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Post by cromagnonman on Mar 8, 2016 11:36:31 GMT
Would the Charing X basement you refer to be Any Amount Of Books? There are a few of us been known to loiter in there. I'm still in mourning for 'Lovejoys' across the road. So am I Dem. Although that is one basement I never did summon up the courage to explore. AAoB has been a favoured foraging spot of mine over many a long season. But recently I've developed a preference for the Quinto basement up the street that pulphack mentions. Wouldn't classify it myself as being that upmarket. Every month they truck down a mastodon's dump worth of paperbacks from Hay-on-Wye and stuff the basement backroom with them. £2-3 prices attached to them whatever they are. Its always hit-and-miss as to what it will consist of but for the last couple of turnovers its been SF and Fantasy mostly. Picked up a nice slipcased set of the first two DUNE paperbacks for £4 for example. This month though it appears to be crime and mainstream. It hasn't yet quite recaptured the glory days from when it was the corner shop down the road (the one that a crushed and deflated J R Hartley used to stumble out of in the Yellow Pages ads). Its basement then was a repository of treasure to rival the Well of Souls. But its getting there.
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Post by jamesdoig on Mar 9, 2016 9:37:52 GMT
I was rummaging away in the basements of Charing Cross Road today - like the good little hunter/gatherer that I am - and came across an AEW Mason compendium of the Inspector Hanaud novels. Forgot about this nice omnibus of H.G. Wells, from 1935 - with the usual cheapskate Gollancz dust jacket:
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Post by pulphack on Mar 9, 2016 10:46:28 GMT
Ah, I dunno - I quiite like that uniform cheapo look the Gollancz had - much of my initial library investigation as a youth was based around 'does it have the yellow jacket? I'll give it a go...' DL Sayers, Alan Hackney, Kingsley Amis, Edmund Crispin - never heard of 'em until I saw that design. Must have saved old Victor a fortune on designers, mind...
Anyway, Quintos - it's upmarket for me as it's clean, the hardbacks tend to be in decent dustjackets or unstained or sun damaged bindings, and the paperbacks (last time I was there) were relatively modern. Whereas AAoB basement is dusty, a bit smelly in places, and a lot of the books fall into the category of rubbish, as does their condition at times(although I've never seen anything down there to match the dust and mold of Baggin's Bazaar). I prefer the old crap as you never know what you might find, whereas Quintos looks like a Hoxton boy's version of a second hand book basement to me (prejudice, I'll admit). Having said that, last time I was there with Dem I picked up the 2000 era omnibus of Kyril Bonfigioli's Mortdecai trilogy for £4.50, which a tenth of what it goes for on Abe & Amazon, and cheaper than buying the reissues that accompanied the film (which was nowhere near as bad as reviewers would have it, and actually rather good). So I don't actually dislike Quintos, it's just that I like to breathe in my books as I browse...
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Post by jamesdoig on Mar 9, 2016 20:30:21 GMT
Ah, I dunno - I quiite like that uniform cheapo look the Gollancz had - much of my initial library investigation as a youth was based around 'does it have the yellow jacket? I'll give it a go...' It's a good point Pulphack - they're certainly recognizable: Lovecraft, Colin Wilson, Shiel, Visiak, those Sayers anthologies to name a few more...
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Post by dem bones on Mar 13, 2016 7:37:13 GMT
Anyway, Quintos - it's upmarket for me as it's clean, the hardbacks tend to be in decent dustjackets or unstained or sun damaged bindings, and the paperbacks (last time I was there) were relatively modern. Whereas AAoB basement is dusty, a bit smelly in places, and a lot of the books fall into the category of rubbish, as does their condition at times(although I've never seen anything down there to match the dust and mold of Baggin's Bazaar). I prefer the old crap as you never know what you might find, whereas Quintos looks like a Hoxton boy's version of a second hand book basement to me (prejudice, I'll admit). Having said that, last time I was there with Dem I picked up the 2000 era omnibus of Kyril Bonfigioli's Mortdecai trilogy for £4.50, which a tenth of what it goes for on Abe & Amazon, and cheaper than buying the reissues that accompanied the film (which was nowhere near as bad as reviewers would have it, and actually rather good). So I don't actually dislike Quintos, it's just that I like to breathe in my books as I browse... Don't know why, but I can't picture the Quinto's basement though I know have been down there with Mr. Hack. Will definitely have to check it out when we finally get around to that "Halloween 2015" book crawl!
