Bibliographies, Eye-candy and String

I love bibliographies.  When I get a new non-fiction book I always look at the back pages for the bibliography.  More books!  The only thing I like better than a bibliography is a glossary of obscure words.  I bought this book in Chesterfield the other week:

Great Bibliography!

I haven't read much of it yet, just some of the appendices and the bibliography.  I spotted this title as pretty cool:

Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England. Three vols. 1864-6

How cool is that for a title?  Then I spotted the author:

The Rev O Cockayne!  Further clues on the trail of Cockayne!  One day I will get to Easy Street, Cockayne and there will be no more banks hassling me, no sister-in-laws making trouble, no redundancy threats, no malfunctioning boilers.  It's gonna be great.

In the meantime, titles with the words wortcunning, leechdoms and starcraft will have to do.  I know what wortcunning is, and what leechcraft is, but what do the others involve?  Pondering such things helps keep the world of boring reality at bay for a while.  Escapism is a dirty word in literature and art.  I don't know why.  It's a bit like the sneering term eye-candy in art.  Like it is offensive for art to be pleasurable to the eye.  Personally I give my eyes all the candy they want.  I don't know how else to approach being an artist.

But back to the bibliography.  Some more cool titles I spotted:

Cats' Cradles From Many Lands, Kathleen Haddon, London 1911

String Figures, C F Jayne, New York, 1906.

Whole books about Cats' Cradles and String Figures!  Life may be too short for fiction, but surely not too short for those!

It reminds me of a note I have seen from Kate W Aimson to her publisher:  "Is a readership of witches with a keen interest in needlework scholarship and wordplay to narrow a market to aim for?"

We'll see.