[Scriptoris] Buying Books

[Velvet Claw]

Dear Scribes,

    I have talked about taking my superannuation out under the Disability allowances, and lo and behold - it has arrived in my bank account!

    I have been working on a wish list of books for many months, and was planning to buy them Used from Amazon, except for a few that Meisterin Katarina has been incredibly kind enough to find for me at lower priced US stores.

    I ordered a few books as an initial order from Amazon the other day - poetry and cooking (yay Moosewood!) books, and to my horror, was charged $US10 shipping and handling from each of the second hand book shop owners on each book on top of the actual book price! It ain't easy being green, and it ain't easy if you don't live in the U.S. (or England)
  
     There are copies available of some of the books I want available in Australia, but because they are in limited supply, they cost heaps. And heaps. (believe me, I've been looking)

     So here I am.

     *** do you have any books that you want to sell? **
               
     I am happy to pay a good price for them - at very least the Used price given on Amazon, but if I can buy then privately, I can at least get them surface shipping, and save an awful lot of money on the shipping - which is kind of 'throwing money to the wind' - all too literally! It's not like I can read and absorb them all at once!

     I know John Neal (Hi John!) has some of these books - but if I can pay less for Used copies that are gathering dust on a shelf, all the better. So do Paper Ink Arts.

     My "I have to have or I'll just die" list is below. I'm using a significant proportion of my super money to buy books that are meant to set me up in a Calligraphy library more or less for life.

     My complete list is on Amazon - if you go to Amazon, and search on the Wishlist for "Megan Mason"
(Mason is my middle name) you'll see another couple of pages of books!

    I've looked and can't find the 'Find a Wish List" thingy on Amazon's home page, so if you have any troubles finding it, or getting into Amazon, and have books you want to sell, please feel very very free to e-mail me
and I'll send you a Word document with the complete list of titles.

    Essential books 
=================
 
* Drollery Designs in Illuminated Manuscripts :  Muriel Parker

* Image on the Edge : The Margins of Medieval  :  Michael Camille

* Medieval Beasts :  Ann Payne

* Historical Scripts - From Classical Times to the Renaissance : Stan Knight. 1998 edition. 

* The Calligrapher’s Bible: 100 Complete Alphabets and How to Draw Them : David Harris. 2003. 

* Explicato Formarum Litterarum: The Unfolding of Letterforms : Rutherford Aris 

* Lettering : Degering, Hermann.

* The Art of Color Calligraphy - A Complete Sourcebook of Color Calligraphy Techniques : Mary Noble and Adrian Waddington. 

* The Illuminated Alphabet, : Timothy Noad and Patricia Seligman.  
         which is an earlier edition of
    The Art of Illuminated Letters 1994 (either I think. I haven't been able to find mention of any differences)

* The Encyclopedia Of Calligraphy: A Step-by Step Visual Guide, with an Inspirational Gallery of Finished Works : Mary Noble, Janet Mehigan

*Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms (Looking At...) : Michelle P. Brown

* The Decorated Letter : Alexander, J.J.G.

* Paint Your Own Illuminated Letters : Stefan Oliver

* Calligraphy and Illumination: A History and Practical Guide : Patricia Lovett
      or it’s British title - Calligraphy, Illumination and Heraldry

* The Art of Illuminating as Practised in Europe from the Earliest Times Illustrated by Borders, Initial Letters, and Alphabets : Timms

* Humanistic script of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries : Alfred J Fairbank

*An Italic Copybook: The Cataneo Manuscript : Stephen Harvard, 

* Three Classics of Italian Calligraphy (The Writing Books of Arrighi, Tagliente, Palatino), : Ogg, Oscar.

* First Writing Book -  an English Translation and Facsimile : J. H. Benson

* The Illuminated Page - Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting : Janet Backhouse. 

* Books of Hours. : Janet Backhouse 

* The Luttrell Psalter : Janet Backhouse

* A History of Illuminated Manuscripts (2nd ed – 1997), : De Hamel, Christopher.

* Illuminated Manuscripts: The Exquisite Art of the Medieval Masterpiece, Gill, D.M.

* Codices Illustres: The World’s Most Famous Manuscripts  : Ingo F. Walther, Norbert Wolf

* The Medieval Book : Shailor, Barbara

* Brush Lettering : Eliza Schulte and Marilyn Reaves. 1992. 

* Illuminated Lettering (A Beginner’s Art Guide) : Marie Lynskey

 You can see they are mainly technique books, so at worse I can work from manuscripts on-line whilst actually  having books on technique.

Your help in this (enormous) task is very very greatly appreciated.

Best,

Megan (velvet claw)