Here be Biggles
Feb. 9th, 2010 01:40 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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biggles_slash_archiveI am supposed to be writing my thesis, so what am I doing? Yes, I am tiding and improving the Biggles & Co.'s residence in my bookcase. I made a nice job of it, so I can't help but boast about it.
The white books are the Czech editions and the colourful pack are the English ones I've got from the ebay since August.
Ginger has a little RAF badge, but it's too blury to see.
The big book in the front is the Last Zeppelin comic book, which you will be getting from me soon ;)
Show me your own Biggles' apartments, pretty pretty please?
The white books are the Czech editions and the colourful pack are the English ones I've got from the ebay since August.
Ginger has a little RAF badge, but it's too blury to see.
The big book in the front is the Last Zeppelin comic book, which you will be getting from me soon ;)
Show me your own Biggles' apartments, pretty pretty please?
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Date: 2010-02-09 02:15 pm (UTC)Well, since I'm also procrastinating over my thesis, here's my shelf ^_^ Badly photoshopped, because half my bookshelf is behind the wardrobe so I can't get the whole shelf in one photo >_< Click for a close-up.
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Date: 2010-02-09 03:04 pm (UTC)Georgette Heyer, oh yes! :D And Gimlet definitely needs more love, I don't have any of them :(
The English Biggles' really are a wonderfully colourful bunch. The Czech ones are published by only two cooperating publishers, so that's why they all look the same. There even is the same picture of Biggles on the cover of all of them.
The reason why my Biggles bookcase is so tidy is simply that all the other books I own are stuffed in another shelf in the most higgledy-piggledy manner. Only Biggles gets all the comfort. I am in need of more bookcases.
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Date: 2010-02-10 02:36 am (UTC)I kind of like it when there are so many you have to start stacking them sideways. It's like a overflow of Biggles' awesomeness :)
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Date: 2010-02-10 10:11 am (UTC)God. I know. I spotted it lurking in a second-hand book stall - judging by the protective wrapper it's an *ex-library copy*, would you believe, though I can't begin to imagine which library would want it @_@ - and I had to buy it because. Well. The horror, the horror. If you thought the film was bad, the book is *infinitely worse*. It's got 'Making Of' and actor biography sections at the end, containing such pearls of wisdom as this:
'Trying to make the character come alive from the books often produced a very odd, frozen-in character who didn't ever really come alive. One-dimensional characters may have worked in early films but today they couldn't be given away with hot tea. So Kent Walwin came up with the idea of a young man of the eighties....'
At that point my brain shuts down.
There are also some moments which are just desperately sad, like Peter Cushing saying in his interview that 'I have a feeling that 'Biggles' will do for its young men what 'Star Wars' did for its principals: they all made it big.' Oh, God, they actually thought it would be a hit >_<
For some reason, a few gems in the novelisation didn't make it into the movie. Such as the fact that Merlin was Arthur's Time Twin. I WISH I COULD MAKE UP STUFF LIKE THIS, IT IS PURE GOLD.
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Date: 2010-02-09 03:48 pm (UTC)Enjoy beautiful camera phone picture quality :D Some Gimlet on the right hand side, and I'm missing in France and Learns to Fly as have lent them out to people to try and spread the love.
Back home my Biggles shelves are an overflowing mad dump of all eras and sizes - I also have several ginormous French omnibuses to a) get all the Air Ace stories (I think the British Library is getting suspicious of my photocopying attempts >>) and b) for Steely novels :DDD
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Date: 2010-02-09 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 04:54 pm (UTC)And hello to my fellow (hey, it rhymes) Japanese student, at least I guess so?
Do I see Battle Royale in your bookcase? Oh dear...
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Date: 2010-02-10 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-10 08:54 am (UTC)Right now I would want to go to the UK rather than to Japan anyway, English is my second subject of study.
I remember that I left the room, when we were watching Battle Royale 2 ^_^; But of course, it might have been due to the fact I had already been sick before I entered...
*inspired by your icon went to watch the Queer Idea show*
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Date: 2010-02-09 11:21 pm (UTC)Also Gimlet + Hilary Mantel fttotalw.
