- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: Quercus (15 Oct 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1847246044
- ISBN-13: 978-1847246042
- Product Dimensions: 24.6 x 18.4 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 217,998 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Review
I absolutely love this book. For when it comes to collections, Hunter Davies is a king among men. If you give this book to someone - a man obviously - on Christmas morning, I can almost guarantee you won't hear a peep out of him for the rest of the day' Hampstead and Highgate Express.
Product Description
Collecting things is the world's biggest hobby: there are very few people who do not collect something, consciously or otherwise. The perennial popularity of such television programmes as Antiques Roadshow and Bargain Hunt - watched and enjoyed by tens of millions of Britons - is eloquent testimony to its enduring appeal. As a compulsive collector of items as diverse as comics, coronation mugs, British prime ministerial autographs, football memorabilia and wickerwork from Botswana, Hunter Davies is well placed to write about the fascinations and frustrations of 'treasure-hunting'. In Confessions of a Collector he writes affectionately about fifty different collections that he has built up over the years - from first issues of magazines and newspapers to Beatles memorabilia, and from biscuit tins to Lakelandiana. In his inimitably enthusiastic style, he describes how his collections came into being, tells the intriguing stories behind the items in them, and recounts his triumphs and disasters. He also discusses the nature of the urge to collect and how people can set about building their own collections. Hunter's narrative touches anecdotally on the economics of collecting, but this is not a book of lists, facts and figures - it is a book to be read and savoured, rich in vignette and reminiscence drawn from the deep well of its author's multi-faceted enthusiasms. At one level the act of collecting is simply the lazy person's inability to throw anything away; at another, it shines light into forgotten but fascinating nooks and crannies of our past. As Hunter Davies says: 'It's not just another collection, it is social and economic history!' Confessions of a Collector is both the perfect introduction to, and a personal celebration of, the strangely compelling world of collecting.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a superb book which gives a fascinating account of the many collecting passions that have occurred in the author's life. He is known for his factual and biographical tomes on such diverse subjects as The Beatles, Tottenham Hotspur and Football and The Lake District and its famous guide-writer and fell-walker Alfred Wainwright.
These are all well documented in separate chapters and its easy-going and infromative style is almost an autobiography as well as a catalogue. He includes stamp collecting and is able to make a subject ,that is often dull to even those who collect, interesting and amusing. He used to write a regular humorous column over 20 years ago in a stamp collecting magazine that disappeared a long time ago and he is able to look at stamps and other collecting passions as a rite of passage. Some collecting themes have remained with him all his life, whereas others have flowered and faded like exotic blooms and some like stamps were interests in his childhood, returned in his adultlife, but disappeared again.
These are all well documented in separate chapters and its easy-going and infromative style is almost an autobiography as well as a catalogue. He includes stamp collecting and is able to make a subject ,that is often dull to even those who collect, interesting and amusing. He used to write a regular humorous column over 20 years ago in a stamp collecting magazine that disappeared a long time ago and he is able to look at stamps and other collecting passions as a rite of passage. Some collecting themes have remained with him all his life, whereas others have flowered and faded like exotic blooms and some like stamps were interests in his childhood, returned in his adultlife, but disappeared again.
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