Booking through Thursday

I haven't done booking through Thursday for a week or so, so it's time to give it a go.

"There are certain types of books that I more or less assume all readers read. (Novels, for example.)

But then there are books that only YOU read. Instructional manuals for fly-fishing. How-to books for spinning yarn. How to cook the perfect souffle. Rebuilding car engines in three easy steps. Dog training for dummies. Rewiring your house without electrocuting yourself. Tips on how to build a NASCAR course in your backyard. Stuff like that.

What niche books do YOU read?"

* Books about outdoor swimming pools (e.g. Wild Swim, by Kate Rew, and Liquid Assets, by Janet Hall, Waterlog by Roger Deakin)

* Books about Oxford, and people who've lived in Oxford, and planning for Oxford after WW2 (e.g. Oxford Replanned by Thomas Sharp; Naomi Mitchison's autobiographies,

* Books about Cornwall (e.g. Vanishing Cornwall, by Daphne Du Maurier; my Dad's Cornish place-name book)

* Books about books, particularly nice books (e.g. The Bodleian library's wonderful things book, the Penguin By Design Book)

* From my degree I have an interesting collection of books which I love about British social history and social studies during the twentieth century and lots of WW2 Home Front history. Again, not terribly niche, although perhaps some of the titles, now very out of print, themselves are.

Probably not too off the wall actually, with the possible exception of the first. The boyfriend is really the one with off the wall books in our household - books about flying sit next to books about management next to books about computers next to books about languages next to books about cookery next to The devil wears Prada in Russian.