Hi there!

Well, I don't know about some of you, but I have some very old almost antique books that I still enjoy reading! Not many people may have heard of them, or maybe some of you have seen the new publications of the older favourites. Anyway, if you have read and enjoyed any old books, I'd love to discuss them!

Some of my favourites:

A Little Bush Maid - Mary Grant Bruce (Yes, this is my name origin )
What Katy Did - Susan Coolidge
What Katy Did at School - Susan Coolidge
The Water Babies - ?
Biggles series - Cpt. WE Jones
Trixie Belden series - Julie Campbell & Kathryn Kenny

I read some of the Trixie Belden books when I was younger...that was a long time ago. I remember liking them, though.

Cool! I read them a lot when I was younger, and bought nearly a whole set of them, but I've moved on a bit from them now, and my younger sister now reads them.

I love antique/vintage books. The aged paper, crumbling spines... I wish I had a place to display them! Primarily, however, I use old books for - you might hate me for this - paper-crafting. Yes, I tear the pages out of them and make stuff.

Though maybe you'll forgive me if I tell you most of the vintage books I pick up for paper-crafting are in German. Very gorgeous Gothic text! I wish I knew how to read it!

I did, however, pick up a lovely vintage copy of Dicken's Oliver Twist. I'm tempted to read it before cutting it up.

If you're in the market for vintage books, I suggest looking at library book sales. I know my local library sales always have plenty of vintage books for very inexpensively.

You what?! *le gaspeth!* Book torturer-r-r-r-r-r!!!

I guess I'll have to forgive you though. They're probably uber boring ones anyway. But I like the sound of gothic writing... frame a page from each book or something!

Yes... my library had this beautiful copy of "The Little Princess" but I didn't have dibs on it when it retired from the shelf, so I don't know where it went.

I love my antique "Mother Carey's Chickens", which is not about chickens.

I have two pretty old children's books of the series "The Happy Hollisters." Very similar to the Bobbsey Twins, and published 1953, with dark red hardback covers with black and white illustrations of five children on the cover. There's only a few scratches on the cover, and slightly dog-eared pages.

Like, German versions of "1853- A Look At Grain".

Baha! Yes, that would be tedious...

Have any of you guys read What Katy Did?

Actually, I haven't. What's it about? (What Katy Did? )

Lol pretty much! I can't really summarize it... it's about a family, and Katy is the oldest, and all their adventures. Lotsa fun read.

Sounds cool! Kind of like "Happy Hollisters" only advanced! Will keep on the lookout for it.

I have a few original Hardy Boys books, but the newer editions of the original 58 are more slickly edited and so actually better.

Wow, the originals must have been hard to come by. I just recently sold a set of Hardy Boys books on ebay.
I received a copy of "A Little Bush Maid" from my Grandma, which was given to her by her Grandma, and it's really old. I tried to find the whole series like it to buy, but I could only find the sequel on ebay, and it went for more than $100! Which seemed a lot for me at the time.

Frankly, I haven't read many antique/old books. Which is a sad statement in itself since my mom collects books like that! We have a 1800's math book we were doing school out of at one point just to try it and and it was very thorough and straight to the point. It was sort of fun. ^^

Wow, that sounds very interesting, Calen! It would have felt a bit like a time warp using a book people so many years ago used!

I was also referring to old books such as classics, when I titled this thread. Things like Jane Austen or Mark Twain, etc.

I once tried to read Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen, but just couldn't get through it. Maybe I wasn't ready for that big of a leap when it comes to books.

Ooooh! I see! Thanks for clearing that up for me, Bushmaid!


No, no, it is a hard book to read! I couldn't get past chapter one. >< I am reading Pride and Prejudice right now. It's really good!

Some "older" books I've read or had read to me as a kid:

-Dr. Dolittle
-The Cat of Bubastes
-Hans Christian Anderson's Book of Fairy Tales
-Anne of Green Gables
-The Book of Virtues

Bush I got soo excited when I read this thread, someone else who likes Biggles! I have almost got the whole collection over 100 of Biggles books and I need about 3 more to have the entire collection I have the whole Gimlet and Worras collection. I know hehe, I'm quite mad about them! My sister and I are currently making up a second collection so when we leave home we have a collection each haha!

Edit
I have read What Katy Did and really like that book Have any of you heard of Loyal Hearts and True?

I've read Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", and it was very good. The BBC movies were very close to the book. I tried reading "Emma" a few years ago and got SO bogged down in it, but recently I've picked it up again and am really enjoying it!

Elanor! The WHOLE set? I just told my brother and he said "Can you leave them to me in your will?" That's awesome! I must get into them again. One of my favourites is "The Black Peril", and I also really liked "Biggles Sees it Through". Have you read them all even though you own them? I know I own nearly the whole set of Trixie Belden, but I haven't read them all.

