Book Highlights

Copyright © 2004 Bruce Tober

So Your Children Want to Help You Cook?

Excellent! Here's the perfect book to help them learn how. It's Brenda Apsley's brilliant, Step By Step Easy Cooking for Boys and Girls.

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Brenda Apsley's brilliant, Step By Step Easy Cooking for Boys and Girls is only 46 pages and thoroughly illustrated in colour. In addition to a plethora of wonderfully fun and easy recipes for children, all colourfully illustrated with comic book-style pictures, the book includes health, hygiene and safety information. This very scarce book is very clean and tight except for a couple of cooking stains on the front end pages and slight shelfwear to the pictorial covers. Inventory #001342. To order (£18.95 + P&P) please click here.

Let's Talk Orphic Thought and Rimbaldian Illuminism

Or perhaps we'd better leave it to the experts to do so. And that's just what Bertrand Mathieu does in his book Orpheus in Brooklyn: Orphism, Rimbaud, and Henry Miller.

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Bertrand Mathieu's 1976 Orpheus in Brooklyn: Orphism, Rimbaud, and Henry Miller is only 230 pages and was "the first critical evaluation ever undertaken of the influence of Orphic thought and Rimbaldian Illuminism on the life attitudes and literary style of Henry Miller." Miller was, of course, the American author of Tropic of Cancer and The Rosy Crucifixion. This author demonstrates his belief that Miller was greatly indebted to "the protean manifestations of Orphism" generally and more specifically to "the astonishingly seminal example provided by Arthur Rimbaud's prose poems Illuminations and A Season in Hell." The Dust Jacket is VG and in a protective sleeve. Book is VG other than many inked underlinings and other text markings and a few ex-lib markings.Inventory #001033. To order (£55.95 + P&P) please click here.

Chinese Food, Art and Tourism

These two goodies are for the foodies and travellers amongst us. If you like Chinese cuisine and/or have ever dreamt of visiting China, these books are a MUST HAVE. The Heritage of Chinese Cooking by Elizabeth Chong is a relatively scarce and thoroughly sumptuous cookery and art book. And China: The Beautiful Cookbook by Kevin Sinclair is another simply gorgeous volume, this time combining Chinese cookery and travel.

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There were only about a dozen other copies (excluding duplicate listings) of this gorgeous book listed on the Net at the time of this listing. None was in better condition than this and few in as good condition. The Heritage of Chinese Cooking is 256pp and includes an index, bibliography and, more importantly, a plethora of gorgeous colour photos. This sumptuous volume of the best of traditional Chinese cookery is almost beyond description. Both the DJ and book include reproductions of classic Chinese art works. The author discusses the history, traditions and implements and tools of Chinese cookery. Chapters include recipes for starters (appetisers), soups, dumplings and noodles, grains curds and eggs, fish poultry and game, meat, vegetables, desserts. If you're in love with either Chinese food or art, this book is a must. The book (9.75x13") is immaculate and DJ (in protective sleeve) has some edgewear especially at bottom. A relatively scarce book. Inventory #001230. To order (£25.95 + P&P) please click here.

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China: The Beautiful Cookbook is just that, a beautiful cookbook, and it's a beautiful travel book as well. 256 pages including index and a huge number of gorgeous colour photos of food and of some of the most voluptuous land- and city-scapes and architecture of China. Recipes from the various regions of the country fill this mighty tome. The book (too big at 10x14" to get a picture of it) is pristine. The Dust Jacket (in protective sleeve) has some edgewear especially to the bottom and spine. Inventory #001231. To order (£35.95 + P&P) please click here.

Other Chinese cuisine cookery books available from Books at Star Dot Star include:

Kenneth Lo's Regional Chinese Cookbook, 176pp inc index and profusely illustrated with colour photos. No matter which is your favourite Chinese cuisine, you'll find recipes here to suit your taste. Chapters are divided into regions from Peking to Szechwan and from Fukein ti East China with Chinese Moslem cooking thrown in for good measure. Book is immaculate, clean and tight. Inventory #000993. To order (£10.95 + P&P) please click here.

And Chinese Cooking for All. 128pp inc index and a plethora of colour photos - More than 180 recipes and 60 colour photos covering a wide variety of methods of Chinese cooking. Recipes for standard and special dishes are included. Inventory #001224. To order (£10.95 + P&P) please click here .

Trains in The Age of Steam

This item will appeal to the train set loving child in us all, to those of us who love the nostalgia of the age of steam, and to the train-spotting aficionados amongst us. The Supplement to The Art of Railroading is an extremely scarce volume, apparently the supplement to the multi-part series (of at least 8 volumes) The Art of Railroading from The Railway Publications Society, Chicago.

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At the time of this listing, I could find no other copy available online.The Supplement to The Art of Railroading is a marvellous, 271-page volume, a railway enthusiast's dream. Its plethora of pictures, photos, diagrams, charts and schematics, most in B&W and some in colour, provide a wonderfully nostalgic view of Victorian Era railroading. The book is clean and tight (except for soiling of page edges and a tiny bend at the bottom corner of the first page).. The blue-ish grey covers have black text and design to the front and a bump to the lower front corner and a few minor signs of shelfwear. Overall a Very Good + copy of this highly collectable and very scarce book. Inventory #001164. To order (£125.95 + P&P) please click here.

The Road to Wigan Pier- 1st Ed

This is arguably the best non-fiction book by one of my all-time favourite authors, George Orwell. I've read it several times over the years and each time it's like reading a totally new book. New insights and new understandings of life make themselves known each time:

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The book is Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1937; Soft Cover. No Jacket. 264pp including 33 b&w plates) - This is THE first edition, the Left Book Club Edition with forward by Victor Gollancz. Orange soft cloth covers, edgeworn and bumped with soiling to page edges. A few "bubbles" on front cover probably from attachment of book plate inside front cover. Some foxing to pages. Overall a Very Good + copy of this First Edition. Inventory #001064. To order (£50.95 + P&P) please click here .