Antiquities & Oddities

//Antiquities & Oddities
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  • Book III of The Saint vs Crown Prince Rudolph. The Saint had decided to turn over a new leaf.  But he hadn't reckoned with Prince Rudolf - nor with his old adversary's hankering for diamonds! Why would a man as rich as Rudolph care about the comparatively small value of the Montenegrian Crown jewels?
  •  A fabulous collection of over two dozen of Joyce Grenfell's well-known sketches and song lyrics, including Stately As A Galleon, Shirley's Girlfriend, Thought For Today, At The Laundrette and I'm Going To See You Today.  Often cheeky, sometimes sly and satirical, often poking fun at the sacred cows of the English and all have a point to make.

  • Hiding under the witness protection programme, Rick Jarmin gets nervous when his old flame Marianne recognises him as her fiancè who vanished years ago. But before he can assume a new identity, the man he put in jail is released and comes to pay his respects. Rick and Marianne are thrown together on the run across the country, barely evading the police, gangsters and an amorous veterinarian. Also stars David Carradine, Joan Severance  and Bill Duke.
  • This novel spans 130 years and follows the line of women of the Wrotham family, beginning with Sabrina in 1806. The daughter of a socially disgraced, sadistic roué, she is sponsored into 'Society' by her step-aunt - after having had some good manners vigorously instilled in her and her tomboyish ways smoothed out. Her brother Prior's marriage and production of children play a part in keeping the Wrotham name going. The next Wrotham woman is Clare - her brother Anthony's marriage to Harriet brings Charlotte to the line and the last is Gillian Rose, known as 'Jill'. The diaries and letters of the women are fictitious but the times in which the story is set are not, and many historical characters and events of England are brought to the story. As the generations overlap, with the members of each generation subscribing to the beliefs of their day, there is little sentimental romance involved - just a very good story, tinted with gentle romance and enhanced by the backdrop of historic reality.
  • Honouring those who continue to improve our gene pool by removing themselves in sublimely idiotic ways, such as: the woman caught in an American national park, smearing honey all over her small son's face so she could get a photo of a bear licking it off; the man who decided to add a plastic bag to his collection of solo sex toys, and who was found with the plastic bag over his head, the vacuum cleaner still running and himself being very very dead; and the two allegedly experienced twenty-something construction workers who fell to their deaths after cutting a circle in a thick concrete floor without realising they were standing in the middle of the circle. All this and much much more! Also includes sections on honorable mentions and debunks.

