doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com A Book Thread?

Unlike many of you, I much prefer American single shots to their British counterparts. I do have 1st & 2cd editions of Kirton and all deHass covering much of the mechanical side of those actions.
I also have an almost unprecedented collection of muzzleloading gun books amassed decades ago and valuable beyond my ken.
I much prefer fiction for pleasurable reading these days after nearly four decades of gun books.
For a GREAT read try, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" trilogy! Three Fat books of Swedish mystery/intrigue...

Hello Bob,

You have left it a little late, at the beginning of last year it took me two weeks to get the full set. Today odd volumes are still to be found, but Volume 4 is scarcer then a virgin in a Shanghi House of ill repute. Volumes 1 and 2 are pretty scarce. Grab any you can find and don't look at the price, you'll get more for it selling it later.

The problem now is, that with the demand that exists copies of almost all volumes are beind sold second hand at sometimes three or four times their original cost. You could try the Kynock web site in England, the last time I looked they had either two or possibly three volumes left. I understand that Tom Rowe will not be publishing reprints unless there is a great upsurge in the book trade. Unlikely to occur in the foreseeable future, with the World Economy drowning.

Harry

Harry,

Are you speaking from personel experience??????

Lynn,

My lips are sealed.

Harry

I'm much like SDH in that I read more fiction for pleasure these days. I wholeheartedly agree with him regarding Stieg Larsson's trilogy. Some of the best fiction to come down the pike in a long while. Also, anything new by James Lee Burke will cause me to call in sick and spend the day under a shade tree with a cooler full of cold drinks.

Other fiction I dearly love to read over and over again are the thinly veiled stories about H.M.Pope written by Lucian Cary, collected into one edition by Guy Lautard. Cary's story about how he himself came to be a rifle crank and accuracy buff is entertaining in it's own right.

Make sure you read "the girl' books by Stieg Larsson in order, three great reads. Mr. Larsson died after writing the three so there will not be more.

I've consumed fiction at an alarming rate for most of my life. I'm not sure if it's a curse or a gift but a novel takes about two to three hours, a Robert B. Parker two-hours and Louis L'Amour about 90 minuets. The last Tom Clancy "Dead or Alive' a couple days...hey it's a thousand pages. I just started on Walter Mosley and have read about six so far.

I highly recommend Lee Child's Jack Reacher Novels, they also should be read in order. I have the new one pre-ordered from Amazon.


The Louisiana tourist board should pay James Lee Burk not to write about Louisiana.

The last timew I talked to Tom Rowe. He had a few copies of Vol-4 and Vol-6. Stashed back. But the price was a little more than normal retail. Smile Whitey

I am looking for the Winfer volume on Alexander Henry rifles. I think that is Volume 1. If anyone has a lead on a copy, I would welcome it. I would like the book to go along with the AH on the rack. It is either that or maybe the AH needs a new home.

I am very much enjoying this thread. Back in high school, one of my English teachers was Graham Burnside. He was an editor of Gun Report and wrote articles on cartridges and antique rifles. He encouraged the boys in class to write about their guns and always told us "every time you buy a gun, buy a book". I have done that and the gun books outnumber the guns in the safe.

While this thread has turned to novels, my favorite novelist is N.S. Norway. He wrote under the name Nevil Shute and hit the best-seller list many times between 1938 and his death in early 1960. NSN was an aeronautical engineer with a passion for details. Interested in early flying in the Arctic? Find a copy of "An Old Captivity". Interested in the D-Day preparations? Find the novel called "Requiem for a Wren" or "The Breaking Wave". "Most Secret" is a book about Royal Navy ops in Occupied France.

Good reading,

Richard

But James Lee Burke's name on one of the books about Louisiana is a sure sell for me. His books about Montana leave me a little cold.

He was a genius. His novel In the Wet is a masterpiece of political thought and his Round the Bend will still bring tears to these old eyes.

I can also recommend Patrick O'Brian unreservedly. His prose and characterizations are unforgettably vivid and his research/authenticity is unmatched.

For a realistic depiction of warfare in the Hundred Years' War (and others), I really enjoyed Bernard Cornwell's Agincourt (and others). He is a superb historian as well as an unmatched storyteller & world-famous novelist, and his descriptions of the early cannons and their servicing are fascinating as well as illuminating.

I don't read quite as fast as MP but have read my share and someone else's too (grin). Keep a permanent library of 2000-plus books, mostly fiction and guns but many many how-to-do-its as well. I keep about 10% of what I read and am always having to do a mass clean-out to make room for more. One entire bedroom and about 1/4 of my shop has floor-to-ceiling bookshelves but some of it is magazines. Last year I sold over 200 hunting books but kept all the gun ones.
Regards, Joe