Thursday, April 5, 2007

I love Antiquarian Books




The Book Nobody Read - Complete Review







I love Antiquarian Books. I love the look of them. I would probably love the feel of them too except that I have never SEEN a real antiquarian book, let alone touched one. But I have seen tons of pictures of them. I have never purchased such a book either - those prices are just so expensive. If I could afford to buy them, you can bet your bottom dollar I would be buying the original books. But instead I have to settle for buying other books that are written about antiquarian books instead.

The Book Nobody Read is one such book.

Its all about one very famous book published around 1543. De revolutionibus By Nicholas Copernicus. Here's the English version of De revolutionibus for those who are interested.

Aaaah the Internet is such a wonderful thing. Without it I would not see, read about or even be aware of most of these ancient books that are carefully preserved in vaults, libraries and other private collections. And if one follows the links, one can find some very interesting information.

Hey I just found two books about Tycho Brahe. Another Renaissance Scientist.

One book is called On Tycho's Island by John Robert Christianson. And the other is Tycho & Kepler by Kitty Ferguson. There is another book called Kepler's Witch - but I already have that one. Most of these are biographies, but the source documents the authors use are the original books that these scientists wrote. And usually there are pictures of these original books included as well. Thats why I collect these biographies.

If you haven't figured it out, I love of the History of Science. And to get to the real history, one must read the original documents. Thats something I learned in my Genealogy class. Always find the source (or primary) documents. They are far more reliable, and valuable than a secondary source.

Oh yes I LOVE Antiquarian Books.

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