More books from South America

I visited a bookstore in Buenos Aires which more resembled a hoarder house than a retail establishment. It wasn’t the first such place run by a bibliomaniac that I had ever visited, yet its prices were too steep for me. I wrote about my experience there, and took a couple photos of the place, in an earlier post. I took photos of the covers of the books I was interested in to research later when I got home.

After I got home, however, Mark told me to hold off on buying any new books. I took him literally, that I should specifically not look into buying any books that were new, as opposed to second-hand. Since arriving back home I had been researching new books about the 1972 Andes crash and getting a copy of Society of the Snow. I had it in my shopping cart at an on-line retailer yet heeded Mark’s wishes and didn’t order it.

Last Thursday was my birthday and Mark came over and brought some gifts. I got a toque from the Falkland Islands, some braai seasoning from the Toronto South African Store and two other presents. I opened one of them, and was shocked to see it was one of the books I had decided against purchasing at that Buenos Aires store:

The Falklands War: The Full Story was compiled by a team of writers working for The Sunday Times. It was published in 1982, the year the war took place. An insert of black-and-white photos was included.

And the final gift I opened contained the second book I was interested in:

The Forgotten Colony: A History of the English-Speaking Communities in Argentina by Andrew Graham-Yooll is a weighty paperback covering British merchants in Buenos Aires, and North American, Irish, Scottish and Welsh settlements in the country. One of our ports of call was Puerto Madryn, founded as a Welsh colony in 1865. The book also deals with “The Islands Issue” ( = the Falklands).

Mark also gave me two bookmarks:

Thank-you Mark!