Two Book Reviews for the Curious

130,000 new titles have been published in the UK last year and already Bibliophile has been invited by many publishers to help them reduce their book stocks. This is how we have for over 30 years been able to pass on such fantastic savings on quality hardbacks and paperbacks to our loyal customers.

Here are two interesting reads for the curious:

OLD POSSUM'S BOOK OF PRACTICAL CATS
When she began as a bookseller back in 1985 in St. Martin's Lane bookshop, our Annie sold at least 100 copies of this book every week, so it is most fondly remembered. That was just the cheap and cheerful Faber paperback. What we have here is a very splendid Faber hardback with beautiful colour illustrations by Axel Scheffler in what must become a collectable edition. Cats! Some are sane, some are mad, and some are good and some are bad. Meet magical Mr Mistoffelees, sleepy Old Deuteronomy and curious Rum Tum Tugger. But you will be lucky to meet master criminal Macavity because Macavity's not there! A beautiful edition of these beloved cat poems which of course were subsequently turned into the musical Cats. First published 1939, new edition with additional poem 1953. 64 large pages. Published Price: £14.99 BIBLIOPHILE PRICE: £6

BURLINGTON MAGAZINE: A Centenary Anthology by MICHAEL LEVEY & CAROLINE ELAM

Volume one, number one of the Burlington Magazine appeared in March 1903, produced from the now seat of the Royal Academy and the Society of Antiquaries. It was the headquarters of the Burlington Fine Arts Club whose exhibitions of Old Masters paintings from British private collections had long attracted the admiring attention of International connoisseurs. The aims of the new Magazine were to set the study of art history in Britain on an entirely new footing, including art of all periods and places, decorative as well as fine art, with high standards of typographical design and illustration and above all, readability. The aims did not change over the next 100 years. Michael Levey has compiled some of the most significant articles, reviews, editorials and obituaries to appear in it under successive editors during the 20th century. Here is W. M. Rossetti on Dante Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal, an editorial on Clifford's Inn and the protection of ancient buildings, André Salmon on negro art, Augustus John on Gwendolyn John, Sir Kenneth Clark on Piero della Francesca's Saint Augustine altarpiece, a 1998 article on the Raphael Tapestry Cartoons re-examined, Malevich and film and much more. 256 very large pages with hundreds of colour and b/w plates. Yale University Press first edition, 2003. Published Price: £35.00 BIBLIOPHILE PRICE: £18.50

Today's Book Review

65875
Title: DECIPHERING THE COSMIC NUMBER
Author: ARTHUR I. MILLER

Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung shared an obsession with the number 137. 'When the hard-boiled rationalist…came to consult me for the first time, he was in such a state of panic that not only he but I myself felt the wind blowing over from the lunatic asylum!' - Jung on Pauli. Is there a number at the root of the universe? A primal number that everything in the world hinges on? Physicists, psychologists and mystics throughout history have pondered this question. Some have proposed three as in the Trinty and the three dimensions; some have suggested four as in the seasons, directions and number of limbs. Or is the answer 137, which describes the fine-structure constant of the atom and also happens to be the sum of the Hebrew letters of the word Kabbalah? The groundbreaking physicist Pauli and famous psychoanalyst Jung both made enormous and lasting contributions to their fields. Pauli predicted the existence of the neutrino in the 1930s, many decades before it was actually discovered, and Jung codified his own occult dream analysis into his theory of a collective unconscious. In their many letters and meetings, the two men went much further. The two men's discussions lead into 'the no-man's land between Physics and the Psychology of the Unconscious.' A lavishly illustrated dual biography which tells the story of these mavericks in search of the cosmic number, a quest that led them deep into the works of medieval alchemists, dream interpretation, Kepler and even the I Ching. 336pp plus eight pages of b/w photos. US first edition written by a British academic.

Published Price: £18.99
BIBLIOPHILE PRICE: £6.00
 

The Good Book ...

We can thank goodness that there is no VAT on books! Retail is hard enough these days. www.bibliophilebooks.com since 1978 has specialised in carefully selecting and offering, just out-of-print and soon to be rare books at 50-90% off.
Our bestsellers this year include a deluxe Bible, the like of which will never be printed again due to rising costs
HOLY BIBLE: The National Family Bible Limited Edition
Author: EDITED BY THE REV'D JOHN EADIE
Bound in full cloth, foil blocked with gilt-edged pages, there are over 1200 pages and 25 colour and black and white plates. Measuring 30cms x 24cms, this huge heavyweight 'Illustrated National Family Bible with the Commentaries of Scott and Henry' contains all the books of the Old and New Testaments. It has marble end papers, a satin bookmark and many thousand critical and explanatory notes, a family register to fill in with names and spaces for children, dates of birth, marriage and death and a family portrait gallery in the colour plates section at the beginning of the tome. A rare find. Special limited edition of 3,000 copies.

