Prologue :
   
There was a library...Let its long length assemble. Than its stone walls its paper walls are thicker; armoured with learning, with philosophy, with poetry that drifts or dances...Shielded with flax and calfskin and a cold weight of ink.
Gormenghast
Mervyn Peake

the Library :
     Home  \ Science Fiction \Fantasy\ Reference \Mystery-Suspense\ Non-fiction\ fiction \Folk, Tall and Fairy Tales \ Poetry\ Myths

1. ABC Warriors: The Black Hole Paperback 136 pages Pat Mills (Author), Simon Bisley (Author), S.M.S. (Author) Publisher: Titan Books (1991) Language: English ISBN-10: 1852863889 ISBN-13: 978-1852863883 Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches Weight: 15.5 ounces
2. Wolverine: Paperback 96 pages Chris Claremont (Author), Frank Miller (Author) Publisher: Marvel Comics (July 11, 1995) Language: English ISBN-10: 087135277X ISBN-13: 978-0871352774 Product Dimensions: 10 x 6.6 x 0.2 inches Weight: 7.5 ounces
3. The Complete Bone Adventures: Volume 1 - Out from Boneville
(Complete Bone Adventures) : Paperback B/W Jeff Smith (Author) Publisher: Cartoon Books (July 1993) Language: English ISBN-10: 096366090X ISBN-13: 978-0963660909 Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.6 x 0.8 inches Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
4. The Complete Bone Adventures: Volume 2, Issues 7-12 (Complete Bone Adventures) Paperback B/W144 pages Jeff Smith (Author) Publisher: Cartoon Books (July 1994) Language: English ISBN-10: 0963660926 ISBN-13: 978-0963660923 Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.5 x 0.4 inches Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
5. The Complete Bone Adventures Volume 3, Issues 13-16 (Complete Bone Adventures) Paperback B/W 144 pages Jeff Smith (Author) Publisher: Cartoon Books (June 1995) Language: English ISBN-10: 0963660934 ISBN-13: 978-0963660930 Product Dimensions: 10 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches Weight: 11.2 ounces
6. Bone (2) - The Great Cow Race: Paperback Colour 160 pages Jeff Smith (Author) Publisher: HarperCollins Children'sBooks (5 Mar 2007) Language: English ISBN-10: 0007244770 ISBN-13: 978-0007244775 Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 14.8 x 1.2 cm
7. Elektra lives again Direct edition Paperback Frank Miller (Author) Publisher: Marvel Comics (1996) Language: English ISBN-10: 5960304368 Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches Weight: 12.6 ounces
8. The Crow: Paperback 244 pages James O'Barr (Author) Publisher: Kitchen Sink Pr (February 1997) Language: English ISBN-10: 0878162216 ISBN-13: 978-0878162215 Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 6.7 x 0.5 inches Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
9. Tank Girl : (Penguin Graphic Fiction) Paperback 128 pages Jamie Hewlett (Author), Alan Martin (Author) Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (August 13, 1990) Language: English ISBN-10: 0140138900 ISBN-13: 978-0140138900 Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.3 x 0.4 inches Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
10. The Complete Chronicles of Conan Centenary Edition: Paperback Robert E. Howard (Author) 944 pages Publisher: Gollancz; (April 1, 2009) Language: English ISBN-10: 0575077808 ISBN-13: 978-0575077805 Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 2.2 x 9.2 inches Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
11. The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones : Hardcover (Imitation Leather) 200 pages Jr. Henry 'Indiana' Dr. Jones (Author) Publisher: Pocket Books 06 May 2008 Language: English ISBN-10: 1847392148 ISBN-13: 978-1847392145 ASIN: B002VWZWPI
12. The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger :(Dover Occult) Paperback 278 pages Heinrich Kramer (Author), James Sprenger (Author), Montague Summers (Translator) : Publisher: Dover; Revised edition (June 1, 1971) Language: English ISBN-10: 0486228029 ISBN-13: 978-0486228020 Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 0.8 x 10 inches Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds--On Extended loan from the Kris Maric Library.
13. Compendium Maleficarum: The Montague Summers Edition (Dover Occult) Paperback 206 pagesFrancesco Maria Guazzo (Author) Publisher: Dover Publications (September 1, 1988) Language: English ISBN-10: 048625738X ISBN-13: 978-0486257389 Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.6 x 9.2 inches Weight: 1.9 pounds--On Extended loan from the Kris Maric Library.
14. The Silence of the Lambs Hardcover Thomas Harris (Author) 512 pages Publisher: Arnoldo Mondadori; First Edition edition (1989) Language: English ISBN-10: 0434313467 ISBN-13: 978-0434313464 Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
15. A Bram Stoker Omnibus Edition: Dracula and the Lair of the White Worm : Hardcover 311 pages Bram Stoker (Author) Publisher: Guild Publishing, London (1986) ASIN: B00177XC14
16. Sacrament : Hardcover Clive Barker (Author) 400 pages Publisher: Harpercollins; First Edition edition (June 1996) Language: English ISBN-10: 0002235617 ISBN-13: 978-0002235617 Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.9 inches Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
17. Curious Pleasures: A Gentleman's Collection of Beastliness Hardcover 304 pages The Reverend Dr Eramus St Jude Croom DD (Author) Publisher: Virgin Books; Ill edition (4 Oct 2007) Language: English ISBN-10: 1905264135 ISBN-13: 978-1905264131 Product Dimensions: 16.6 x 2.7 x 22.2 cm
18. Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe :(Penguin Classics) Paperback 1040 pages Edgar Allan Poe (Author) Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (October 29, 1987) Language: English ISBN-10: 0140103848 ISBN-13: 978-0140103847 Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.6 x 7.8 inches Weight: 1.4 pounds
19.The Art of the Scythians: The Interpenetration of Cultures at the Edge of the Hellenic World (Handbook of Oriental Studies, Vol 2) Hardcover Esther Jacobson (Author) 305 pages Publisher: Brill Academic Pub (June 1995) Language: English ISBN-10: 9004098569 ISBN-13: 978-9004098565 Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.1 x 9.4 inches Weight: 2.2 pounds

