One book only

If I could only take one book, it would have to be a dictionary, preferably the OED (my friend's one comes complete with magnifying glass as the print is so small! Might have problems there!) or my Webster's dictionary, which is illustrated.
 
Reference books can keep me occupied for a very long time, be they encyclopaedias, dictionaries, books of quotations, cricket or football annuals, bird books or many other things. I've even been known to find myself immersed in a railway atlas that shows British railway lines as they were in 1923 (when there was a big merger of railway companies in the UK). It's not even a very big book and I'm not even a trainspotter...
 
Atlases and railway maps interest me too. I have a couple of atlases that are well over a hundred years old, as well as other atlases and maps going right through to the 1980s or so. Somewhere upstairs in my "library" is a copy of that railway atlas too.
 
Elawin said:
Atlases and railway maps interest me too. I have a couple of atlases that are well over a hundred years old, as well as other atlases and maps going right through to the 1980s or so. Somewhere upstairs in my "library" is a copy of that railway atlas too.
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Maps I like - but only if I'm going to explore the area (or have lived in the area if its an old map). Old maps are particularly fascinating.
 
morning glory said:
Maps I like - but only if I'm going to explore the area (or have lived in the area if its an old map). Old maps are particularly fascinating.
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The old ones I have are a Times atlas which was going begging at a secondhand shop because it was damaged, and a very early Pears Cyclopaedia with a map section, which I inherited from my Granddad. I've also got a load of 1950s Cyclist Touring Club maps which were my brother's as well as some of his Australian maps from the late 1950s and several from 1961-62 when he came to England (mainly) overland from Melbourne via India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Middle East, and Turkey amongst other places. Very fascinating. Unfortunately they are all separate maps, so they wouldn't count in this thread :laugh:
 
morning glory said:
Maps I like - but only if I'm going to explore the area (or have lived in the area if its an old map). Old maps are particularly fascinating.
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I collect the old cloth maps. In particular the turn of the 20 th century. I have some very old and quite rare Irish ordnance survey maps and some even rarer Irish maps in (Irish) Gaelic only.

I find them all fascinating. Getting paper maps in Australia of any usable scale had proved interesting!
 
On the subject of maps, I enjoyed both the TV series and book by Jerry Brotton, A History of the World in Twelve Maps. One thing that you realise very quickly is that a map is not simply a map; there is a whole lot of other stuff going on.
 
Mom has a set of Encyclopedia Britannica that Dad bought in the 60's. He read every volume, cover to cover, A to Z. My name is on those books.

I love maps. G has some old maps. If I can ever get him to organize his office I want to have them framed for display.
When we traveled, prior to GPS and navigation systems, I was the navigator. Now G's vehicle has a navigation system, we both have navigation on our phones and I have a portable GPS in my car. When we travel I STILL get a paper map. There is something about maps that appeals to me much more than the sophisticated systems currently in use.
 
ElizabethB said:
Mom has a set of Encyclopedia Britannica that Dad bought in the 60's. He read every volume, cover to cover, A to Z. My name is on those books.

I love maps. G has some old maps. If I can ever get him to organize his office I want to have them framed for display.
When we traveled, prior to GPS and navigation systems, I was the navigator. Now G's vehicle has a navigation system, we both have navigation on our phones and I have a portable GPS in my car. When we travel I STILL get a paper map. There is something about maps that appeals to me much more than the sophisticated systems currently in use.
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Maps tell you a lot of things that GPS can't - I remember getting details of a beautiful house not far from my daughter at what seemed a very cheap price. A paper map instantly told me that the house was on an "island" between two large dykes and easily flooded, something that Google maps, GPS and the estate agents details did not show.
 
Medieval maps are particularly fascinating, although I find most medieval documents interesting. There is a famous one in Hereford Cathedral, known as the Hereford Mappamundi, made sometime around 1300.
 
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US Army Ranger Handbook... its not the one I would go with theres better survival books out there to use but military is pretty cool to me.
 
I'm thinking a book on shipbuilding and navagation might come in handy.
 
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