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Post by pulphack on Mar 13, 2016 13:02:58 GMT
Funny thing is I'm sure you picked up something in Quinto's basement, but I can't remember what! As for our belated Halloween 2015 jaunt - well, it's only 10 months since the last expedition, and we stretched 14 months before that, so we're on course for the usual timescale...
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Post by dem bones on Mar 13, 2016 19:08:55 GMT
Funny thing is I'm sure you picked up something in Quinto's basement, but I can't remember what! As for our belated Halloween 2015 jaunt - well, it's only 10 months since the last expedition, and we stretched 14 months before that, so we're on course for the usual timescale... I got Peter Haining's delicious Classic Era Of The American Pulp Magazines from there, but I'm certain it was upstairs - in fact, if I'm not v. much mistaken it was you who clocked it the moment we stepped through the door. Will try and arrange an next invasion of Charing X. Road for next month. It's been one of those years so far ....
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Post by dem bones on Mar 9, 2020 7:05:48 GMT
One of my favourite books by Wheatley - almost impossible to categorise, but a ripping yarn nonetheless. I'd group it with 'They Found Atlantis', and the very peculiar 'The Man Who Missed The War'. I haven't read it for ages, but I found the DVD of Hammer Films 'The Lost Continent', which is based on 'Uncharted Seas', and, near the beginning, I was amused to see Nigel Stock's character reading a copy of the source novel - which is the same edition as I own with the large black bug on the cover. Blatantly done! Dennis Wheatley - Uncharted Seas (Arrow, 1965) Blurb: PRISONER OF TERROR ON A HORROR-HAUNTED ISLAND The ship was doomed. After hurricanes, mutiny and murder, the sight of land brought hopes of succour; but giant killer crabs are tame beside the lusts of creatures that hop across the stinking weed in which the ship lies trapped .....Recently found this copy of They Found Atlantis at Sclater Street Market. Dennis Wheatley - They Found Atlantis (Arrow, 1958: originally 1953) Blurb: THEY WERE TRAPPED .... 900 fathoms under the sea.
This was the end of their wonderful expedition. Just a few days earlier they had embarked on a search for the lost continent of Atlantis with its rich treasure of gold and precious stones. Now death was just around the corner - they thought, but what awaited them was the most amazing sights and breathtaking adventures ever experienced by human beings
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Post by kooshmeister on Mar 12, 2021 14:46:01 GMT
About halfway into this and holy moly, the racist stuff caught me completely off guard. I'm not talking about the portrayals of Harlem Joe and Corncob. At worst, that's insensitive. But the inhabitants of Satan's Island being the survivors of a wrecked slave ship having descended into savagery who regularly abduct white women from the neighboring island and murder the white men by crucifying them (!!) was... wow. Just wow. And even all of that and the unfortunate implications it carries (i.e., that black people are more likely than white ones to revert to savagery) I could've lived with if Luvia did flat-out drop the N-word every other sentence when discussing them. People often accuse H.P. Lovecraft of being racist but outside of a certain poem whose title I won't repeat here and some of the more unpleasant parts of The Horror at Red Hook, even he was never quite as blatant as Wheatley is here in Uncharted Seas. Maybe if Luvia was a character we weren't supposed to like, I could find the things he says about the residents of Satan's Island forgivable (if not exactly palatable), but he's clearly the hero of the story, at least so far, so it's a little distressing that Wheatley has him dropping so many N-bombs.
Don't get me wrong. I'm no "woke SJW" or whatever it is they're calling oversensitive people these days, but still, it caught me completely off guard and I had to say something. Nevertheless, let's say that I think Hammer made the right decision changing the villains from savage former black slaves to the descendants of Spanish Inquisitors when they adapted the novel as The Lost Continent.
And from now on, I think that whenever someone complains about H.P. Lovecraft's racism, I'll just kindly direct them to Uncharted Seas.
