Absinthe (Absinth) - The Green Fairy

Absinth(e) (in the UK is spelt with an e) has one of the most mythical histories of any alcoholic drink. It was actually banned on a number of occasions due to the results of peoples reactions to it. The hallucinogenic properties of it are fabled and well documented as well as it being used by many artists and writers for inspiration.

Here I intend to review a number of books available on it's history and usage.

Absinthe: History in a Bottle by Barnaby Conrad

Maybe not the most definitive book on the history of absinthe but accessible, enjoyable and plenty of graphic images to delight the reader. The images range from wild portraits by Van Gogh, to anti-Absinthe propaganda published by the French Government. This book is well researched and provides a good backdrop on the 'absinthe-culture'. The research is quite extensive and the images plentiful, there are also mini-biographies and literary quotes from and about Verlaine, Rimbaud, Wilde and Baudelaire showing how Absinthe was said to influence the creative and artistic. This book is very readable and insightful and probably the current most popular tome on absinthe.


Absinthe: Sip of Seduction - A Contemporary Guide by Betina Wittels & Robert Hermesch






Edited by T.A. Breaux with a foreword by Marie-Claude Delahaye. This comprehensive guide has been lovingly compiled by two avid collectors of all things Absinthe. Included is a cultural and scientific history, a gallery of famous drinkers both past and present and a detailed analysis of what Absinthe is and its effects. In addition, there are extensive guides to where to find Absinthe around the world - where it's legal and where it's not - as well as techniques for drinking it and making absinthe cocktails. Illustrated throughout.

Absinthe - The Cocaine of the Nineteenth Century: A History of the Hallucinogenic Drug and Its Effect on Artists and Writers in Europe and the United States - by Doris Lanier

This work provides a history of "the green fairy", a study of its use and abuse, an exploration of the tremendous social problems (not unlike the cocaine problems of this century) it caused, and an examination of the extent to which the lives of talented young writers and artists of the period became caught up in the absinthe craze.

Absinthe produced a sense of euphoria and a heightening of the senses, similar to the effect of cocaine and opium, but was addictive and caused a rapid loss of mental and physical faculties. Despite that, Picasso, Manet, Rimbaud, Van Gogh, Degas and Wilde were among those devoted to its consumption and produced writings and art influenced by the drink.

There are still many debates as to whether Absinthe was a Hallucinogen and this book does tend to take it as fact that the 19th century process of making it ensured that it actually was an hallucigen. This book is more aimed at the reader of social history than the more casual reader

The Dedalus Book of Absinthe by Phil Baker

This well-researched history of Absinthe is an absolute joy to read. It chronicles the devotion, effect, and, in some cases, destruction experienced through this drink by not only the masses but influential writers and artists such as Oscar Wilde, Aleister Crowley, Baudelaire, Ernest Dowson, Verlaine & Rimbaud, Toulouse Lautrec, Van Gogh, et al. Also contains handy reviews of currently obtainable brands of the drink. Highly recommended!

Hideous Absinthe: A History of the "Devil in a Bottle" by Jad Adams

Hideous Absinthe boldly combines the art, literature, science, and social history of the nineteenth century to produce the story of a drink that came to symbolize both the high points of art and the depths of degeneration.
Jad Adams looks at the myths of absinthe and examines its influence on the artistic movements of the nineteenth century. He considers the work of Degas, Manet, and Picasso, who painted what are now considered masterpieces depicting absinthe drinkers. He examines the mystery of van Gogh’s absinthe addiction and asks whether absinthe truly did contribute to the poetic vision of Verlaine, Rimbaud, and other writers.
Adams looks back at absinthe’s contribution to the hedonistic culture of the French Second Empire and to Toulouse-Lautrec’s Paris of the 1890s and details the outraged English reaction to absinthe in the context of resistance to French art. Absinthe was seen as a foreign poison undermining the national resolve just as the decadence of Oscar Wilde and his circle was seen to undermine national culture.
The story continues through thrill-seeking American and English absinthe drinkers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Sold Dispatch Now: How to Make £6000 - £15000 pa. from Amazon, Sharon Fussell - Reviewed

Unbelievable! That was my first reaction when I came across this book! The old saying - "If something looks to good to be true, it's probably because it is too good to be true". (this is the only instance in the English language where a double positive becomes a negative!)

Sharon Fussell makes some quite astounding promises in this book which is for sale at £37, quite a hefty sum for a book that only has 85pages. The claim that you can easily make that sort of money from only a couple of hours work a day and with only the need for a a couple of shelves of books, is far fetched. I know very few sellers who are able to source the kind of niche stock that would enable that performance.

These quotes from her website, canonbury publishing , are quite astounding!

