Posted on June 2, 2025
I was a voracious reader from a very young age (although nowadays not so much) and my first post-university job was in the Liverpool City Libraries so yes, I can do books.
A couple of years ago I was ‘commissioned’ to take some photographs of books for a charity shop’s online sale. By far the most impressive set of tomes was this beautifuly bound and presumably encyclopedic 16-volume set of an illustrated history of France between 1843 and 1944.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it didn’t attract any bids. Realistically, who these days would go to the trouble of pulling one of these big beasts off the shelf and settling down in an armchair?

Category: Uncategorized Tagged: Books, Encyclopedias, leather, Lens-Artists, Red
Posted on February 2, 2025
Last week, I was what I think of euphemistically as ‘helping’ Madame to reorganise the little crafts corner of the charity shop where she is a volunteer.
I know nothing of crafts and am not ashamed to admit it. However, on the basis that my first job after I graduated was in the Liverpool City Libraries service (a stint that lasted all of six months and ended well over fifty years ago), I was clearly and eminently qualified to organise several large piles of books into some semblance of logical order.
Most of these volumes related to art, needlework, knitting and so on, but there were a few dealing with more esoteric crafts, including this particular one.
No disrespect to all you merry whittlers out there, but I have to confess that I did post this image on our family Whatsapp group without comment but with the caption ‘Shoot. Me. Now.‘

Category: Uncategorized Tagged: Books, Last On The Card, Last Photo, whittling
Posted on December 31, 2016
For this week’s instalment of the 52 Week Photo Challenge, The Girl That Dreams Awake has chosen the theme of ‘Peaceful’.
Her own interpretation is an image of a pile of books and that inspired me to dig out this photograph, which I took a few years ago somewhere around Sydney. What could be more peaceful than sitting quietly in the sunshine by the waterside and reading a book?

Posted on June 15, 2016
This open book, suspended in mid-air, was part of an artistic installation in the Visitor Centre at the Oradour-sur-Glane memorial. If books survive, and they can still be opened, then perhaps there is some hope in that.

Hugh’s Weekly Photo Challenge: Week 29 – Open
Category: Uncategorized Tagged: Books, Hugh's Weekly Photo Challenge, Open, Oradour-sur-Glane