  • Funny people, sportsmen...in more ways than one! From the sublimely amusing to the ridiculous, the sporting arena - be it a circket field, a gold course or a billiard table - sees them all. Sport can be a very serious business, but it's the sportsman's ability to laugh at his friends, his foes and himself which sets him apart from those who merely look on. Illustrated by Paul Rigby.
  • The Seven Seas is a series  of poems centred on Britain’s role in colonialism and Empire building. With reverberating lyrics and powerful imagery, Kipling writes of the ruthless means that were often employed to add nations to the glorious Empire, and the subsequent effects upon these colonised nations. Though disturbing and unsettling in theme, Kipling’s lyrical dexterity makes these poems strangely compelling reading.
  • Everything you thought you knew is wrong!  Such as..Henry VIII did NOT have six wives; Everest is NOT the world's tallest mountain; ALexander Graham Bell did NOT invent the telephone; and Strawberries, raspberries and blackberries are NOT berries. Great potential for trivia nights.
  • Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) brings it all to create a cinema spectacular of the classic tale of the legendary gorilla brought from a treacherous island to civilisation, where he faces the ultimate fight for survival. Also starring Adrien Brody, Colin Hanks and Andy Serkis as Kong.
  • No matter how conservative science can explain somethings, strange phenomena continues:  Yeti sightings, the Loch Ness Monster, spontaneous human combustion and encounters with angels are just a very few of the explorations of this author.
  • Book I of Erewhon. After a series of near-mishaps, Biggs, a traveler, crosses a mountain range and stumbles into a fantastic land utterly unknown to him - only to be jailed: for in this odd place being penniless is tantamount to criminality. Here, criminals are treated as sick people, sick people are treated as criminals and machines are outlawed.  Slowly learning the language and gaining the confidence of his hosts, he comes to know their strange ways and their stranger ideas and institutions - including the Hospital for Incurable Bores, the Musical Banks,  the College of Unreason - and the Museum of Old Machines. First published in 1873 and written as a commentary on marriage, religion education, crime and a world dominated by machines, this classic could apply to any time and anywhere in the world.
  • Cooper, Australia's first acknowledged playwright, lived a full life:  Actor, journalist, politician, a bankrupt who once fought a duel in Sydney with his brother in law.  He wrote popular farces, comedies and sensation dramas and was the first Australian playwright to have his work produced overseas.  Colonial Experience is one of only two plays which survive.  Contains a wealth of information about Cooper and the entire play text.
  • We often use expressions without thinking about it, but why do we use them and what are their origins?  Such as cheesed off to denote irritation; and what does it mean to cock a snook?  Why a kangaroo court?  All these and so much more, great potential for trivia nights. A great little volume to browse now and then.
  • The daughter of Queen Hippolyta, Diana is raised on the hidden island of Themyscira, home to the Amazons, women warriors created by the Olympian gods to protect mankind. Diana is raised on their history and knows that Ares became so jealous of humanity that he slayed the Gods and determined to destroy Mankind. But Zeus left weapons in the guardianship of the Amazons - the sword Godkiller and the Lasso of Hestia, a magical artefact that forces the truth from captives. In 1918, Diana rescues US pilot Captain Steve Trevor when his plane crashes off the Themysciran coast. The island is soon invaded by German soldiers in pursuit of Steve. The Amazons kill the crew and Steve is interrogated with the Lasso of Hestia. He reveals that a great war is consuming the outside world and that he is an Allied spy. He has stolen a notebook from the Germans' chief chemist, Dr. Isabel Maru, who is attempting to engineer a deadlier form of mustard gas under the orders of General Erich Ludendorff. Believing Ares to be responsible for the war, Diana  dons her armour and must leave Themyscira with Steve to locate and stop Ares for good. Her only weapons are her Amazon training, the Lasso of Hestia and Godkiller...
  • A compilation of over 6000 quotations arranged thematically; a great reference for speeches, essays and letter writing as well as for trivia quiz and  crossword buffs. On actors - Marlon Brando: An actor's a guy who, if you ain't talking about him, ain't listening. Or the home? Cicero: What is more agreeable than one's own home? Or there's Spencer Tracy's memory of the lean times in his life, before stardom: There were times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails. And from Bert Leston Taylor, journalist: A bore is a man who, when you ask how he is, tells you. With an introduction by Reginald Hill.
  • Mount Lidgbird and Ball's Pyramid commemorate the discovery of Lord Howe Island in 1788 by Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball, commander of the Supply, when Lieutenant King sailed in it to establish a settlement in Norfolk Island. Between that time and 1834 only whalers and an occasional schooner, visited this Pacific paradise, which had evidently never been inhabited. In 1834 three former sailors, with their Maori wives, settled at the head of Hunter Bay. They all left in 1841, but others succeeded  and the commencement of the palm-seed industry by Captain Armstrong in 1878 brought commercial property to the island. Originally printed in 1940, a fascinating history of Lord Howe Island - its discovery and early associations and illustrated with wonderful old black and white photographs, covering the years 1788 - 1888.
  • A team of scientists aboard the International Space Station on a mission of discovery find a rapidly evolving life-form that caused extinction on Mars.  It now threatens the crew and all life on Earth
  • The evergreen classic tale of the March sisters begins ten years after Little Men. Plumfield is still presided over by Jo and her husband, Professor Bhaer. Although her 'little men' are now adults, they are still her 'boys'. Restless Dan looks towards new frontiers, but his good heart and efforts to protect a naive man lands him in jail; Emil has gone to sea and will experience shipwreck and sorrow before he sees Plumfield again and Nat, the musician, is ready to go abroad and study music - and he gets some other lessons in life as well. Meg's youngest daughter Josie is stage-struck and Amy worries that her only daughter Beth will make an unwise marriage.   Apart from worrying about her 'boys', Jo  inadvertently gets into another scrape when her privacy is invaded after one of her books becomes a best-seller.
  • Nash observes the world around him and cannot resist making humorous, sly and very on-the-mark rhymes while often poking  fun at society pretensions. There's even a few fractured fables and fairy tales in this collection. So, just for fun...