Jane Austen's Emma is one of my favourite books and the new BBC double film they've brought out follows the book really closely!

Yes I've read them all haha. My favourite are Spitfire Parade and The Black Peril. Ginger is one of my favourite characters in them. I also like Biggles Secret Agent

Hehe! Everyone is jealous of my Biggles collection hehe I've introduced so many people to them; it's amusing how much they get into them. One homeschooling family we know now read them out loud whilst they're traveling etc, they all love them that much! I always get the old ones, as the new ones you can buy from new book stores have had words like 'great scott' changed into blasphemies, so I go to the old book stores and collect the old first editions etc Oh dear I'm off again! This is one subject I would happily talk about for ages!!

I haven't seen that one yet. I actually love the Gwenyth Paltrow and Jeremy Northam "Emma", it's very light and funny.

Ginger is awesome! But do you realize we never find out what his real name is? What a shame they have to replace those things with bad words! They never enhance a book. That's funny, because we read aloud the Ranger's Apprentice books when we went travelling, too! You'd enjoy them if you enjoyed Biggles. Actually (funny again!) the author of Ranger's Apprentice, him and his brother owned nearly the full set of Biggles, too! Ironic, hey?

We don't find out what his real name is hehe, but I don't mind, no name goes for him for me except Ginger.

I really need to read those books then! lol.

I also collect really old antique school boy stories, one of my favourites is 'The Last of His Line'. Anyone heard of that?

I love collecting old books. It's one of my hobbies

I love collecting books fullstop. But antique books are beautiful, and I love to find interesting and good reads. I haven't heard of that book though. Have you heard of "A Little Bush Maid"? If you'd like to know more about Australia, it's a great read! My copy is one of the first ever published, so it's really beautiful, and really old.

How nice!! I've never heard of it, is it a story fictional? or factual? We once got hold of a first edition Agatha Christie for about £12.00 but Dad sold it for about £300.00 lol! So we didn't get to keep that one

My older cousin has several Agatha Christy books. I want to read them.

They are really good Elly, I like Miss Marple and Poirot most of all

Wow! must have been an epic copy!

"A Little Bush Maid" is fictional, but much of the setting, happenings, and ways of life are quite factual. I just found out that a good condition old copy of this book would go for $300! Pity mine is very worn, it's only worth $80. Not that I would ever sell it. It was passed down to me from my Great Grandmother!

That must be very special, I hope to be able to pass my Biggles collection down hehe! That would be cool, God willing

Never leave me in a book store unattended if you don't want me to buy the whole bookstore.

Baha, same Elly! I haven't bought a book in weeks... It's like a fast!

I made up for you, Bushey! Today I purchased a fantastic set of collectors' edition Hardy Boys. They are 10, out of order, though. The oldest is 1949. I got them all for 50 cents each, so that's 5.30 cents with tax. I am proud of myself for the epic purchase!

A few months ago my Great Granny gave me three of her old hymnals! The oldest one is from 1927, I think. The newest one is a songbook from a youth thing my grandma went to in high school or college, and it has the autographs of the speakers in it (some guys I've never heard of. ).

But I love the way they smell...


And that is a pretty epic purchase, El! One new book is more than all of those put together!

Thank ye, Abby!

That sounds nice. My great grandma isn't alive anymore. Do you like the songs?

I haven't looked at many of them, but I love the ones I've seen. Most of them are just good 'ole hymns.

Yes, the best.

Definitely.

Do you have any other old books?

I took some nice pictures of my old books that I'll try to get up soon.

Okay, Elly.

I'm reading Pride and Prejudice--slowly, because I don't have it in hard copy and rarely use the iPad, which is where it is. I stayed away from old, classic books for a long time because I thought they were boring.

Now, I have several old classics sitting proudly on my shelf: I have most of the old Black Stallion series in paperback--not originals and not very nice copies but they look old and nice on my shelf. XD
I also have three volumes of Sherlock Holmes from the nice hardback Readers Digest. They all have different illustrations, and none are the originals. Two of the volumes I just bought. (I'm finally going to be able to read The Final Problem!)
And then there are the old, hardback copies of Mark Twain novels--Both Sawyer and Finn--and a paperback of Around the World in Eighty Days which is now one of my all-time favorites. I LOVE Jules Verne.

My favorite, though, and most rare--though not worth much, I think and a search of the title brings it up at once on Amazon--is an ancient-looking red hardback book called The Fun Encyclopedia by E. O. Harbin that I found in a tiny, cramped used-books store. The pages are all yellowed and it just has that wonderful, musty, golden smell of Book.

I also love to just look at old books, I don't care what they're about. The binding, the pages, the script. Especially used books because they've been somewhere and people have read them and written cryptic notes in the covers.