Shabby Background

Saturday, July 27

Discarded, not despised

Next time I'm home I will take photos of our 'precious, tattered, torn, and handed-down' kind of thing that sits in a center table in the family room forever: the Bible. Mother still reads a couple of chapters during family worship. So many memories around the holy book. But since I live overseas and have no pictures to show, I'll see what I can do with something discarded from the Nelson Hayes library, a place frequented by reading expats in Bangkok.


I happen to visit Nelson Hayes during one of their post-inventory sales. The piles were tall and placed in a receptacle that reminds one of a sandbox. Going through them was my kind of blast. When I spotted one  which was ignored by buyers, I clutched it until I reached the check out counter.


The pages are brittle and yellowed. Perfect for all-things-old lover me.


Okay, it's only 1959. But given no antiquarian bookstore exists in Thailand, at least none that I know of, I was happy to have Malcolm Bradbury's first novel Eating People is Wrong.

The dedication page says TO MY MOTHER AND FATHER, and on the jacket is a peek inside: 
Professor Treece liked to think of himself as a liberal humanist. It was his desire to implant in his pupils at the provincial university where he taught English a sense of civilized values.... Eating People is Wrong contains a wealth of supporting characters inhabiting the half-crazy, half serious world of poetry readings, tea parties... and minor orgies in Espresso bars.
I have never read the book yet but I know I will have wonderful moments in the pages when I do.

~ 0 ~

12 comments:

  1. Do you know that I think that I only saw this book for the first time out of the corner of my eye recently in my local library? If I hadn't been in a rush I would have looked more closely. Fabulous title!!

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  2. I have that novel too, but a paperback Penguin edition, and enjoyed it very much, from what I recall. I also enjoy purchasing books from library sales - there are often some real gems there.

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  3. I'd love to get my hands on a copy of "Eating People is Wrong." What a find!

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  4. I always sort through library books for sal. Oxfam shops seem to do pretty well for old ones too. I'll have to look out for the Bradbury book.

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  5. Eh, clutching for fear that your excitement would bring forth the book bandits? I can understand that feeling -- and experience it every time a "find" a perfect thing, no matter that it is only so in my eye.

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  6. Do read it and let us know what it was like. The title is fascinating. I love buying old books, but have trouble finding enough shelves for them.

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  7. Sounds like the forerunner of "Dead Poets Society."

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  8. I've heard of that book but now you've whetted my appetite with that introductory 'blurb'. I must look out for it.

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  9. Great title. When I saw your photo, I thought the cover and title looked too modern for an "old" book.

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