Time Warp

[billeyler]

My parents had fallen into the 1950s trap of buying the Encyclopedia Brittanica, thinking that we'd all become geniuses by poring through those tomes.  Well, I didn't become a genius, but I did read through the many volumes as the years went on.  I loved the musty library smell of those now long-gone books.  I learned a lot from those books, plus the "Book of Knowledge" and all the annual add-ons my parents bought until about 1961.

Recently, I've noticed that when I google items online, the Britannica is one of the options to click on.  I've clicked on those links a couple of times tonight.  Very disappointing.  I get a notice that I get a "free pass" to read some skimpy material about what I was looking for and would be MORE than welcome to pay for more information on the subject.  No, thanks.  Wikipedia.org has all I need and more.

Could this really be the REAL Brittanica company that I first was enamoured of in the late 1950s?

Comments

Yessssssssssssss

[sfkev.livejournal.com]

The Book of Knowledge! I read those volumes from one cover to the other...over and over and over again. We couldn't afford the "updates" for either the Brittanica or BOK, but on many a bleak, Iowa, snowy night, I curled up with my BOK and went to wherever my imagination could take me. *sigh*

Re: Yessssssssssssss

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

These were even more fascinating to me than the EB was, since there was a younger bent to the books. Neither of my brothers were interested in them. I think they were all given away years ago in a garage sale. I'd in particular liked to have kept the annual update for 1954!

[redsquared.livejournal.com]

When I was growing up, my parents bought me The World Book encyclopedia. My sisters and I would sometimes use them for doing homework. But most of all I enjoyed reading them just for fun and I did read many of the volumes from cover to cover.

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

I know these books didn't make me gay, but they made me curious about the world!