To Define True Madness: Commonsense Psychiatry for Lay People by Henry Yellowlees, O.B.E., M.D., F.R.C.P., D.P.M.
Consulting Physician to St/ Thomas’s Hospital, London
Published by Sidgwick and Jackon Limited, London 1953

‘Mad, call I it; for to define true madness,
What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?’
Hamlet II. 2.

“It is distressing to realise that the most gracious and human of all specialties has become in many respects the most mechanical and impersonal, and that the most difficult and important branch of medicine has fallen so sadly in public esteem. Psychiatry has a long histroy of being misunderstood, ignored and disliked, but it is only in recent years that it has become the butt and the laughing stock of a majority of both the medical profession and the general public.”

“It is one of the most astonishing features of our modern life that people who know nothing, and care less, about science in general, and medical science in particular, seem prepared to make dogmatic pronouncements on psychiatric questions with complete self-assurance on every possible occasion.”

“Happed to hear the land’s practitioners,
Steeped in conceit, sublimed by ignorance,
Prattle fantastically on disease;
Its cause and cure-and I must hold my peace!”

“Psychiatry is not only, like all medicine, becoming less and less clinical, but many psychiatrists and even teachers of psychiatry, make out a plausible case for the thesis that the clinical study of psychiatry is but a waste of time. Further, psychiatry is a specialty of which many of those practise it… are in their hearts ashamed or afraid.”

Words by Martha Sanders, Pictures by Philipe Fix

Published by Jonathan Cape 1971

ISBN 0224005715

Ex Library of South Australia

“There was once an Old Lady who lived in a house on top of a hill. It was the only hill for miles around. At the foot of the hill was the river and on the other side of the river there was the town. After that, as far as the eye could see, there was only the great empty praire.

The Old Lady was never lonely, for she lived with her animal friends:”

Ex Library of South Australia

Introduction by R. Buckminster Fuller

Published by Studio Vista London 1970

SBN 289701139

Very Good Condition

‘Today, when one speaks of cinema, one implies a metamorphosis in human perception,’ writes the author of this extraordinary book. ‘Just as the term ‘man’ is coming to mean man/plant/machine, so the definition of cinema must be expanded to unclude videotronics, computer science, and atomic light.’

In a brilliant and far-ranging study, Gene Youngblood traces the evolution of cinematic language to the end of fiction, drama, and realism. New technological extensions of the medium have become necessary. Thus he concentrates on the advanced image-making technologies of computer films, television experiments, laser movies, and multiple-projection environments. Outstanding works in each field are meticulously described, including interviews with artists and technologists. Expanded Cinema is filled with provocative post-McLuhan philosophical probes into ‘The Paleocybernetic Age,’ ‘the videosphere,’ and ‘the new nostalgia,’ all in the context of what the author calls ‘the global intermedia network.’ In ‘Image-Exchange and the Post-Mass Audience Age,’ Mr. Youngblood discusses the revolutionary implications of videotape cassettes and the cable television as educational tools. His observations are placed in comprehensive perspective by an inspiring introduction written by R. Buckminster Fuller. The text is richly illustrated by 284 photographs, including 60 in full colour. Vast in scope, both philosophical and technical, Expanded Cinema will be invaluable to all who are concerned with the audio-visual extensions of man, the technologies that are reshaping the nature of human communications.

Introductions and translations by Jack Bevan

Published by Anvil Press Poetry 1983

ISBN 085646094x

In Very Good ++ Condition

The original texts are from:

Tutte le poesie,  1960
Dare e avere,  1966

Salvatore Quasimodo (1901-1968) was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1959 for ‘his lyrical poetry which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our time’. Jack Bevan’s remarkable translation of Quasimodo’s entire poetic oeuvre fills a great gap in our knowledge of twentieth-century European poetry. ‘The poetry is textured like shot silk, yet the elegance and syntactical lucidity with which Jack Bevan has worked to bring these poems to English readers enables them to stand as poems in their own right’, as Peter Scupham wrote of Jack Bevan’s translation of Quasimodo’s last poems, Debit and Crédit.

Quasimodo’s strong and passionate poetry continues to testify to the human (and inhuman) realities which have created our modern world: as the Italian critic Giuliano Dego wrote, ‘To bear of a particular time and place, and to teach the lesson of courage, this has been Quasimodo’s poetic task.’

Jack Bevan was born in Blackpool in 1920. He read English at Cambridge and was then pitchforked straight into the Army where he served with the Gunners as a commissioned officer in Iceland and Italy. He fought in the Italian campaign during the Second World War, and after the war returned to Cambridge. His subsequent career has been in education as head of a variety of departments in teaching and teacher training. During this time he also worked intensively on the translation of contemporary Italian poetry, in particular that of Salvatore Quasimodo. In 1968 a book of Jack Bevan’s own poetry appeared, entitled My Sad Pharaohs (RKP). At present Jack Bevan lives in Wolverhampton, where he is writing poetry and working on a volume of reminiscences of Salvatore Quasimodo by those who knew him.

