Library Suggestions
There are a number of things, as a resonsible, caring member of OUSFG, that one can do to ease the wholly unpleasant task of the OUSFG Librarian.
Donating books is always a good thing. Even if it's an absolutely abysmal member of its literary field, it might be physically smaller than the copy we already have. If it's awful enough, we may keep it. If we already have it, or it's supremely mediocre, it may be auctioned or possibly donated to either a William Burroughs Cut Up Workshop or the Oxfam Bookshop.
We're also on the lookout for decent stacking boxes. These are the sorts of things that are used to hold vegetables and fruits before being placed on supermarket shelves. Tesco, on Cowley Road, is a decent supplier of such items. Some boxes have strength built in at the expense of convenient book-stacking (large rectangular corners, cardboard flaps that obscure the book spines twoards the ends of the box) - please avoid these if you can (though it's better than nothing).
Oversized Books
Listed here are books that we'd really like to replace for having an unacceptably low quality:volume ratio. We'd love donations of the following books in small paperback. Proof that less is more?
- Baxter, Stephen
- Titan, the hardback is monstrous (i believe a small paperback replacement was found for this - confirmation?)
- McCaffrey, Anne
- Damia (large PB)
- All The Weyrs Of Pern (large PB)
- Dragonsdawn (large PB)
- Moorcock, Michael : books in bold are the ones we need as small PBs.
- Large PB Martian Trilogy - we have 2 of the three in smaller paperback. Just need Masters Of The Pit now.
- The Adventures Of Una Persson And Catherine Cornelius In The 20th Century (we could then remove the large PB)
- The Cornelius Chronicles, Vol 2, we have all the contained novels in small PB, except for The Condition Of Muzak.
- large PB Sailing To Utopia - aka Tale Of The Eternal Champion, Vol 5, we have all the contained novels in small PB, except for The Distant Suns and Flux
Really Good Books
List any suggestions of good books for the library here. Don't worry about listing books we might already have; once we've got an online index, someone will remove those.
- Some good J.G. Ballard, eg The Drowned World. (There is quite a bit in the library including The Drowned World)
- Apparently we need to replace some falling-to-bits Julian May ppbks, I've seen some in Oxfam Bookshop on St Giles' --TL
- Ah yes. The Many-Coloured Land (Book One in the Saga Of The Exiles) is missing the first 86 pages. Now withdrawn; this makes books 2,3 & 4 marginally less useful. I have bought a copy to donate which I will drop into the library sometime. --KV)
- Have we got A Clockwork Orange? More Spec Fi than SF, but worth having? (Was in the library but has been on loan for a long time)
- How much bona fide Burroughs have we got?
- What do you mean by bona fide Burroughs?
- Have we a copy of Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We" in the actual library? Just added it to my collection, and IMHO it's one of those "if you liked 1984, you'll love this" kind of works --TL
- How about Hugo Award & Nebula Award winners? We have quite a few in the library but there are a lot missing books. Looking at the list we are missing 3 books which have won both and 31 which have won 1 award. I have created a page with the Missing Award Books on for people to make comments including whether they have a copy they could donate.--KV
I am a publisher and thus am happy to donate to the cause, but what would you like? -- SDN Anything nice and new, I reckon --TL OK, go to <http://www.firebirdbooks.com> and let me know what appeals and give me an address!