me, Al, or the two self-absorbed correspondents in "Some Like Them Cold." I personally find these stories brilliantly funny, with the best ear for dialogue in the vernacular of any writer of the first half of the 20th century. Still, it's a brilliantly sustained deadpan, and rooted as it is in Americana, I don't think many on "the other side of the pond" would be as impressed.

One more comment about comedy, which didn't seem to belong in my previous post, and actually should be on Books We Would Like as Folio Editions, but which I put in here because I was reminded about the book by the mention of "Keeping Up Appearances" (the TV series).

Two books I loved when I read them many years ago were Rose Macaulay's Keeping Up Appearances and her Staying With Relations. These earlier works seem to have been forgotten after The Towers of Trebizond--which to be sure is her masterpiece--but I found these books "laugh out loud" funny at times, and thoroughly enjoyable reads. I have hesitated to mention them earlier, as I didn't want to muddy the waters when I was campaigning for more Barbara Pym, but since it looks like Folio is ignoring my good advice again this year, I throw Ms. Macaulay's cloche hat into the ring.

>108 Django6924: - "Incidentally, Lloydville mentioned Ring Lardner, and I have always wondered what non-Americans would think about Jack Keefe in 'You Know Me, Al', or the two self-absorbed correspondents in 'Some Like Them Cold.' I personally find these stories brilliantly funny, with the best ear for dialogue in the vernacular of any writer of the first half of the 20th century. Still, it's a brilliantly sustained deadpan, and rooted as it is in Americana, I don't think many on 'the other side of the pond' would be as impressed."

I wonder about that myself. To me, Wodehouse and Lardner use the same comic strategy -- a deadpan presentation of characters who are preposterously self-deluded, who have no idea how ridiculous they are. These characters are from different countries, usually, and different classes, but essentially the same types, psychologically speaking.

The portraits are well-observed, more than just caricatures, and maybe that's where the cultural gap comes in -- Americans may be more familiar with upper-class British twits (since many of them have made their way to America) than British folks are with lower-class Americans dolts (who don't usually end up in Britain).

So it might be easier for me to appreciate Bertie Wooster than it would be for a Brit to appreciate Jack Keefe.

I always thought I could resist the power of a group but damn you all as today I went to the members' room and bought Three Men In A Boat and I have to say it is the most delightful Folio I've got yet with just sumptuous illustrations. I wish they made all their books like that as I would buy them all (or maybe I don't wish that, on second thoughts). I also bought Finn Family Moomintroll as one of my newborn son's nicknames ends in troll and it looks a cute book. Shame that Emil and the Detectives has sold out as I fancied buying that too....

The copy of the Voyage of the Beagle is still there and getting mighty tempting, seeing how much I'm enjoying the other Darwins.

>111 khaa9481: What was the price and condition of Voyage of the Beagle?

>112 cweller: I didn't see it this time up close but I presume it is the same as last time when the book was mint, the slip case though had some wear on the outside (the colour had been rubbed away reasonably badly for what was meant to be a new book). They were asking for full price which I can't totally remember (sorry for the lack of precision) but it was 35-37 pounds, I guess. I'm sure they'd tell you if you rang up - it has been there at least two weeks now

Anyone know why Folio 60 doesn't detail the paper used in each of the books listed?

Folio often does this too on its website eg Travels with Herodotus http://www.foliosociety.com/book/TVH/travels-with-herodotus no mention of paper used.

Its Abbey Wove by the way.