Antiquities & Oddities

//Antiquities & Oddities
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  • The space station that was to be the last, best hope for peace was sooner or later going to be eclipsed by new political coalitions and technical advances. John Sheridan, who had guided the massive freeport through its most tumultuous days, knew that his own fate had been unalterably prophesied. Sheridan attempts to wage peace for the Interstellar Alliance, the final destiny that awaits him and his command staff. The final season of this iconic series.  Six disc set.
  • Deep in the Mariana Sea Trench, a corporate underwater mining complex has been built - an industrial Atlantis. When an accident in a dry-dock chamber kills several miners and investigator is sent to determine the cause and finds that it was no accident.  He is caught in a deadly conflict between the miners and the corporation and must fight to stay alive and uncover the truth.
  • Edward is the creation of an inventor, whose sudden death leaves Edward with metal shears for hands.  He lives on alone in the darkness of the great Gothic house until he is found by a kind lady and taken home to live with her family - in the pastel paradise called Suburbia. An early role for Johnny Depp and one of Vincent Price's last films.  By Tim Burton.
  • 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
  • Inspired by real events. The story of the secret Israeli squad assigned to track down and assassinate the 11 Palestinians believed to have planned the 1972 Munich massacre of 11 Israeli athletes - and the personal toll on the team and the man who led it.
  • Persuaded by a beautiful Russian Countess to help her flee her loathsome fiancè, Captain Jonathan Clark sails from San Francisco to Alaska, evading cunning rival Captain Portugee - who will unite with Clark to defeat the Russian menace, Prince Semyon.
  • 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 collection of writings by various authors detailing the search for the Great Southland Terra Australis dating from accounts as far back as the 1400s. In this volume: The Early Voyagers, William Howitt; The Voyage Of Luis De Torres, R.H. Major; The Voyage of Francis Pelsart, John Pinkerton; The Voyage of Tasman, from Dr Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia; The Wreck Of The Vergulde Draeck, R.H. Major; In Search Of A Wreck, Matthew Flinders; Dampier And The Buccaneers, Samuel Bennett; First Voyage Of Captain Cook, Roderick Flanagan; The Voyage Of Captain Marion, Matthew Flinders; The Voyage Of Captain Furneaux, Reverend J.E.T. Woods; La Perouse, And The Voyages In Quest Of Him, William Howitt; The Voyages Of Bass And Flinders, from Dr Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia; Founding A Country, Roderick Flanagan; Troubles With The Natives, Samuel Bennett; Captain John Hunter In New South Wales, Samuel Bennett; John Batman And The Settlement Of Port Phillip, from Batman's Journal; The Story Of William Buckley, William Westgarth; An Emigrant's Adventures, Anonymous; In The Goldfields, Kinahan Cornwallis.
  • Mikes visited Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaya, Siam (Thailand) India and Turkey. At once he came up against an awkward truth - if you are in the East then it stops being the East. The glamour of the Orient is automatically transferred to California - or even to Illinois. So he stopped bothering about points of the compass and concentrated on the people instead. Contrary to expectations, he found them pretty scrutable. Like Londoners,  New Yorkers and residents of the village of Siklos in Hungary, they seemed to Mikes to be endearing and funny. None of them liked being oppressed, although some liked oppressing other people when they got the chance. Most of them said they detested Europeans, which often seemed to mean Americans but at the same time  were as friendly as could be. They enjoyed criticising themselves but didn't like other people criticising them. In such familiar circumstances, Mr Mikes felt free to be as funny as he liked and so he has been - as well as being humorous and wise. English humor. Illustrated by Nicholas Bentley.