And just to be clear, I am enjoying the book despite these, uh, problematic elements. It's a pretty good lost world adventure story and I'm not going to let ugly 30s attitudes about race ruin it for me.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Mar 12, 2021 17:36:55 GMT
About halfway into this and holy moly, the racist stuff caught me completely off guard. I'm not talking about the portrayals of Harlem Joe and Corncob. At worst, that's insensitive. But the inhabitants of Satan's Island being the survivors of a wrecked slave ship having descended into savagery who regularly abduct white women from the neighboring island and murder the white men by crucifying them (!!) was... wow. Just wow. And even all of that and the unfortunate implications it carries (i.e., that black people are more likely than white ones to revert to savagery) I could've lived with if Luvia did flat-out drop the N-word every other sentence when discussing them. People often accuse H.P. Lovecraft of being racist but outside of a certain poem whose title I won't repeat here and some of the more unpleasant parts of The Horror at Red Hook, even he was never quite as blatant as Wheatley is here in Uncharted Seas. Maybe if Luvia was a character we weren't supposed to like, I could find the things he says about the residents of Satan's Island forgivable (if not exactly palatable), but he's clearly the hero of the story, at least so far, so it's a little distressing that Wheatley has him dropping so many N-bombs. Don't get me wrong. I'm no "woke SJW" or whatever it is they're calling oversensitive people these days, but still, it caught me completely off guard and I had to say something. Nevertheless, let's say that I think Hammer made the right decision changing the villains from savage former black slaves to the descendants of Spanish Inquisitors when they adapted the novel as The Lost Continent. And from now on, I think that whenever someone complains about H.P. Lovecraft's racism, I'll just kindly direct them to Uncharted Seas. And just to be clear, I am enjoying the book despite these, uh, problematic elements. It's a pretty good lost world adventure story and I'm not going to let ugly 30s attitudes about race ruin it for me. I read the expurgated Kindle edition of UNCHARTED SEAS. Which nevertheless contains two instances of the n-word.
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Post by andydecker on Mar 12, 2021 18:11:42 GMT
I read the expurgated Kindle edition of UNCHARTED SEAS. Which nevertheless contains two instances of the n-word. They didn't. (I mean re-wrote the novel.) And from now on, I think that whenever someone complains about H.P. Lovecraft's racism, I'll just kindly direct them to Uncharted Seas. Lovecraft was just the easy target for the Wikipedia generation which doesn't read or can't be bothered to do research. Direct them to Frank Belknap Long's short-story Death-waters from 1924. This is a beauty in that regard, far worse than H.P.L. whining about sleazy foreigners ruining the slums of New York further in one paragraph.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Mar 12, 2021 18:48:49 GMT
They didn't. (I mean re-wrote the novel.) Please elaborate. It says at the beginning of each of these editions that they have been edited "for style and pace," at the request of Wheatley's descendants. Although who would undertake a task like that I cannot imagine.
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Post by helrunar on Mar 12, 2021 19:09:28 GMT
Wheatley is discussed in this article. But only, of course, after Sax Rohmer has been pilloried as the very worst of the racist lot. womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2017/04/fascist-ghosts-far-right-in-british-horror-1/Typical quote re Wheatley: Wheatley was very much a right-wing reactionary, a fact that is spelled out at length within Phil Baker’s masterful biography The Devil is a Gentleman: The Life and Times of Dennis Wheatley. Prior to World War II, Wheatley admired Mussolini; he was also a supporter of General Franco. His attitude towards the democratic process was clearly elitist. Wheatley argued that voting should not be distributed on a “one man one vote” basis, and instead supported plural voting weighted towards people with “superior mentality.”H.
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Post by andydecker on Mar 12, 2021 19:49:35 GMT
Although who would undertake a task like that I cannot imagine. The unlucky intern who drew the short straw?
Edit: Now I understand what you meant. I forgot to include a sarcasm sign after the "They didn't" remark. Or should it have been "Oh no, they didn't!" ? I believe you of course. I bought some cheap Kindle editions of Roger Brook during a sale and never read them. Now I fear these editions are also edited. Damn. Typical quote re Wheatley: Prior to World War II, Wheatley admired Mussolini.”So did a lot of British politicians, what's her point? (I am not asking you. Steve :-), but these broad statements are so tiresome).
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Mar 12, 2021 20:15:18 GMT
Now I fear these editions are also edited. Damn. I do not have a big problem with it, except of course on the level of principle. I have read unexpurgated Wheatley, and do not particularly miss whatever is gone in these editions.
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