Antiquities & Oddities

//Antiquities & Oddities
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  • Over 1000 hints and recipes for making your own wine and beers - an enjoyable hobby you can share with friends and make great savings in costs, too. There's sections on country wines, fruit wines, sparkling wines, malt syrup beers, fruit beers, ciders, liqueurs and even flavoured vinegars for cooking. All the information is here - ingredients, equipment and step by step instructions.
  • History as you've never learnt it before - from the invasion of Briton to Alfred the Cake, to Anne (A Dead Queen), The Merrie Monarch and WilliamandMary who were a pair of Oranges.  A lot of it reads like a Blackadder script with typical English humour. With comic illustrations by John Reynolds.
  • History as you've never learnt it before - from the invasion of Briton to Alfred the Cake, from Anne (A Dead Queen) to The Merrie Monarch and WilliamandMary who were a pair of Oranges.  A lot of it reads like a Blackadder script with typical English humour. With comic illustrations by John Reynolds.
  • Or...£500 for a second hand car. A humorous study of the trades and professions that make London tick. Here is cheerful, factual reporting on how the people who clip the publics train tickets or weigh their bananas think, talk, feel and swear about their business. Here are car salesmen, the Billingsgate Bobbin Boys, street-corner news vendors, cab drivers, musicians, Palace guardsmen and others who have added colour and spice to London life.
  • The man with no name rode into San Miguel and saw the chance to make himself a fistful of dollars. He set two rival families against each other and managed to survive the bloodshed unscathed, while each side paid his hire. Then a massive shipment of Mexican gold arrived and violence exploded in the streets, the man with no name - the stranger, the Americano - came near to losing his life; that was when he ceased to be dangerous and became lethal...Cover art shows representation of Clint Eastwood as the Stranger in the 1964 film of the same name.
  • Seven more rounds of sparring, as Fletch and his fellow cons of Slade nick continue their struggle against the authority of Messrws MacKay and Barrowclough.  Cover features the late great Ronnie Barker as Fletch.
  • The narrative of a voyage around the world in a Windjammer in 1919. This is a vintage glimpse into the sea-faring lifestyle of times past with an authentic account of a life lived at sea; a true and spirited account of a phase of sea-life now long past, fascinating from the very vividness and sincerity of its telling. Retold with the lucidity and fondness that can only belong to one who has lived it and loved it, A Gipsy of the Horn - Life in a Deep-Sea Sailing Ship is highly recommended for readers with an interest in the history and development of sailing. With beautiful pen and ink drawings by N.A.D. Wallis.
  • In 404 B.C., the Spartans demolished the famous Long Walls of Athens, signalling the complete victory of the city of Lycurgus and the subordination of all Greece to the Spartan interest. Yet within forty years, the pride of Sparta had been humbled, their glory gone for ever.  Xenophon lived through this time; despite being Athenian he was intimate with some of the most influential people in Sparta, including King Agesilaus. Here is the on-the-spot documentation of the last years of the independent cities of Hellas, by someone who saw it all.  Translated by Rex Warner. https://cosmiccauldronbooks.com.au/p/imperial-caesar-rex-warner/