    I often grieve for Uncle  Hannibal

    Who inadvertently became a cannibal.

    He asked Aunt Mary to roast him the gobbler;

    She understood him to say - the cobbler.  

  • The Venture, an old Trident nuclear sub retrofitted for research has picked up an ancient and powerful artifact on the ocean floor and brought it on board.  Called the Hades Stone, it allows the dead to return and join the living. Evil things appear in this world - phantoms. demons and an ancient being called the Stone Keeper, the guardian of the Hades Stone. The demons attack, killing the crew. The portal inside the Hades Stone fills the submarine with the accursed souls of the past.  Jack Bavaro, head of Interceptor Force, has gathered his best operatives  they know the submarine has been commandeered and they know they cannot just torpedo it - a navy attack submarine that tried was instantly destroyed by the demon-ridden submarine. They must enter the Venture and do battle  at the bottom of the ocean.
  • Book II in the Katy series. Dr. Carr's mind is firmly made up. Katy and her little sister Clover are to spend a year away at boarding school. A strange place and far from home, but on arrival the girls have an inkling that it might turn out to be rather different from their expectations. One thing is for sure, it certainly isn't going to be dull with Rose Red as an ally.
  • From 'Did Harry Potter kill Hitler' to 'Can we play cricket in your bookshop?', here's a bewildering, slightly alarming and definitely hilarious selection of the most ridiculous conversations from the shop floor! And these gems and gold nuggets have been supplied from booksellers across the world...and truly, they border on the realms of fantasy. Notable weird things include a request for a book on the workings of an internal combustion engine suitable for a three-year-old, the lost ferret and speculation that The Hungry Caterpillar was possibly bulimic...honestly, no-one could invite this stuff....
  • 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.
  • First published in 1948, this book caused a sensation.  Waugh, on a visit to California, was fascinated by the elaborate graveyards, pet cemeteries and overblown rituals of death. It inspired him to write this witty 'tragedy' of Anglo-American manners set against the background of embalming rooms and incinerators.
  • Everything and everyone is under the gun in this collection of outrageous stories and non-politically jokes! Even James Bond isn't exempt. There's blonde bombshells, ethnic jokes, religious rib-ticklers, mansplains, church crackers, sex, quickies and shorties and the completely bizarre to make you laugh out loud wherever you are. Adults only...
  • A collection of not-so-tall stories collected in the course of eighteen years in the rugged outback of the Northern Territory, where distances are measured in pints of water and time is hardly noticed. There's gold diggers, old men some of them, still fishing for their buckets of ore at the bottom of deep shafts; you should never to go see them without a 'calling card' - they come in bottles from the brewery. There are also the stock drovers, whose job it is to drive thousands of cattle across the country for up to a thousand miles or so. These and many various characters, white men, aboriginals, and half castes are the author's neighbours. But even such a bare and primitive area is not immune from the troubles of the world, and, just after Pearl Harbour in 1942, the Japanese brought the war to Darwin. Lockwood was there to write an eye-witness account for his paper. Then in 1954, came the world shaking bombshell of the Petrov story. Once again, the author was on the spot, in Darwin, to broadcast it to the world. These, and many other stories, some historical, some tragic, some amusing, some supernatural, but all of them fascinating - and fair dinkum. Illustrated with black and white photographs.
  • De Vaca was one of hundreds of men who left Spain in 1527 on an expedition headed by Panfilo de Narvaez. The mission was to explore Florida.  This is the eyewitness account of how an expedition of over 600 men and five ships was reduced to a band of four half-mad survivors who staggered into Mexico City, having unintentionally become the first Europeans to cross the American Southwest via Texas, Ne Mexico and Arizona.  It is the quintessential travel horror story.