In my voice
there is at least a sign
of living geometry

the words of life
I have never understood

the absurd
difference that runs
between death and the illusion
of the heart’s beating.

INSCRIBED BY THE PHOTOGRAPHER – To Mr Paul Ehrlich April 2nd, 1998 With best wishes from Dennis Lau Kuching

Published by Inter-State Publishing Company Sdn Bhd 1987
1st Edition

ISBN 9839580000

When one mentions Dennis Lau in Sarawak, the first thought that springs to mind is the accomplished and exquisite photographs taken by him over the years.

Dennis Lau is definitely one of the most outstanding photographers in Sarawak today. With his cameras, he has travelled widely in Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei to capture shots that are revealing and unique to this part of the world. His brilliant and beautiful photographs about the mode of life of the mixed and varied communities in Borneo have attracted a wide audience in this region.

The perils of travelling in the interior were illustrated when the intrepid and well-heeled Dennis Lau, on assignment, was dumped in the Ulu Belaga rapids when the longboat he was travelling in capsized. He held on to the boat with one hand while clutching a camera high over his head with the other until he was rescued. However, he lost his glasses, lenses and one of his precious Leica cameras.

His pictures have appeared in publication in the Asian region, including Far Eastern Economic Review, Asiaweek and also in Stern and Mission Aktuell (West Germany). He has a regular photography column entitled ‘Dennis Lau’s Borneo’ in the Borneo Bulletin, a weekly tabloid published in Brunei but having wide circulation in Sarawak and Sabah. In a recent issue of Asiaweek’s regular column ‘Eyewitness’, his pictures portrayed a vivid impression of the Penans.

However, this is the first time that a compilation of photographs in the form of a book about the jungle nomads of Borneo, the Penans, has been attempted. The pictures were taken over a period of nearly twenty years from 1968 to 1987. These are the personal record of what the photographer has seen and noted.

The Penans are among the last of the nomadic hunter-gatherers living in the world’s tropical rainforests today.

Published by CPC Publishing in conjunction wtih Bravado 1990

ISBN 0711924937
In Very Good ++ Condition

To those who associate Anton Corbijn with intense, somewhat serious art, it may be surprising that he like a drink, tells extremely bad jokes and was even seen dancing around in a very silly manner in celebration of a rare Dutch goal in the recent World Cup Finals – well, it’s all true and it’s as much for these reasons as for his undoubted passion for anything photographic that we have consistently and happily worked with him for the last four or five years. He is someone who through his films and photography has not only given us a visual direction but has constantly challenged many pre-conceived ideas about what Depeche Mode is.

The photographs in this book cover the last two years and have involved many hours of hard work in different locations around the world often in sub-zero temperatures, sometimes in baking-hot deserts. They are Anton’s personal choices and were not intended for media use.

It is as much his book as it is ours. It is also something that we, as a group feel is long overdue. We hope you agree that the wait was worth it.

-Alan Wilder

The entire text translated for the first time into English with an Introduction by Joscelyn Godwin

First Published by Thames & Hudson 1995
First Paperback Edition 2005

One of the most famous books in the world, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, read by every Renaissance intellectual and referred to in studies of art and culture ever since.

It is a strange, pagan, pedantic, erotic, allegorical, mythological romance relating in highly stylized Italian the quest of Poliphilo for his beloved Polia. The author (presumed to be Francesco Colonna, a friar of dubious reputation) was obsessed by architecture, landscape and costume – and the 174 woodcuts in the book are a primary source for Renaissance ideas on both buildings and gardens.

The English translation is by Joscelyn Godwin, Professor of Music at Colgate University, New York, who succeeds in reproducin all the wayward charm and arcane learning of the original in language accessible to the modern reader. This classic book may now gain the wider audience its melancholy genius merits.

This marvellous new book,
Equal to those of our ancient ancestors,
Containing whatever lives in the world
That is rare and noble,
Merits as much thanks to you, Crasso,
As to its parent Poliphilo.
He gave it life; you also have given
Life, and keep it from harm.
For while it lay from its creation
Fearing the approach of oblivion,
You give it to everyone to read,
Sparing neither your cost nor your labour,
But, as a better parent, have raised
The abandoned child in your own cradle.
Once Bacchus had two fathers:
As regards this book, it has
Poliphilo as its father, but Crasso as Jupiter.