Published Price: £75.00
BIBLIOPHILE PRICE: £37.50

 

This Month's Art and Architecture titles:

65379 PRISSE D'AVENNES, ARAB ART

by Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom

Emile Prisse d'Avennes (1807-1879), a French Orientalist, author and artist, was one of the greatest pre-20th century Egyptologists.  An ardent admirer of the superb skills of Egyptian and Oriental artisans, he was enamoured of Arabic art.  As a youth he dreamed of exploring the Orient, and at 19 began travelling to Greece and Palestine. Over the next 40 years he explored Syria, Arabia, Persia, and resided in Egypt and Algeria. Converting to Islam, he travelled Egypt disguised as an Arab, using the name Edris Effendi.  A student of ancient Egyptian and Islamic cultures, he later wrote: "We shall discuss all the arts, all the industries cultivated by Orientals with so much taste, brilliance, and fantasy. We will present splendid reproductions of the monuments, objects of art and luxury, which provide evidence of an advanced civilization, the influence of which has been felt even in Europe."  In 1848-1851 Prisse d'Avennes published his Oriental Album in London (Oriental Album: Characters, Costumes, and Modes of Life, the Valley of the Nile).  This brilliant collection of 32 chromolithographs illustrating the people and costumes of the Nile Valley was accompanied by a commentary by renowned Orientalist and Egyptologist James Augustus St. John.  After again travelling to North Africa, Prisse d'Avennes returned to France in 1860, bearing the fruits of his journeys, hundreds of folio drawings, photographs, sketches, plans and 400 meters of bas-reliefs.  Fascinated by the symmetry, complexity, and opulence of Egyptian and Arabic art, he drew from this vast collection to create compilations of the finest examples of art and architecture, which also took into account historical, social, and religious contexts.  In 1877, he published his outstanding survey on Islamic art and architecture, Arab Art (L'Art arabe d'après les monuments du Kaire, 1869-1877), in Paris. This publication reproduces the three atlas volumes containing 200 plates, 137 of them magnificent chromolithographs, mainly by Prisse d'Avennes. Two foldouts, 12" x 17", 408 pages.

ONLY £100

 ISLAMIC DESIGNS FROM EGYPT BOOK AND

 by Pepin van Roojen

The Pepin Press publishers are famous for books on art, design, architecture, applied art and popular culture.  Here is a special offering of intricate geometric patterns and Arabesque, a form of ornamentation based on vines and foliage, popular in Islamic decorative arts.  In both forms of two dimensional decoration, Muslim artists have achieved exceptional levels of mastery as can be seen in the buildings in Egypt (the city of 1,000 minarets) and Alexandria.  The designs represented in the book are culled from some of the magnificent buildings in these cities, and in some cases repeating patterns have been expanded to make them more suitable for graphic use.  The images in the book can be used as a resource and for inspiration.  Each one is stored on the enclosed CD-Rom, ready for use in printed media or web page design, for producing postcards either on paper or digitally, or to decorate letters, flyers, T-shirts etc.  They can be imported directly from the CD into most software programmes.  The book itself is a visual delight, printed on quality paper, 112 pages in rich glowing colour. 

£26.99 NOW £7.50

65929 TOULOUSE-LAUTREC: The Moulin Rouge and the City of Light

by Robert Burleigh

Big and vibrant like its subject, this Harry Abrams publication focuses on Lautrec as a painter of Paris nightlife and one of the fathers of the poster.  Lautrec fell in love with art as a child.  His early drawings of horses and riders, circus performers and the family dog reveal his close observation of the world around him.  Later, as a student, he was entranced by the bustle of Paris and recreated its lively atmosphere in many of his vibrant works.  The personalities from the entertainment world who filled the night with song and dance were not only his friends but also his inspirations.  The book reproduces many of his best known paintings, drawings and posters as well as photos in this super introduction.  Suit ages ten to adult.  32 very large pages.

£9.95 NOW £6

66198 SEVEN DAYS IN THE ART WORLD

by Sarah Thornton

The art market is booming.  Museum attendance is surging and more people than ever call themselves artists.  Contemporary art has become a mass entertainment, a luxury good, a job description and a kind of alternative religion for atheists.  Art receives the sort of breathless media attention that was once reserved for celebrities and royals.  But the art world is still opaque to outsiders.  Here Sarah Thornton takes us on an unusual journey exploring the most puzzling aspects of buying, selling, creating and exhibiting contemporary art.  In a series of beautifully paced, fly-on-the-wall narratives, we witness the drama of a Christie's auction, the high jinx of Takashi Murakami's studios, life in a notorious art school seminar, the élite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artform magazine, the backrooms of the Turner Prize and the watery wonderland of the Venice Biennale.  With her critical eye, gossip and rigorous research, her often funny account is peopled by an ever-expanding number of artists, collectors, dealers, curators and critics.  274pp in paperback with illus.

£12 NOW £4.50