  • The original Gothic romance potboiler of its day.  The cover shows veteran Australia actress Queenie Ashton in the role of Lady Isabel.  This edition published for the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of 1939 for McDowell's Department Store, Sydney and is the abridged adapted for radio edition. It also contains facsimile autographed photos of the cast.
  • First published in 1950 and costing 9/6, this book addresses Australia's Fuel and Power problem and studies the provision of energy and its effect on national development.  It also covers the production of oil from coal and the prospect of finding oil in Australia. Illustrated with maps and diagrams.
  • Enoch Roden begins his apprenticeship in printing with a bad accident, but as the story progresses, his training becomes more spiritual. Mr. Drury, his boss, trusts in God's provision for his business but when business goes bad, it leads to confession of his faults. Enoch questions his attitude of despising God's daily gifts.  Trusting God's providence when it doesn't seem like He is paying attention is a training many go through. The author was a founding member of the London Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1884.
  • 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.
  • Who is Kinky Friedman? He's an American singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician, defender of stray animals and former satirical columnist. Friedman shifted his creative focus from music in the 70s to writing in the 80s - detective novels written in the style of Raymond Chandler and featuring a fictionalised version of himself, solving crimes in New York City and dispensing jokes, wisdom, recipes, charm and whiskey in equal measure.  In this omnibus volume:  Armadilloes and Old Lace: The Kinkster decides to take a break from big-city murder but scarcely does he arrive in Texas before his friend, Judge Knox, turns up wanting to talk about four little old ladies. No, they don't want the Kinkster to join a quilting bee - they're - er - dead... God Bless John Wayne: The Kinkster's back in his Lower Manhattan loft, having taken on the seemingly easy task of helping his friend Ratso find his true birth mother - an assignment which leads to untidy mayhem involving a couple of corpses and a plot to kill Ratso... The Love Song Of J. Edgar Hoover: The Kinkster is hired by Polly Price to find her missing husband but he's let himself in for far more trouble than he bargained for - and when Village Irregular Mike McGovern disappears along with the lovely Polly, Kinky comes to the natural conclusion: The FBI is after him! Cover art by Mick Brownfield.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • This is a real fantasy trip around the Pacific Islands as Reed retells these beautiful fanciful stories and legends: from New Zealand: The Sky Father and The Earth Mother; The Sea Fairies and Hinemoa and Tutanekai; from Hawaii: The Little People Of Hawaii and The Goddess Of The Volcano; from Tahiti: The Children Who Became Stars; from Samoa: The Sandpiper And The Crab; from Tonga: How Maui Brought Fire To Tonga; from Niue: The Woman Who Was Swallowed By A Whale; from Cook Islands: The Gift Of The Eel God; from Chatham Islands: The Sea Monster; from Fiji: The Giant Bird and The Spirit-That-Changes-People; from the Solomon Islands: The Foolish Canoe Paddlers and Why The Moon Has A Dirty Face; from New Britain: The Wise Brother And The Foolish Brother; from New Guinea: How The Turtle Got Its Shell and The Snake And The Cockatoo; from New Hebrides: Six Men Who Tried To Catch A Sunbeam;  from Nauru: Young Spider In The Sky; from Caroline Islands: The Mouse Who Was Hungry; from Marshall Islands: The First Sail; from Paulau Islands: The Boy Who Came From The Sun Egg.  Illustrated by Stewart Irwin.
  • Nash has more sly and wry observations, this time on the nuclear family.  Chapters include: Man Is The Father of the Child - But He Never Quite Gets Used To It; Daddy, I Want A Pet Of My Own, I Promise To Take Care Of It and Around The House or What Parents Think About When They Aren't Thinking About Their Children.  The following is a sample of the poem, Children's Party - and no doubt many fathers can relate to Mr Nash's observations...

