GOHD Books

24/05/2022

A Voyage in the Indian Ocean describes what life in Ceylon and India (Pondicherry, Madras, Bengal) were like in 1790. With a bit about the people of Yemen and coffee cultivation in Mocha (al-Mukha). This edition, translated from the original French, was published in 1814.

https://www.gohd.com.sg/shop/a-voyage-in-the-indian-ocean-and-to-bengal-l-de-grandpre-1814/

17/03/2022

The first English translation of Rumi's Divan-i Shams-i Tabriz, dedicated to his spiritual master Shams of Tabriz, who had disappeared without warning. This collection expresses Rumi's love for his master and anguish at his sudden disappearance. Translated by Reynold Nicholson.

Condition: Hardcover, cloth spine and boards. Good. Some signs of wear, including slight fraying of spine, slight fading to covers, and slight bumping to corners. Slight foxing to text. Text clean, binding tight. With parallel English-Persian text. 367pp., app 8.5″x5.5″.

11/03/2022

Around the year 1950, French journalist Jacques Chegaray took a trip to Bali and immersed himself in Balinese life. He made a record of Balinese customs, arts, and religion, and took some beautiful photos, which he published here in the book 'Bliss in Bali'.

https://www.gohd.com.sg/shop/bliss-in-bali-jacques-chegaray-1953-1st-ed/

25/02/2022

A stunning edition of Washington Irving's Alhambra, a collection of writings inspired by the spectacular palace/fort of the same name in Andalusia, Spain. Irving, his notebooks, confessed that he would never be able to do justice to the beauty of place, which was constructed in the 13th & 14th centuries by the Emirate of Granada.

https://www.gohd.com.sg/shop/the-alhambra-washington-irving/

25/01/2022

Where does the word 'bungalow' come from? What on earth is a 'mango-shower'? Who was the original 'juggurnaut'?

All these answers and more in Hobson-Jobson, the most famous dictionary of Indian English ever published. This new, revised version from 1903 contains more than 2000 entries including place names like Singapore's St John's Island and the Malay 'pinang' leaf, after which Penang was named.

Title: Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive

30/07/2021

Did you know? The "Japanese Salad" was invented by the son Alexandre Dumas (author of The Three Musketeers), also an author, in his work Francillon. We discovered this strange piece of trivia in an early 20th century cookbook, A Book of Salads by Alfred Suzanne, which gives the recipe for this very un-Japanese Japanese salad:

"Alexandre Dumas fils invented this salad, and one of the characters in Francillon gives the recipe. Cook some new potatoes in meat stock. Cut them into slices and put them into a salad bowl with cooked mussels and a few sprigs of celery heart. There should be rather more potatoes than mussels. Add some fresh truffles cut in slices, salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, and a little chopped tarragon."

Condition: Hardcover, no dust jacket. Good. Some wear to cover, tanning and inscription to ffep, with slight soiling along the hinges. Text clean, binding tight. 99pp. App 7″x4.5″. No illustrations.

26/07/2021

It's been so long since we've had a copy of The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, we'd forgotten how hilarious it is!

Conservative
(n.) A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

Cynic
(n.) A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic’s eyes to improve his vision.

Lawyer
(n.) One skilled in circumvention of the law.

Marriage
(n.) A household consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.

Title: The Devil’s Dictionary Author: Ambrose Bierce, Peter Forster (illus.) Publisher: The Folio Society, 2004. Condition: Hardcover, with slipcase. Book fine, slipcase near fine. A small book.

21/05/2021

‘It is rather disconcerting to note that whenever nature proceeds to endow a seemingly intelligent individual with the social instinct, by organising and stimulating life in common – the starting-point between the family and the relation between mother and child – her object is apparently to subject that individual, as society develops, to a more and more rigorous regime, to an increasingly intolerant and intolerable discipline, duress and despotism. Thus we find her condemning her slaves to a leisureless, unrelieved existence in a factory, barracks or prison; pitilessly exploiting their energy till they become exhausted and die; compelling the sacrifice and misery of the many for the advantage or happiness of none – and all this in order that a kind of universal despair may be continued, renewed and multiplied so long as the world shall last. These cities of insects, that appeared before we did, might almost serve as a caricature of ourselves, as a travesty of the earthly paradise to which most civilised people are trending. One thing at least is certain – the scheme of nature does not include happiness.’ - The Life of the White Ant by Maurice Maeterlinck

Condition: Hardcover, with dust jacket. Very good. Some tears to dust jacket. Some tanning to prelims and endpapers. Text clean, binding tight. 213pp., app 7″x5″.

18/05/2021

Most people know Rashomon as the ground-breaking 1950 film directed by legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, which won the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival.

Lesser-known are the short stories 'Rashomon' and 'In The Grove' by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, which form the basis of Kurosawa's film. First published 30 years earlier, the English translations of these stories were finally published in 1952 in Tokyo - probably because of the film's popularity. The US edition we have here was published shortly thereafter.

https://www.gohd.com.sg/shop/rashomon-other-stories-ryunosuke-akutagawa-1952-1st-us-ed/

10/05/2021

What did the world look like at the turn of the 20th century?

In this beautiful leatherbound first edition of World Pictures from 1902, Australian artist Mortimer Menpes gives us a tour of the globe through his lovely watercolour paintings. Take a trip to Europe, the Middle East, India, Burma, Japan and more in 50 colour plates and another 50 line drawings, accompanied by descriptions written by his wife, Dorothy Menpes.

https://www.gohd.com.sg/shop/world-pictures-mortimer-dorothy-menpes-1902-1st-ed/

04/05/2021

Our solar system is a magnificent place. And with humanity well on our way to colonising the Moon and Mars, what could possibly go wrong?

A variety of things, it seems! From the ever-present human politicking and sabotage to the difficulties of space tourism, The Science Fictional Solar System is an anthology of short stories by sci-fi greats, each dedicated to a certain astronomical object in our solar system. Each story is accompanied by an introduction by Isaac Asimov himself, who is one of the book's editors. The best part? Our copy is signed by the great Asimov himself!

https://www.gohd.com.sg/shop/the-science-fictional-solar-system-asimov-signed-greenberg-waugh-1st-ed/

17/04/2021

Al-Ghazali (c. 1058 – 19 December 1111) was a Persian philosopher and Sufi mystic, whose teachings are still studied all over the Muslim world today. Besides writing books on the Islamic sciences, a large portion of his many works were dedicated to refuting prominent philosophers of his day, and Aristotelian logic.

In his Deliverance From Error, here titled The Confessions of Al-Ghazali, he writes about his personal philosophical journey from scholar to mystic, after going through a crisis of skepticism. This book was cited in William James' Varieties of Religious Experiences as an important document in the study of non-Christian autobiographical literature.

https://www.gohd.com.sg/shop/the-confessions-of-al-ghazzali-1909-1st-ed-2/