Utenteocfinebooks

My shelves have several themes: I used to collect Folio Society volumes, with particular attention to the first 50 years from 1947-1997, but I now infrequently add extra titles: I have somewhat amorphous groups of "Books About Books" = with especial focus from the start of W. European printing by moveable type, book design & illustration, graphic design, evolution of printing technology, typography & famous typographers, stationers/publishers, book dealers of the past & present, famous printing establishments, paper making & makers, watermarks, book collecting & collectors, book binding, bibliographies, examples of fine printing, plus almost anything I can afford to lay my hands on concerning the wider cultural/societal mutual feedback mechanism concerning the influences of books & reading. I also have other groupings to do with Folk Tales (NOT fairy tales please!), historic accounts of European & other travel (esp. if published by the Hakluyt Society), almost a complete set of the Greek & Roman classics in the Loeb Classical Library, many assorted reference books & variegated history.

Books have obsessed me since my first "collecting" of comics stored in a defunct wire mesh meat safe. I put together several "libraries" over the decades reflecting the gradual improvement in my finances from impoverished student onwards. It was just a few years prior to early retirement from the day job that my current collections began. Also at that time I took some short book binding courses. I am a member of some bibliographical societies (London, Oxford, Edinburgh) the Private Libraries Association, the Hakluyt Society (& used to belong to the Printing Historical Society & a society of bookbinders.) Having accessed detailed course data from a US university's Dept of English + a Rare Book School I plan to engage in a more organised & coherent programme of reading about various aspects of book history. Ideally, I intend using time to gradually catalogue my titles to a high level of accurate detail via LibraryThing. Since I have retired from the UK to rural SW France, I can catalogue in the winter (too cool & damp to be outdoors) & during high summer (too hot to be outdoors).