10:31 p.m. - 2008-06-11
Book 'em, Danno!
I was quite recently reminded of a few obscure books that I have known, read and loved. Here is an answer that I wrote to the question of what are some of my favourite obscure books.

"Well, things like "Nellie's Stumbling Block" and things by Mrs. A.D.T. Whitney, or Mrs. anybody-at-all, as they are bound to be "moral and uplifting" which I find quite fascinating, and all sorts of odd things...tracts on marriage by preachers...housekeeping, etiquette, and health books from 1900-1930s...I simply adore Booth Tarkington. I expect that he's rahther obsure these days. I adore going through piles and piles of books and finding ancient ones. Goofy young-adult fiction from the 1940s and 1950s, melodrama from the 1930s...actually some David Garnett..."

I was thinking also how my Mum had stockpiled a treasure trove of childrens/young adult fiction from just slightly before her time. I adored those books! Some took place in America! One was on a ranch! I can't remember the name. One was about pioneers. In my book travels, I have tried to build a fun "library of the past" for Biba, but I deffo enjoy reading them as well. Marguerite de Angeli , Maud Hart Lovelace, Lois Lenski, oh, just tons of lovely, lovely authors who wrote, wrote wrote! Oh and I have never forgetten the book that I found in the top floor/attic of a house that we briefly lived in when I was 10 years or so...Edward Lear's book of nonsense. I would have stolen that book except that my blinking conscience wouldn't let me.

I do rahther think that Biba prefers being inside reading to being outside, though. I deffo encourage her to spend more time outside. I'd rahther be outside than in, but I don't require that Biba be a clone of me. How boring that would be! I took her to the farm today to pick strawberries. She brought along a toy rooster that crows. She made it crow constantly, and people were looking about for him. The supposedly alive rooster. Are they called 'Cockerels" here at all? I've never heard it...

Well, I was crab-o-matic today. Things about projects and allocations sometimes get me frustrated and angry. Then I get a tremendous jaw-ache, as I tend to be a jaw-clencher. Biba was saying at dinner how her day was wretched, and I was teaching her how to salvage good from a bad day. I said that it was part of our job to find at least three good things of every bad day. As I was counting off today's good, I realised that it wasn't so bad after all. I do hope that Biba will absorb that lesson. I tend to be a brooder, a stewer and a worrier if I don't control it. Fun is more fun, don't you think?

At any rate, so I think that I should really like to hear what you are all reading, or like to read. It doesn't have to be obscure, though. Though obscure can be very fun!

Cavalry - Apache