Paleoblog reminds us that it is Roy Chapman Andrews’ birthday. (HT Walter Hingley, once again). Naturalist, intrepid explorer, bone digger, hunter (he shot a Mannlicher- Schonauer 1903 carbine like mine, Savage Model 99’s, and Savage bolt actions in .250- 3000), writer, self- promoter, and sometime director of the American Museum of Natural History, he was …
Tag: Books
Saturday Signing
Art, Science, Insect Hunting, and Nabokov
John Wilson’s butterfly photos remind me of one of the great neglected stories of 20th century intellectual life; that Vladimir Nabokov was not just a writer and teacher but a great taxonomist, this despite being denigrated as a dilettante in his time. Joseph Conrad is legitimately revered for becoming a great English novelist in his …
Rifle quiz
Pure fun for scholars of guns and readers of travel and adventure tales: how many things can you find in common on these little carbines? Oh, I will add one invisible addition for the bolt: The first question is for tecchies; the second for readers and travelers: how many books and writers and scientists and… …
“Lost” Gruber review…
Before Q Blog, I had a website, which vanished. I regretted the loss of only one piece, an essay and review of a work by Michael Gruber. Recently, reading him at his excellent website (link above) and commenting on him, I found a printed copy, which I will print here. Not only does it point …
Just a little time left
To contribute to the Russian Life Silk Road Trilogy translation project. My earlier take here. Apparently just 100 ten- dollar book orders would put them over the top. It would be a shame if lack of publicity made this wonderful project fail.Tell your friends. Go viral!
Scribble, Scribble…
Just passed 49,000 words and 232 pages in Book o’ Books, 62 books of the titular 100 plus all the supplemental material done, out of fishing and bird hunting into the big catch- all section, at least two profiles a day… So do not expect TOO much bloggage other than photos, links, or Real News …
Lawrence’s bookplate
…. free- associating here, for Pluvi: my almost accidentally acquired rebound copy of Norman Douglas’s Together, from T.E.L.’s library. I picked it up in Berkeley 20 years ago for nothing; when I pointed at the plate and asked why so cheap, the clerk replied that I was the first person in five years to notice… …
Old Anglo Indian Books
For bibliophiles mainly. Conversations with Walter Hingley prompted me to bring out my favorite old fishing book: a copy of Thomas’s The Rod in India that I got from fishing writer Datus Proper, with its gold embossed figure of an Indian angler and a mahseer on the cover.* (Click all to enlarge).The mahseer was sometimes …
Q o’ D
Thoughts on browsing for guns (and books) from Richard Jeffries’ The Hills and the Vale; over a century old and still valid. Thanks to Walter Hingley… “I had seen rows on rows of guns stacked round the shop, rank upon rank; in the background a door partly open permitted a glimpse of a second room, …