Antiquities & Oddities

//Antiquities & Oddities
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  • A portfolio of paintings by artists who sailed with Cook, able men with a spirit equal to their Captain's who earned, through their talent and courage, the fame their sketches, watercolours and oils of unknown lands brought to them. Beautiful colour, sepia and black and white artworks.
  • It is December of 1944, and a detachment of American soldiers has been assigned to guard an ancient castle in Belgium inhabited by an elderly aristocrat, his young wife, and countless valuable artifacts. The soldiers virtually wait out the war - indulging in various hobbies, exploring the castle's excesses (including a replica of Venice, complete with canals and gondolas), in other words, trying to do something other than war - until a German counterattack puts them in the fray!
  • The second volume of the Belle the Bushie stories by Pat Richardson includes those she read each Monday morning on 2SER-FM's new Horizons programme from August 1990 to January 1992. Mostly humorous, sometimes sad and even one or political commentaries, the tales cover Sydney and the bush, covering such topics such as AIDS, schixzophrenia, Country ARt shows, Women's Day Marches, the 'rellies', family Christmases and the Gulf War.
  • In this volume: Badger On The Barge: Miss Brady lives on a barge, with a b adger.  She doesn't like people much, especially children and that includes Helen. But she needs her help and for Helen, that's better than staying at home. Reicker: Sean learns to deal with violence through his encounter with an old German prisoner of war and farmhand. The Egg Man: Jane learns how secrets and regrets can ruin a life. Jakey: An old, fiercely independent boatman shows Steven that hope and faith come from the inside. The Topiary Garden: Liz meets Sally Beck, who was once a boy, and makes sense of her own frustrations.  A thematic collection of the special relationship between the young and the old and suitable for any age.
  • Stephen Rudge, one of a rowdy gang of boys in a colliery village, is literally knocked head over heels into the Scouts by the Scoutmaster's car. He had been getting into mischief out of boredom and selfishness; as a Scout he finds life much more interesting and purposeful, with plenty of adventures and one or two steps backwards as he battles to get on the 'right path'.
  • Frances is sent from her small Welsh village and warm, loving family to Maidenhurst School for Girls for education and a little smoothing out of her tomboy edges. There she makes friends, unwittingly makes enemies, has plenty of adventures, gets into trouble and develops 'crushes' on teachers and older girls in the school.  She also teaches some of her school mates the meaning of 'honour' and courage. Written in 1925, the word 'love' as used by Frances and other characters when referring to teachers or older girls simply means a wish to emulate or intense admiration, being a common expression of the time.
  • Spike Milligan's classic slapstick noel. n 1924 the Boundary Commission is tasked with creating the new official division between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Through incompetence, dereliction of duty and sheer perversity, the border ends up running through the middle of the small town of Puckoon. Houses are divided from outhouses, husbands separated from wives, bars are cut off from their patrons, churches sundered from graveyards. And in the middle of it all is poor Dan Milligan, our feckless protagonist, who is taunted and manipulated by everyone (including the sadistic author) to try and make some sense of this mess...
  • Homer Smith, a black ex-GI, was a carefree and happy soul on the open road - until he met a group of refugee nuns with an unworkable dream...to build a chapel in the midst of the desert. Homer Smith set out,against impossible obstacles, to make that dream come true. Illustrated by Burt Silverman.
  • New chums, bosses and braggarts have long been traditional butts of Aussie humour, which usually relies for much of its effect on dead-pan delivery. For sheer presence of mind, take the swaggie caught by the squatter in the act of killing a sheep: 'Caught red-handed!' roars the squatter.  'Yes! And I'll kill and man's sheep that tries and bites me!' came the undaunted reply.  Then there's the tall story vein of humour, like the one about the seize of the mozzies at a certain waterhole near Newcastle. The shaggy dog story is yet another favourite brand of Australian humour to be found in this entertaining collection of funny yarns and verses. Illustrated by Vane Lindesay.
  • An exquisite little pocket-size book containing a wealth of information by way of prose and poetry about the meanings of flowers, the legends surrounding them and the origins of their names. Beautifully illustrated with Victoriana images and delicately scented with Penhaligon's Violets. Uncommon title.
  • Punch, or The London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and wood-engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 1850s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration. From 1850, John Tenniel was the chief cartoon artist at the magazine for over 50 years. Punch became a staple for British drawing rooms because of its sophisticated humour and absence of offensive material, especially when viewed against the satirical press of the time.  Yet a quick glance through this volume reveals some very sly wit indeed.
  • Three naive teenage sisters, after the death of their mother, move from a small village to try to make their way in the big city. They make many mistakes yet find help in the most unexpected places, but hanging over them - still - is the mystery of their brother who went missing as a small boy. First published in 1887. Illustrated by John. E. Sutcliffe.
  • First published in 1770, this is a critique of rural depopulation and the pursuit of excessive wealth, describing the decline of a village and the emigration of many of its residents to America. Goldsmith covers the moral corruption found in towns, consumerism, enclosure, landscape gardening and the avarice of the wealthy who take the land for their own pleasures and business whilst the poor who worked the land and lived off the land must go to pastures new. Illustrations by W. Lee Hankey.
  • Cecil Beaton travelled the world, photographing the changes and signs of recovery that took place post World War II and of the active talented people from the fields of art, politics and literature who were responsible for much of the tone, tenor and  societal change in that decade. Beaton describes his book as a 'pot-pourri' of pictures and texts '...gathered together in the hope of creating some sort of impression of what might be called a decade of revival.'  Illustrated with sketches and photographs by Cecil Beaton.
