Store books - Truffles from the Invisible Library

There is more to our bookstock than meets the eye. Besides the volumes on our open shelves, we also maintain a store of older titles in the basement of Twickenham Library.

They may no longer be so physically attractive, but they will have proved their worth over the years. Often they were famous, infamous, or outrageously popular when new, and they have been sought by readers ever since. Or they may perhaps be the only book on their subject. And some will be of local interest.

Whatever the reason for their enduring usefulness, we endeavour to retain these titles for some time (often many years) after the peak of their popularity has passed.

You will find them all listed on our catalogue, but their home is unfortunately not suitable for public access and browsing. Therefore each month we will present on these pages a small selection of titles. They may have some current resonance, or simply a quirky appeal which may tickle your fancy.

Should you wish to borrow any of them, please enquire at any library.

So, in no particular order, we present:

Sir William Muir The Caliphate: its rise, decline and fall. 1915

An account of the Muslim polity from the death of Mohammed to the time of the Mameluke kings of Egypt. It draws almost entirely on Arabic sources and arranges them into a single chronological narrative.

Alexander Barrie War Underground: the tunnellers of the Great War. 2000.

The first comprehensive account of the tunnelling and mining operations on the Western Front, and of the extraordinary world inhabited by those engaged in this highly dangerous subterranean combat. Mainly compiled from eyewitness accounts. First published in 1962.

Harry Hopkins The New Look: a social history of the 40s and 50s in Britain. 1963.

An interesting perspective on events and trends which were, at the time of publication, recent history. They are seen through eyes which were yet to witness the social revolution which was about to challenge so many underlying attitudes and assumptions.

Brassai The Secret Paris of the 30s. 1976.

A photographic memoir of the city’s bas-monde. Brassai’s celebrated and distinctive images capture both the seedy glamour and the buried sadness of the forbidden side of the pursuit of pleasure.

Mary Cadogan and Patricia Tate You’re a brick, Angela! A new look at girl’s fiction from 1839 to 1975. 1976.

The authors take this corner of literary history and expand it into a revealing commentary of social history. In it can be traced a revolution in attitudes to girls, their education and expectations, which is reflected in the shifting subject matter of the literature written specifically for them.

Joseph Jay Deiss Herculaneum: Italy’s buried treasure. 1985.

Overwhelmed by Vesuvius by the same eruption that buried Pompeii, Herculaneum is even better preserved. With a modern town covering much of the site, excavations have been difficult and slow. This account of the painstaking work is probably the most complete, and reveals the wealth of discoveries which illuminate so poignantly the life and lives so suddenly terminated in this apparently rich and privileged Roman resort town.

Patrick Stenson Titanic Voyager: the odyssey of C.H. Lightoller. 1998.

Although best known as the highest-ranking officer to survive the sinking of the Titanic, Lightoller’s maritime career was remarkable in other ways as well. He spent much of his life at sea; apprenticed in sail at the age of 13, he was shipwrecked four times in all, almost starved to death in the Klondike Gold Rush, was briefly a cowboy and hobo, and saw action in the Great War. His last adventure at sea was taking part in the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940 with his motor yacht Sundowner. This book relates the full story of the life of this remarkable man, who was also in his later years a local resident.

Allan Bloom The Closing of the American Mind: how higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today’s students. 1987.

An early and powerful diagnosis of the phenomenon now called dumbing-down. By investigating universities’ lack of purpose beyond self-perpetuation and their students’ lack of learning, where the jargon of liberation and creativity is supplanting the dialectic of reason, the author argues American democracy has played unwitting host to ill-digested ideas of nihilism and despair, and to relativism disguised as tolerance. It remains a powerful analysis of the intellectual currents of the twentieth century.

Keith Thomas Religion and the Decline of Magic: studies in popular beliefs in 16th and 17th century England. 1971.

Astrology, witchcraft, magical healing, divination, ghosts, fairies and ancient prophecies were all significant parts of the belief systems of our ancestors. This book explores their relationship to the teachings of the established church and the close relationship they bore to the religious ideas of the period. Often a source of comfort in explaining misfortune, or a means of redress in times of adversity, they were sometimes antagonistic to Christian teaching. This account traces the gradual waning of their influence as the intellectual foundations of the Enlightenment were slowly laid.