    May I join you in the doghouse, Rover?

    I wish to retire till the party’s over.

    Since three o’clock I’ve done my best

    To entertain each tiny guest.

    My conscience now I’ve left behind me,

    And if the want me let them find me…

    Of similarities there’s lots,

    ’Twixt tiny tots and Hottentots.

    I’ve earned repose to heal the ravages

    of these angelic-looking savages...

  • Mary and Tony's parents do not take them to the seaside as usual for their holiday. Instead, they are going to have their holiday at Fallow Farm where they'll learn about animals both tame and wild.  This would not be a story with enough sophistication for modern children, but the illustrations alone make this a very worthwhile book.
  • Poor Mr. Banks. His cutaway is too tight, he can't get a cocktail, and he's footing the bill....He's the father of the bride.  Stanley Banks is just your ordinary suburban dad. He's the kind of man who believes that weddings are simple affairs in which two people get married. But when Daddy's little girl announces her engagement to Buckley, Mr. Banks feels like his life has been turned upside down. And any man with a daughter can appreciate Mr. Banks's feelings. To say the least, Mr. Banks isn't taking it well, and to make matters worse, he must host cocktail parties with the in-laws-to-be, initiate financial planning talks with Buckley, and moderate family conferences on who will be invited to the reception. Who can blame him when he sinks so low as to offer Kay $1500 to elope? But Mr. Banks holds his peace, and when the last wedding guest has departed from his confetti-carpeted house, he has his memories, and you have a merry record of his tribulations. Classic comedy that was considered so classic that it has been filmed twice and a 50th anniversary edition of the book was issued. Illustrated by Gluyas Williams.
  • Fields was the kind of an actor that only comes along once in several lifetimes - a comic genius and an original anti-hero, cantankerous, pompous and ribald.  Here he lays out his proposed presidential campaign with biting wit: his views on politics, big business, marriage, babies, physical fitness and alcohol. A classic Fields comment: when asked if he liked children he replied, "Yes - but only if they're properly cooked." This is vintage Fields and his only book.

  • A wealth of cinematic history that includes The Year In Cinema; Star Of The Year; Rising Stars And New Faces (including Jean Seberg, Anthony Perkins, Elvis Presley and Tony Randall); The Cartoon Film; Television Films; General Releases; Foreign Films and more.  Plenty of colour and black and white photographs.
  • A real must-have for serious film historians:  this volume contains the listing for all films made over 1955 - 1956 and commentaries by Orson Wells, Richard Burton and Alfred Hitchcock. Illustrated with evocative and numerous still, studio and publicity photos.
  • Death walks behind us and it's anywhere.  This book is a cross between the Darwin Awards and actual statistics dealing with the way we die, from the absurd to the tragic. Categories include:  Bed and breakfast establishments; old fridges; stowaways; stampedes; hiccoughs;  and some very surreal events involving office photocopiers. There is also coverage of burial customs, famous last words and more than 400 black and white photographs and illustrations.
  • Danny's life is quite simple: doing odd jobs with his father to keep afloat, like painting barns or fixing plumbing, and then kicking back with a six-pack at the end of the day. His father believes that aAll women, young and old, are tramps and whores and no good, and are to be steered clear of. But living near a college, with college girls all over the town, Danny goes from complete innocence to jaded weariness as he experiences one after the other. He knows that Angie, the sophisticated, unstable student is trouble and she, with Danny's tough, vengeful father, make a strange triangle.  Danny and Angie's affair works out for a while in a hole-and-corner sort of way.  Then as the Welsh winter closes in, Angie gets more demanding - and Danny is faced with a cruel, impossible choice.
  • The hysterically funny inside story of the fictional Butterfield Administration of 30 days duration in 1909 as told by the 'First Lady', hostess of the Executive Mansion for that one month.  Among other things, she details her rise from genteel poverty in the Deep South to sudden wealth, her romances, glamour and travels; and then to love, marriage and the ultimate address - the White House!  Now a spry 94 years and a permanent 'guest' at the Boskey Dell Home for the Senile and Disturbed, Mrs Butterfield gives American political history a real shock treatment in this mock-memoir complete with photos.
  • Set in England prior to the coronation of Elizabeth II.  Mrs 'Arris is a charlady, hard-working, cheerful and always obliging.  When she sees the beautiful Dior gown that one of her titled ladies will wear to the Coronation festivities, Mrs. 'Arris is determined to have one too.  And she can - if she gives up catching the bus...and going to the cinema...and going to the pub for a drop of gin with her neighbour...and if she takes on extra work and does some sewing from home...She faces all manner of obstacles and snobbery and unwittingly does some good on her journey, but she is determined.  Made into a beautiful film, Mrs.  'Arris Goes To Paris with Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Ada 'Arris. and Omar Sharif - and recently remade.