Remainder Pile

Some Bods Move On

Alfred Armstrong — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:59:44 +0000

The Golden Bough

Alfred Armstrong — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:59:44 +0000

Rambling Into Romantic Candy Antiquity

Alfred Armstrong — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:59:44 +0000

In his delightfully eccentric book Gus Pulakos sets out to write a history of confectionery, but he throws in so much other material that it ends up as a wild confection in itself. At the time he wrote it, Gus was running Pulakos 926 Chocolates. A still-thriving company, it was founded in 1903 by Gus's father George, from whom Gus presumably inherited his enthusiasm for chocolate.

Haydn's Dictionary of Dates

Alfred Armstrong — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:59:44 +0000

Towles' Portrait Lightings

Alfred Armstrong — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:59:44 +0000

This book purports to teach something of the art of lighting for studio portrait photography, but in fact it is a collection of images of the most debauched of humanity, masquerading as ordinary folk.

The Kemsley Manual of Journalism

Alfred Armstrong — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:59:44 +0000

The Kemsley Newspapers group was in 1950, when this book was written, a significant force in the British press market. It included the Sunday Times, the Daily Graphic, the Sunday Chronicle, the Daily Dispatch and a number of provincial newspapers. The group was owned by Viscount Kemsley, who wrote the introduction to this volume.

Faces of World's Captains

Alfred Armstrong — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:59:44 +0000

Once in a while I come across a book whose oddity is charming rather than idiotic: Faces of World's Captains is one such. It records a series of drawings made by Kenji Miyakoshi when he was working as a harbour pilot in Tokyo Bay. Whenever he had piloted a vessel he would make a sketch of its captain from memory. Finally he had about 3000 drawings of which more than 600 are collected in this self-published volume. He says of his work:

Home Made Gadgets Magazine

Alfred Armstrong — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:59:44 +0000

The desperation of the post war years, the cheapness and shoddiness of those times, is captured forever in the pages of this strange little publication.

The REP Book

Alfred Armstrong — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:59:44 +0000

REP stands for “Rubbing Eases Pain”, the slogan of Elliman's Embrocation, a product happily still available. The book is intended as a guide to First Aid for the home, and indeed some of the medical advice is fascinating, but even better are the numerous characteristically Edwardian illustrations.

And Now Its Nail Time

Alfred Armstrong — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:59:44 +0000

If you publish a book yourself, you can have it just the way you want: you can, for instance, give it a cack-handed title, with an apostrophe missing; you can put a really corny photograph on the cover; and you can include a badly executed drawing of yourself opposite the copyright page, as if it were a personal memoir rather than being about collecting railroad nails.