Old Book Monday - May 21
Quite a few book bloggers participate in a weekly meme in which they share delicious and mouth-watering pictures of the new books they have recently received. I love strolling through the blogosphere and checking out these pictures. I don’t buy a lot of new books but realized I could still participate by sharing pictures of what I do buy a lot of—OLD books. Hence, “Old Book Mondays”
This week’s “Old Book Monday” features one of my most favorite and treasured acquisitions to date : three of the four books in Arnold Bennett’s “How to Live” series.
I found these adorable, pristine condition books in one of those “flea market” type antiques shops (which are my favorite place in the whole world to shop). All three together cost me a little less than $10. At the time, I had no idea who Arnold Bennett was—I picked them up for my husband who was on a time management kick--aren't the covers gorgeous?
It turns out, Arnold Bennett is the father of modern time management and these three books are wonderful—full of many great time management tips, written in a delightful, engaging style. It’s interesting to note that time management was already a pressing issue in 1910 when Bennett wrote “How to Live on 24 Hours a Day.”
These slim volumes are dear to me, not just for their quality—the embossing is still beautiful, the pages crisp and unbent, but for their tone. If Stephan Covey wrote as Bennett does, I might have bothered to read his books:
“I have received a large amount of correspondence concerning this small work, and many reviews of it—some of them nearly as long as the book itself—have been printed. But scarcely any of the comment has been adverse. Some people have objected to a frivolity of tone; as the tone is not, in my opinion, at all frivolous [Terri’s note – this makes me laugh because the tone is ENTIRELY frivolous—or perhaps, we might say ‘light-hearted’], this objection did not impress me.”
What about you? Have any recent book acquisitions you want to share?