My Library – Books have been a passion and significant love of my life since my earliest childhood memories. I believe I inherited this from my parents, who are also avid readers; being blessed with the ability to read rapidly, the number of books I have read is daunting. Our wonderful little daughter, it seems, has inherited the same bibliophilia, a blessing.
I have trouble sleeping if I do not read a for couple of hours before bed; the reading soothes my active mind and is as close to meditation as I have managed to get. My extensive library has taken a lifetime to acquire and at considerable expense. In addition, the costs of transporting such weight over distance are enormous and we shouldn’t forget the costs of building shelves.
Library Additions
Since 2018, three individual book collections numbering over 2200 books combined have come into my possession, increasing the total number of volumes to slightly over 8400. I received the first from a close friend, a retired USMC Colonel; the second collection came from the private library of a bankrupted elderly British gentleman who had previously owned two bookstores here in Thailand.
The most recent acquisition was Harlan Wolff’s personal library after he sadly passed away.
Over the last decade, I have acquired a considerable number of Easton Press series, beautiful, timeless treasures, many signed and numbered; these have been vacuum-sealed for preservation.
By far, the majority of the volumes are history and biographies, mostly hardcover, spanning polar exploration, war, finance, diving, mining, geography, science, African, Chinese, Russian, European, nautical, political, Masonic, religion and much more. I also have an extensive science fiction collection. One of my most prized treasures is the Easton Press leather-bound complete collection of numbered “Signed First Editions of Science Fiction.”
On the other hand, apart from science fiction, a genre I have always loved reading, I purposely do not possess many novels except James A. Michener, John le Carré, Wilbur Smith, and similar authors. This is due to the amount of non-fiction available and the lack of time to assimilate them all. A number of my books are collectables signed by the authors. My most cherished books are Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen’s complete biography. Hardcover, First Edition, Norwegian – “Roald Amundsens Opdagelsesreiser” volumes one through eight, published in 1928, the same year of Amundsen’s untimely death during the Latham 47 flying boat search mission for Nobile’s crew, whose new airship Italia had crashed while returning from the North Pole. I cherish these pearls; they are a priceless possession. I consider Amundsen, of all the giants of history, a role model for numerous reasons, primarily for his awe-inspiring achievements, drive, and resoluteness against all odds.