  • A remarkable man, E. W. Cole, the self-styled "Professor", compiled this amazing picture book in 1879 and released it in a  welter of hilarious advertising in time for Christmas. He it was who invented Girl Land, Laziness Land, the fabulous steam-driven Whipping Machine For Naughty Boys, the Scolding Machine for Naughty Girls and a list of over 100 Names Suitable for Dollies and Babies. There's puzzles and games, wise words about people and places, funny words about travelling and husbands and wives.  Now wildly politically incorrect - and who cares?  It's Cole's Funny Picture Book, an Australian institution, looked for in stockings on Christmas Day for decades. There's plenty of gentleness, love, humour and morals. This facsimile edition has been carefully edited to resemble, as nearly as possible, the klast edition in  Cole's lifetime.  Illustrated.
  • Wells' own novelisation of the 1935 film inspired by The Shape of Things To Come.  When Dr Philip Raven, an intellectual working for the League of Nations, dies in 1930 he leaves behind a powerful legacy - an unpublished 'dream book'. Inspired by visions he has experienced for many years, it appears to be a book written far into the future: a history of humanity from the date of his death up to 2105. The Shape Of Things To Come provides this history of the future, an account that was in some ways remarkably prescient - predicting climatic disaster and sweeping cultural changes, the Second World War, the rise of chemical warfare and political instabilities in the Middle East.
  • With loads of features and stories from Norman Collin, Noel Streatfield, Eleanor Farjeon and Hilton Brown; loads of articles and puzzles; projects and cartoons; riddles and jokes; fabulous colour and black and white illustrations.
  • A series of hilariously-illustrated vignettes that follow the rise and fall of a number of stereotypes such as: the Athlete, the Girlfriend, the Soldier, the Poet, the Painter and so forth. Each page dominated by a lively, almost stylized drawing with only a few lines of text explaining a particular phase of the  stereotype's life: Emergence, Success, Triumph, Temptation and Downfall.With numerous recognisable caricatures of the famous and near famous.
  • A teaser of  the upcoming movie attractions of 1957, with interviews and photos of the great and sadly, some now forgotten as well as details of the films in production. There's on-set candid shots as well as glamour pics, with plenty for the vintage film enthusiast: Jack Lemmon, John Wayne; Jean Simmons, Marilyn Monroe, Joan Collins, Doris Day, a young Benny Hill and many more. Film previews include The Battle Of The River Plate, The Spirit Of St. Louis, Giant, Kismet and more. Illustrated with numerous colour and black and white photographs.
  • TV Script writer Larry Baker is hired to pen a new horror series. On location at an old castle he crashes through walls with the ease of Superman - and somehow usually lands plunk in the middle of a lovely lady's bed. But Larry isn;t really a sex maniac. Not quite. Even though the black-haired babe calls him seducer and the gamin-type blonde screams bloody murder... When you're up against real live vampires, disappearing corpses, things that go bump in the night... plus a couple of gorgeously undressed gals guaranteed to drive you up the wall - something's got to give - and it does - with plenty of happy horrible hilarity...
  • A presentation of hundreds of entertaining caricatures of celebrities from popular American periodicals in the first half of the twentieth century. Employing a vivid new type of portraiture based on modern design and a preoccupation with personality- based fame, master caricaturists filled the pages of newspapers and magazines with renderings of Mae West, George Gershwin, the Marx Brothers, Babe Ruth, Mussolini, and other personalities and celebrities of the day.
  •  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.

  • First published in 1879, a collection of over 1700  recipes from over 250 old and famous Virginia families was regareded as the essence and mysteries of Old Virginian 'housewifery' and was acclaimed by the President's wife, Mrs Rutherford B. Hayes. There are recipes for literally everything as well as chapters on remedies and behaviour in the 'Sick Room', housecleaning, restoring old clothes and miscellaneous recipes for cosmetics and cures.
  • 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.
  • A collection of some of H.V. Morton's columns for the Daily Express, which is still in print today almost 100 years later. Morton never did the tourist route; instead he went off the beaten track to look into what really made a city. What he found was London's wonderful diversity of people against intriguing backgrounds. Among other places, he visits the docks, the Caledonian Market, Petticoat Lane, the Free Cancer Hospital, observes the nannies and their charges in Kensington Gardens, tea-shops, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, the Lost Property Office and many other places.
  • For years they thought it was just them - irritated and tormented by everything around them, from call centres to nose studs, from speed bumps to ringtones. Then along came  the television series Grumpy Old Men and they knew they were not alone. It turns out that 35-54 year old men are the grumpiest lot in history. Grumpier than their parents, who were just glad to have survived the war and lived long enough to collect their pensions. Grumpier than their children, who don't care about anything except iPods and  tattoos. This book extends the hand of friendship to the young, the old and the women who identified with Grumpy Old Men. It is now a modern movement and its members are proud of the title. Sir Bob Geldof: If you aren't grumpy, that means you're contented with the world. And who the **** could be that? Featuring Rick Stein, Jeremy Clarkson, Arfur Smith, Rick Wakeman and more.
  • This book, which has nothing to do with anything, owes nothing to almost everyone including Robert Burns, Napoleon, Graeme Green, Livingstone Hopkins, Longfellow, John Bull, Guiseppe Verdi, Daniel Defoe, Lord Byron and others. It owes a lot to Bill Wannan, who over the years has pandered to his sudden rushes of comic inspiration and has strayed into a world of dreadful puns, comic narrative, biographies brief and banal, philosophical snatches and illustrated idiocy. His assiduous filing has allowed the accumulation of these visual and verbal tid-bits for the delectation of mankind.  So if you want to knit a scarf for a giraffe, see Mr. Hyde's last confession, understand the difference between a ballad and a ballade, read of the historic meeting between William Wordsworth and the Inspector of Stamps, find out who was the world's most eligible vandal - then this book is for you.  Illustrated.