Anonymous Elegy to the Read

Gentle reader, hear Poliphilo tell of his dreams,
Dreams sent by the highest heaven.
You will not waste your labour, nor will listening irk you,
For this wonderful work abounds in so many things.
If, grave and dour, you despise love-stories,
Know, I pray, that things are well ordered herein.
You refuse? But at least the style, with its novel language,
Grave discourse and wisdom, commands attention.
If you refuse this, too, note the geometry,
The many ancient things expressed in Nilotic signs.
Here are pyramids, baths and vast colossi,
And the ancient form of obelisks appears.
A novel pedestal shines forth, and various columns
With arch, zophorus, epistyle,
Capital and beam, the square symmetry
Of the cornice, and all that makes a splendid roof.
Here you will see the perfect palaces of kings,
The worship of nymphs, fountains and rich banquets.
The guards dance, dressed in motley, and the whole
Of human life is expressed in dark labyrinths.
Read what is said here about the Thunderer’s triple majesty,
And of what befalls at the three gates.
See what Polia’s form was like, and her dress,
And the four heavenly triumphs of Jupiter.
Beside this, the book tells of the various states of love,
And the works and furies of htat god.
Pomona triumphs here equally with Vertumnus.
Here too are the rites of the Lampsacian God.
Here is the vast temple, perfection of all art,
The many rituals of the ancients’ worship.
Soon in another temple, gnawed by the teeth of Time,
You will see much that will delight your mind:
The Tartarean domain, many epitaphs, and the boat
By which Venus’s boy crosses the wide sea,
And the high honours paid to him
By all the divinites that the seas sontain.
See here Cytherea, divided into gardens and meadors,
In whose centre a round theatre appears,
Where you will be able to watch Cupid’s triumph,
The spring and the sacred form of the Paphian goddess.
You will read of how each year Venus and the Naiads
Celebrate around the tomb of her lover Adonis.
This is the sequence of events in the first volume,
These are the novel dreams of divine Poliphilo.
In the book that follows, Polia tells
Of her birthplace, her race and parentage,
And who first founded the walls of Treviso.
Here is the whole tale of a long love.
Lastly, the book is adorned with a long appendix
Which I do not think the reader will mind reading.
There are more things, but it is tedius to mention them all.
Receive what this great cornucopia has offered.
Behold a useful and profitable book. If you think otherwise,
Do not lay the blame on the book, but on yourself. The End

Published by Hodder Moa Beckett 2003

ISBN 1869589076

The amazing story of New Zealand’s most famoust art forger

‘You know me as a forger; but I’ve had more lives than a cat. I’ve dug Abyssinian wells and flogged black market eggs. I’ve had racehorses. I’ve also been a signwriter, a winemaker and a real estate agent. I’m a communist and I will be one till the day I die, mate.’

As told to journalist Tim Wilson in Goldie’s own words, Good as Goldie is the outrageous and colourful life story of one of Godzone’s most unique national treasures — ‘CF Goldie’ — the one-time Foxton art forger formerly known as Karl F Sim.

Convicted of forging the work of some of New Zealand’s foremost artists, including famous names like Charles Frederick Goldie, Rita Angus and Colin McCahon, ‘Goldie’ successfully thumbed his nose at our so-called art establishment for decades before the law finally caught up with him.

From his bushclad hideaway north of Auckland where he shares a caravan with dog Zing and a cat with no name, the flamboyant and resourceful 79-year-old takes us on a humorous retrospective of his career as one of the art world’s most celebrated ‘criminal masterminds’.

With the story told by Alain Grée

Published by Jonathan Cape

First published 1968 Editions des Deux Coqs d’Or, Paris
First published in English in 1969 The Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited
Reissued by Jonathan Cape 1975

ISBN 0224010921

Once upon a time there was FIZZI LEMONADE. And once upon a time there were a great many Big Business Men who wanted to sell millions and millions of bottles of Fizzi Lemonade. SO–they decided to make a film advertsing it. And that is where this story begins. The Managing Director of the Fizzi Lemonade Company was in a terrible temper when he went down to the film studio to see how the film-makers were getting on! He spread his arms out wide, opened his large mouth, and shouted at them.

Translated from the Polish with an Introduction and Notes by E.P. Kulawiec

Published by University Press of America 1978

ISBN 0819106119

Very Good Condition

Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit ( 1878 or 1879 – 1942) was a Polish-Jewish children’s author, pediatrician, and child pedagogist. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Jewish ghettos established by Nazi Germany in Poland during the Holocaust in World War II. A diary written between May and August 1942 by the pediatrician and author who headed the orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto. Records his philosophical reflections and descriptions of ghetto life.

“I exist not to be loved and admired, but to love and act. It is not the duty of those around me to love me. Rather, it is my duty to be concerned about the world, about man…”