Waffle : It's a book. It's a non-volatile storage medium. It's very rare. You should 'ave one
     Artists Description and general comments.
I'm a bibliophile.
Books are the most friendly concentration of knowledge and entertainment that the human mind has yet conceived. Sure, CD'sand DVD's can cram more wordage into a more compact package than any bound, paper book can manage, and that annoying catchphrase 'multimedia' presentations can impress the viewer with text, pictures and soundbites...But nothing else feels like a book that you can hold in your hand, to read in haste or at leisure, in almost any lighting, without batteries or power cables.
Nothing else allows the mind and its imagination as much freedom to stop and start, to pursue a random thought, to skim the surface or be completley immersed as does a simple book. Good books, In my view, do not come and go. Like the trees from which they're made, good books come into existance, they grow, they change, sometimes they send offshoots from which new books spring. They may go through different editions. A first edition may go out of print, and become a collectors item, but the words themselves, the knowledge, stays avaliable.

Officially, Western libraries are said to have begun with the Greeks, around the 6th Century BC.  The Lyceum was established in Athens in 336 BC.  Subsequently, Athenians buried and badly damaged their collection, to prevent its acquisition by rival librarians of Pergamum.  Romans took the remnants of it home with them in 40 BC.

In 40 BC, Anthony sent his lover Cleopatra in Alexandria the entire library of its archival, Pergamum (where parchment was invented).  In part, he was punishing the Pergamumites for siding with his rivals during the latest Roman civil war.  He may also have intended to compensate Cleopatra for Julius' unrecorded act of vandalism.

Rome destroyed and rebuilt many cities.  It uprooted homegrown cultures and replanted entire populations elsewhere, more or less at random.  Rome was an insignificant contributor to Library scholarship.  It specialized in villa libraries for the rich.  No scholars were assembled when Rome established its first Public Library in 33 BC, unlike centuries of common practice in the ådecadentπ East.  The Romans sacked Thebes in 29 BC, ending a thousand years of its prosperity.

Dates listed hereafter are Anno Domini. (AD), unless otherwise noted.  The giant library at Antioch burned down in 37, along with its city.  Before her defeat, native Queen Boadicea burned down Roman Londinium (London), in 50.  Rome conquered Jerusalem in 63, flattened it in 70.  It massacred the inhabitants of Caesurae Palestinae, Jotapata and Massada by 73.  Subsequent revolts targeted Jewish colonies in the great imperial cities.  This massacre cost the Roman Empire hundreds of thousands more lives, and equivalent treasure.  Rome conquered the island of Anglesey in 78, the last known refuge of the Druids.

Eighty AD saw the first destruction of one of the greatest Buddhist centers, Anuradhapura in Ceylon.  Founded in 437 BC, it would be annihilated by Tamil invaders, this time for good, during the 8th Century AD.

Meanwhile, almost every book published since the 1800's is quietly self-destructing.  Their cheap, high-acid paper reacts to light, heat and moisture by crumbling to dust.  Fahrenheit 451 has reached room temperature these days.  The wonderful world of chemistry has relieved Ray Bradbury fascistic, science fiction dystopians from the thankless chore of destroying every book.  Ephemeral electronic media are even more vulnerable.  Any massive breakdown of civilization will see most of them perish.  In addition, our recording mediaπs engineered obsolescence affords our literature repeated opportunities to disappear.

Herculean efforts to transfer print media onto digital databases, (mostly meaningless megatons of accounting documents), will only mitigate this devastation.  In library after library, reluctant staffers dump truckloads of perfectly fine books and bibliographic materials into the nearest landfill.  Meanwhile, their MBA-certified weapon managers crow that theyπve achieved cost-cutting goals.  In the future, preserving old ideas especially idiosyncratic and culturally specific ones deviating from the mass media norm shall become private, oral and website responsibilities much more often than public, paper-published ones.  Since the technocrats refuse to do their obvious job, we will require many more bards, witches, griots and shamans, to assume these adult responsibilities.

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"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. "
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