  • Former psychiatric nurse turned comedienne Jo Brand, best known here for her appearances on QI and Getting On, does not hold back on her opinions of men and the balls-up they've made of the world. No-one escapes - From Henry VIII to Mao Zedong to Elvis Presley, everyone gets equal roasting. On Sid Vicious: They had their own special language, which involved the use of phrases like, 'F*** off, you tosser,' particularly if they liked someone...On Martin Luther: Being declared a heretic in those days wasn't a barrel of laughs - it didn't take much for you to be playing the starring kebab role. On Rasputin: ...hair greasy enough to fry an egg on, eyes that would have been at home in Marty Feldman's face and a tunic that could make it back to Siberia on its own...'  There's plenty of Jo Brand's particular brand of  irreverent wryness to shock you into laughs.
  • Millions enjoyed Ronnie Barker - whether he was being one of The Two Ronnies, up to tricks in Porridge or was in hot pursuit of the desirable Nurse Gladys Emmanuel in Open All Hours. He was also a great collector, particularly of the most enchanting and fascinating picture postcards, produced in different countries from the late nineteenth century onwards. His collection numbered over 50,000. This is one of two volumes - The Green Album and The Red Album, published simultaneously - which show his eye for the saucy, the humorous or the ingenious. But they also provide entertaining galleries of a popular art form which is now the subject of collectors' dreams. As he said, 'The great majority of the better cards are indeed little works of art in their own right and they cost but a penny each.'
  • There was just the three of them now that Father had died:  Mother, Jane and Jeremy.  They had left their Tasmanian home to drive across the Nullabor to Lantern Light, the remote homestead of Uncle Bill, Jane's only relative. For Jane was adopted and although she had been very happy with her foster family, the prospect of meeting her relative made every dusty mile worth it.  But Uncle Bill in the flesh - and Lantern Light were both very different to Jane's dreams of a family and home. This is not a only a children's or young adults story; the reader also gets the perspective of events from the adults - Uncle Bill, his friend Andrew, Mother and Eve Burton, the schoolteacher at Lantern Light.  A story for anyone.
  • Kemeny Andras is tall, handsome and has just inherited a vast fortune.  He is respected and liked by all who live in the village.  He seems to have everything:  except Ilonka, the beautiful daughter of a noble lord. Kemeny is a peasant and therefore not considered to be a suitable match - until one night, disaster strikes.  Loaded with twists, turns and tailspins; the author claimed that the events are based on a true story.
  • Set in the immediate post Civil War period, two boys, mustered out of the U.S. Military in 1865,  construct a singular craft and make a perilous voyage down the mighty Missouri River from Fort Benton to St. Louis.  
  • Sub-title: How To Live in Australia - And Like It. This is actually one of those books that tells you what's right about Australia. Kit Denton, author of  The Breaker and father of television's Andrew Denton, came to Australia in the late 1940s and worked as a gold miner, an itinerant worker, a radio and television interviewer. he covers his mining days, the old ABC television studios in Perth, landladies, characters such as Captain Sundial and Uncle Charlie, his search for the Big Bronzed Anzac Hero and so many other wonderful memories. His last book.
  • When eleven year-old Drew and his five year-old sister Sammy are orphaned, they fear that they will be separated once they are sent to an orphanage.  The children set out for Perth from the small country town of Wyanilling, blithely believing they will find a ship sailing to England and their grandparents. It is a desperate trek through the Australian bush; they are small and the bush is vast and trackless. The police are out in force, searching for them with trackers, rewards are offered and the story builds until politicians become involved in the plight of two small children, wandering the endlessness of the Australian bush alone.

  • The Norwegian freighter Gangerolf leaves Subic Bay in the Philippines with a motley assortment of passengers. In the hold, under armed guard, is the entire crew of a sunken U-boat. In the first class cabins are Bill Derby, a British submarine commander on his way back to England for a medical board; Lt-Commander Witheringham - 'Withers' - a useless little man whose existence the Admiralty has forgotten over the years; and Captain Spatter, the American commander of the prisoners' guard. He's always broke becuase he plays craps with the enlisted men and never wins. But the most important passenger is Wren (Womens' Royal Navy Service) Mary Lou Smith - an unconventional young woman. Every character, from Wren Smith to Captain 'Happy' Christiansen, the Gangerolf 's huge, whiskey-guzzling Master, is real and alive, from the moment they board the freighter to the day they are marooned on a deserted island.
  • The sequel to Abbie. The further outrageous, funny and entirely credible adventures of Lady Abbott-Acland (and her best friend Maud) - the prototype of all impossible female relations. Abbie can cause a peculiar gut-guilt reaction; since most of us have done - or wish we'd done - some of the appallingly brazen things that she gets away with! And she is still observed with clear-sighted affection by her long-suffering nephew, and revealed through her copious letters from unlikely addresses and erroneous headings.
  • Erich von Daniken undertakes to prove that in prehistoric and early historic times the Earth was visited by unknown beings from the Cosmos; that these extra-terrestrials created human intelligence by a deliberate genetic mutation; that the extra-terrestrials ennobled hominids 'in their own image'; that these visitors to Earth were recorded and handed down in various religions, mythologies and popular legends; and that in some places, the extra-terrestrials left physical evidence of their presence on Earth.  He draws his evidence from all over the world: from the Turkish mountains where carved monoliths and giant stone heads mysteriously survive the centuries; to the secret caves of Ecuador, where treasured remnants of a bygone era remain hidden; to equatorial Africa, where the 'primitive' Dogon have been familiar for centuries with the complex movements of Sirius, a star only discovered by western astronomers since the invention of the radio telescope.  He searches the ancient documents of the Hindus, the Jews and the Christians;  examines religions, mythologies and legends and fins a recurring theme of 'human' gods, heavenly chariots, 'space suits', floods and disasters. The evidence is largely circumstantial - but he challenges all comers to produce an interpretation that better fits the facts. Illustrated with black and white photographs.
  • Kenneth Williams, star of stage, radio, screen and Carry On put together a collection  of witty, wicked put-downs, retorts, comebacks - and all those great responses we never think of at the time! These have been collected from far and wide across the world of film, literature, politics and celebrity. From Dorothy Parker, observing a notorious society flirt: That woman can speak eighteen languages and can;t say 'No' in any of them. Or Groucho Marx, to a delighted author: From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down, I was convulsed with laughter...some day I intend to read it... After W.C. Fields made his feelings about children widely known, he was asked how he really liked children:  His response?  "Boiled or fried..." Illustrated by ffolkes.
  • A novel based on historical fact, it tells the complete story of the part played in the Bounty mutiny by the man known as Alexander Smith - real name John Adams - his subsequent fate and that of the eight other mutineers together with their Maori women and friends who finally sailed from Tahiti in the Bounty in search of a secret sanctuary. The book offers adventure and excitement as well as the idea that the popular legend  of Fletcher Christian as a hero and liberator and Bligh being branded as a bullying, inhuman monster may not be accurate; far from being an apologia for Bligh, it presents a logical, commonsense view of events that have intrigued historians since Bligh's first dispatches from Timor reached London. Cover art by Frank Norton.
  • Sir Charles Augustus Shelmadine was an autocrat. He ruled his village with a firm but kindly hand - instructing his tenants on their crops, their children and their love affairs. And when he died and the new Squire came, the village stirred uneasily. For the new Squire had strange ideas - and even stranger friends - friends like Mr. Mundford who never seemed to grow any older and whose name was linked with the terrible Hell Fire Club. And Mr. Mundford was interested in too many things that should not have concerned him... like the ruins of the old Roman temple... and what happened in the village on All-Hallow's Night...and in the silent, amber-eyed young woman called Damask Greenaway.
  • Imagine - you have just finished building your dream home, it has two bedrooms and has been designed just for you. You've endured the traumas of tradesmen who you've had to cajole, bribe and beg in order to get your home finished.  The next thing that happens is that you are suddenly married, and five of your husband's children, two grandchildren, a step-son-in-law and an assortment of animals are living with you. At the end of the year, your cosy two-bedroom dream home has become a six-room mansion.  This is Patsy's entertaining story - all the comical incidents, tradesmen trials, nosy neighbours and extended-family dilemmas from her first year of marriage to Bill, a psychiatrist. Patsy Rowe combined being a best-selling author with coaching in business etiquette, conducting fun nationwide seminars. She passed away in 2016.
  • Being the Chronicle of the Wars of Montrose as Seen By Martin Somers, Adjutant of Women in O'Cahan's Regiment.  Surgeon and adjutant of women in  O'Cahan's Irish regiment, warring in Scotland with Montrose, is Martin Somers, better exponent of swordplay than of surgery. In his adventurous wardship of this ill-fated company of women, in the strengthening of the line against the forces of the Covenant, his dexterity and toughness is often decisive. This is a tale of keen endeavour, fury and tenderness.  Also published as The Dark Rose.

