Wednesday 29 September 2010

Looks like we got ourselves a feeder

The book diet is temporarily broken, thanks to the generosity of Imaginary Friend, who has sent me two Left Book Club volumes (a series I collect):

Oscar Paul's Underground Europe Calling
and
John Maynard's The Russian Peasant and Other Studies (book one).

If you ever see them, get them for me and I'll bung you some of the folding. They're bright orange in paperback and pinkish red in hardcover, embossed with the LBC logo on the front and (usually) Gollancz on the spine. It was an attempt to provide a political library for the working classes at an ultra-low price. Members formed reading groups down mines and up chimneys (The Dark Place's LBC met in a hay loft) and went on to lead their generation: 9 of the crusading 1945 Labour Cabinet were LBC authors, and most were subscribers.

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