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Date: 2010-02-10 02:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-10 10:43 am (UTC)I know the other characters suffer too on occasion, but I can't help but feel that poor Erich gets it more often than most.
Here Be Biggles
Date: 2010-06-09 06:28 pm (UTC)You are so right! The first time Biggles sets eyes on vS he is full of admiration because vS is in dashing Arab mode. Then "What he was wondering as he sank into sleep was if a slim, effeminate dandy with a game leg could change his identity to that of the brilliant, athletic, hard-riding Arab who was known mythically on both sides of the lines as El Shereef..." Pity the illustrators did not read the text!
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Date: 2010-02-10 02:31 am (UTC)Oh... poor VS. He really does get a rough time of it ;_;
Yes I am planning to Hilary Mantel all over my holiday :DDD
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Date: 2010-02-10 09:01 am (UTC)Where do they recruit these people, seriously? Sadly, there are such scribblers in Czech as well... I can supply some of the horrors if you want me to.
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Date: 2010-02-10 10:23 am (UTC)I'd love to see the Czech horrors :D Maybe we should open an entry on Horrifying Biggles Covers We Have Known. Possibly with a poll so we can all vote for the Worst Biggles Picture Ever.
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Date: 2010-02-10 10:32 am (UTC)Would you kindly be our host?
Flies East 1st ed. cover
Date: 2011-09-27 08:29 pm (UTC)Re: Flies East 1st ed. cover
Date: 2011-09-27 09:58 pm (UTC)Re: Flies East 1st ed. cover
Date: 2011-10-03 10:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 06:48 pm (UTC)Here's mine! (http://pics.livejournal.com/suzie_shooter/pic/0017688p)
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Date: 2010-02-09 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-10 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 07:52 pm (UTC)However, all these pictures are lovely! And they give me extra impetus to try digging again. I want to retrieve at least a few favourite volumes, if I can. Thanks for the burst of Biggles love!
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Date: 2010-02-09 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 08:27 pm (UTC)You definitely have to try again and dig them up. Are there still all of these?
Thanks to you too for a delightful sight ;)
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Date: 2010-02-09 08:55 pm (UTC)I'm loving this, by the way - seeing everyone's collections. Good idea!
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Date: 2010-02-09 09:07 pm (UTC)Believe me, I'm delighted that this topic turned out so well :)
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Date: 2010-02-10 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 11:25 pm (UTC)May I ask how far you are from a complete set? I've got a loooong way to go yet, but you seem like you must be getting pretty close!
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Date: 2010-02-10 12:54 am (UTC)*snorffle* I know exactly how you feel.
Strictly speaking, it's my Dad's collection, which I inherited. There were only two Biggles books he couldn't get hold of: Biggles Scores a Bull and... I want to say Biggles in the Blue. He managed to get copies of everything else, in various forms. I think he had the complete Gimlet and complete Worrals, possibly all of the science fiction stuff, and a number of random books, including "Mossyface" which may be the most unlikely name for a romance novel that I've ever heard.
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Date: 2010-02-10 09:08 am (UTC)What can one say? Such a stunning sight.
My Biggles Corner
Date: 2010-02-11 08:11 pm (UTC)I've got the books in the order in which they take place. I got all the ones that was ever translated into swedish and am now working on the English. I earn them by washing Taxi cars... ;)
In the same bookcase is a swedish Biggles audio book, a swedish book about Biggles and his impact on sweden. There is also plenty of Gimlet, Worrals and anything else by Johns that I could get my hands on, and a few swedish comic albums.
Re: My Biggles Corner
Date: 2010-02-12 10:17 am (UTC)Re: Here Be Biggles
Date: 2010-06-09 07:36 pm (UTC)I got a first edition of Gimlet's Oriental Quest the other day for a laughable price, I wonder why only one other person bid on it.
Here Be Biggles
Date: 2010-06-09 07:51 pm (UTC)The second is my fav. acquisition for several years - a 1935 Flies East where I was the only bidder - gloat, gloat! It has lost its spine, but hey, it is 75 years old!