  • The North had Rock Island - the South had Andersonville. The names of both of these prisons, during the American Civil War, struck horror  into the hearts of those on both sides. The scene of human depravity is both inside and outside the stockade; death stalks life; the strong prey on the weak; humanity is redefined without redemption; indifference replaces humanity.  Yet not all humanity is lost. This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, prepared over 25 years of research and investigation and acclaimed as one of the finest Civil War stories since Gone With The Wind, does not only look at the prison camp, but at the lives of those it touched - weaving a story which is regarded as deeply disturbing, moving, grotesque, beautiful, brutal and comic. Regarded as an excellent companion book to GWTW.

  • Subtitled Being a Series of Bouquets Diffidently Distributed. Nichols interviews the luminaries of his day from the world of art, literature and music.  Each chapter describes his interview or friendship and leaves an outline, an impression, of his subject: Noel Coward; Arthur Conan Doyle; George Gershwin; Eugene Goossens; W. Somerset Maugham; Dame Nellie Melba; Aldous Huxley; H.G. Wells - and more - and... were they the same when at home?
  • Are You Irish Or Normal? Sean O'Grada. O'Grada traces the history of the Irish in his own inimitable fashion, from many centuries B.C. (The First Irishman was a Greek) through the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries (A Man's Best Enemy is His Neighbour - And Where Was The O'Neill?) into the 15th and 16th centuries (A Good Sharp Axe Makes Divorce Permanent) and beyond. Now Listen, Mate! John O'Grady: O'Grady sez: These essays, or whatever they may be, represent my thoughts and conclusions on various things and people. My eldest son wanted me to write my autobiography: "The story of your life, Pop" he said. "And tell the truth." He can go and jump in Lake Burley Griffin. I offer instead some comment on what life has taught me. After sixty years of knocking around and being knocked about, a man acquires a sort of philosophy. Basically, mine is that nothing in life is worth getting steamed up about, and most things are good only for a laugh.  Illustrated by Paul Rigby.
  • Welcome to the world of Art Handel, a world where the unexpected and expected often collide with the absolutely and totally unexpected and with little regard for each other. While it's sometimes nice to see how the other half live, this book gives you an insight into how the other half of that other half live. Described as 'dark and enlightening, horrific and hilarious...funny stuff emerges from the damndest places...like a clown with a razor blade...startling...original and darkly gleeful...think Stephen King on laughing gas...'