Of books and books and books

Recently we have had a spate of purchasing books on eBay, the auction site. 

Although they are not all textile books - some are and will be put into the library which is being catalogued and alphabetised at the moment, thanks to our volunteer, Rachel - they are interesting because of the variety of inspiration they bring. My office shelves are filled with books with titles like Wild Chorus by Peter Scott, and The Lore of Ships. Fascinating diagrams of ships and seafaring vessels, flags, shapes, instruments and currents in the latter and in the former, reproductions of birds drawn by the artist along with notes about his time spent in the field watching and recording. 

The amazing thing is that these books are not new. In fact, the Peter Scott is a reprint from May 1944, printed as a War Economy Standard in Glasgow. The style is very much of its time with typefaces recognisably from that era, and the notes reveal that life is not so much different today. The opening sentence.... "In the crazy world of today, when the human race seems so little able to control its destiny, when crises and depressions follow each other in mad succession, the need for escape is more urgent and the call of wild places more insistent than ever" could be written about the last few years, don't you think? Seventy years later this book and the others that we have acquired recently are enjoying a much deserved re-read. Who knows what gems we will discover as we explore th

eir pages!