How you can make 86p extra pure profit on each and every book by almost doing nothing! - It's called signing up and paying a monthly Pro-Merchant Fee!

If you have a spare room, you could be making £36,000 a year as an international bookseller! - You'd need a pretty big room! Say about 500-1000sq feet!

you can look forward to becoming an international book seller and earning at least £6,000-£15,000+ per year working about 1 hour a day from home - From the few people I know that got into selling on Amazon from buying this book, none have achieved what is claimed. And they have stated that the amazon seller boards provide much more valuable advice and assistance than this book did.

Sold Dispatch Now: How to Make 6, 000 -15, 000 Pounds or More in the Next Year from Amazon This is a link to the book on amazon where you can see some reviews, and note how many people have found the reviews useful! You may also wish to join in the discusion on the book listing page about this book!

The only people I know who can even approach the claims made on the amount of profit from such low amounts of stock and work are those who have expert knowledge of niche markets. For example, if you were an expert on, let's say, books about wheelbarrows, and could source stock from the wheelbarrow college weekly carboot sale very cheaply and resell quickly for a very good price, you may be able to make that sort of money easily. Though for most specialists there knowledge of book genres and where to source them is the result of years of experience and they do not pass this sort of experience on!

Audio Books - CD, Tape/cassette or Download?

I've just taken delivery of a staggering number of Audio Books and am amazed at the prices these command and the lack of availability on Amazon. In over 90 editions I checked only 5 were offered secondhand and most were only available from Amazon on a 2-3week delivery, and a sourcing fee! Now most experienced Amazon users know that when they advertise a long delivery time like that their ability to actually source it are about nil, and they will just keep extending that deadline until you cancel the order.

The situation doesn't seem very different whether it's tape or CD, though it does seem to dominate the unabridged editions from Chivers, Isis, Soundings and BBC AudioBooks. But, what's the most popular way that people listen to audio books? My Girl Friend prefers tapes as it's much easier to keep the "page" your on. I know some cd players have a similair function but it's not a common one on most cd players. MP3 is something I prefer as I don't mind shuffling back and forth and it's quite easy if the recording is broken into handy chunks of chapters or 30minute blocks.

In an increasingly digital world the CD and Tape versions of the audiobook will certainly demise in popularity as more people get used to listening to mp3 players and more used to operating them. There will always be the people that have seemed stuck in the prehistoric technology era, the sort of person who'd be much happier with a horse and cart than a car. These people will probably ensure that the tape market survives but I predict a demise of the CD within the next few years.

On a different note, of the Tapes I checked I found about 1 in 5 didn't exist on the amazon uk database. What really surprised me was the half dozen i checked didn't exist on the .com site either. I expected to have practice some shifty practices to be able to list them as items that are listed on .com, and a similair listing cannot be created on the uk site. (There is a way round this though ;) It's long winded so I won't cover that here!)Imagine my surprise when they weren't listed anywhere on the internet, not even bookfinder, bookbutler or addall could find them! The big drawback to this is that creating a new listing is just as time consuming as listing an item on ebay! So have only done 2 so far! Results below!

Well they would be, but the links aren't showing the scans I uploaded yet! Maybe there's a timescale before the images can be syndicated?






Do you think I'm being a bit optimistic in charging that much?

Book Review - The Devil and Miss Prym , Paul Coehlo

Paulo Coelho, is most widely known as author of The Alchemist, which I read at some point last year, but this is a review of a book I have just finished this year! The Devil and Miss Prym is the third novel in his trilogy And on the Seventh Day which began with By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept and Veronika Decides to Die



Synopsis

A stranger arrives in the small mountain village. He carries with him a backpack containing a notebook and eleven gold bars. Burying these in the vicinity, the stranger strikes up a curious friendship with a young woman from the village -- Miss Prym. His mission is to discover whether human beings are essentially good or evil. In this stunning new novel, Paulo Coelho's unusual protagonist sets the town a moral challenge from which they may never recover. A fascinating meditation on the human soul, The Devil and Miss Prym illuminates the reality of good and evil within us all, and our uniquely human capacity to choose between them.

It was very hard to put down being a very fast moving plot, albeit told in the very slow setting of a mountain village in some nameless country in Latin America. A classic tale of the fight of good against evil, simply told and portrayed. Plenty of twists and turns and lovely little side tales of the past add to it's rich content, simply put, the central question posed is "Are People Bad" which is explored at depth. Evil in the red corner with good in the blue corner slog it out through this slim volume. Although an ending with good triumphing is to be expected, the author makes it very plausible that this will not transpire, and the outcome is still quite unexpected.
Read & Enjoy! 8.5/10