Tuesday 11 November 2014

Tilting at windmills, some books about wind and waterpower.


Flat has chosen to promote the only book I publish about mills tonight, here is the link if you want ore information http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/from_wind_to_power.htm

Well to be honest there isn’t much happening in the local news and I asked the family what to post about; the answer was windmill books.

Back in some distant past I worked as an engineer or mechanic mending bits of machinery that went wrong in various factories, it think at one time I would have been called a millwright, although this title came to mean something else.

If there are old books about just about windmills then we haven’t got any in stock the oldest book I have in my shop at the moment that explains how they work a sort of early Haynes Manual – is Nicholson’s Operative Mechanic – which covers pretty much all the 1825 models of everything mechanical.









Book prices in my bookshop, per book vary between 5p and about £1,000 and Nicholson’s Operative Mechanic is priced closer to the upper end than the lower end, so whether someone would buy it just for the windmill bit is rather uncertain. 

When I came to spread out the books on windmills, on the shelf in my bookshop at the moment I realised that you couldn’t really separate windmills and watermills, so the photographs are of both.




I suppose in a way mill is just another word for factory, certainly some book collectors collect books on windmills and watermills and I suppose travelling from one bookshop to another looking at their books on mills and buying the occasional one is a pleasant occupation.   

5 comments:

Don Wood said...

I once saw a TV article about a book dealer working in London. He travelled by tube and had a back pack. It appealed to me as at the time I was a second-hand furniture dealer lugging wardrobes up and Dow on stairs. I envied people who dealt in small items. Windmill salesman now I can't say transporting samples would be light work.

Anonymous said...

Hi Michael, sorry to post on an unrelated blogpost, but I am an avid browser of your site and I wonder if you can help me. I live in West Cliff Road area and have been experiencing a number of punctured tyres 4 in the last 6 months, 2 in the last week. All of them are the result of a screw (or 2 screws) in the centre of the affected tyre, very bad luck. I park around Vale Square as no parking on the main road and was wondering if you could post something asking if this is just my bad luck, or something more serious going on.

I either have a stalker or someone is generally into damaging property and putting peoples safety at risk.

I prefer to remain anon on here, but if you can give me an email address I will let you have my details directly.

Mrs Tara P said...

Just wanted to say I always enjoy these blogs about books.

God help us said...

Thought this might be thought provoking Michael

http://www.scribd.com/doc/246454440/KIACC-Minutes-2014-09-30

Michael Child said...

Certainly is Barry, not sure about the thoughts though