Books on Coventry

Another opportunity for a real bargain on eBay.... The Victoria County History - Warwick Vol VIII (Coventry), 1969. It's a large tome, and considered a bit of a bible on Coventry's historic old streets, events and buildings, including the suburbs. It's an auction, so no guarantee of getting it for the starting price of £24.99 (free postage), but I bought my copy years ago for £60, which I thought was a decent price at the time.

Hi Rob, just a comment, watch the price as there is one on Abebooks for £18 , £3.10 postage from a shop in Hay on Wye.

Wow, well spotted Anne! I've not checked out Abebooks for a while - what a bargain! If the book is as good as it states, then it's well worth anyone on here getting it. Here's the link to the VCH on Abebooks.

Gone already Anne but well spotted. Is the book different from the British History online?

THE VCH Coventry & Warwick and all the volumes for Warwickshire are on line too Rob! I had my hard copy when it was first published.

I do happen to have heard from a reliable source that, fortunately, said copy from Abebooks is on its way into safe hands! You're right, Prof, the text of all the VCH volumes has been put online (Warwick (Coventry) Volume VIII index), and is certainly an extremely useful tool for quick lookups and research. I'd say that the first noticeable difference between the online resource and the huge hardback book is that there are no illustrations online - and the book indeed contains some very nice ones. The other advantage of the book, to me, is that it's real !! Not only that, but you don't need electricity or internet connections, you can simply sit in comfort and wallow in the loveliness of owning a super book, with all the tactile enjoyment of turning the pages, etc. I'm sure that e-books have their place, but give me a "straining under the load" bookshelf any day!

I once read a startlingly accurate book about my personality type and the first thing I strongly objected to was the statement that I was a 'collector'. I deliberately don't have any collections. But then the author wrote 'if you doubt it, look at your shelves'. That was even before I started collecting Coventry books. I certainly wouldn't be short of real books in a power cut. I've contemplated buying VCH but the usual price, it's availability online and the date it was published puts me off. It would be handy to have the pictures but looking at the list of illustrations I think that I've probably got copies of most of them... some are even free from copyright for future endeavours. Still, who knows? I start to get cravings if I have gone too long without buying a Coventry related book/picture.

I agree Rob, if you intend to "read" a book it is far better to have a solid book. If I have a book online I tend to skim. I do have a Kobo for fiction books, I can then get free library books and it is far easier to read in bed. (I have just finished the last book in the Lucinda Riley Seven Sisters series which I had pre-ordered and when it arrived in hardback it was enormous !) The advantage I find with online books if being used for research is the possibility to "search" especially as some of the older tomes have no index. So in a way they all have their uses, just like the rest of us.

PS I have just clicked on the link to the online site for the book Rob and my computer has blocked me, it says it is an infected site

I agree whole heartedly Rob with what you think!

Mine too Anne. It could be a real infection but sometimes there are false positives. I'm using Avast.

Yes Helen I use Avast as well. It says I can turn it off if I want to but I don't think I will risk it. I get enough spam emails as it is. If I had clicked on all the prizes I have supposed to have won I would be worth a fortune by now ! I delete them all so if I did win anything I wouldn't know !

Yes Anne, best avoided. It should resolve in a few days, at one end or the other.

Oh my, I had no idea such an innocuous site would cause trouble! The link is simply "https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol8", part of the "https://www.british-history.ac.uk/" website. I've certainly had no trouble accessing their site. The only problem I had was actually finding our Warwick VCH index by using their search facility - which seemed to find anything but Warwick, usually trying to push us to the Oxford pages! In the end I gave up and just used good 'ol Google, which directed me straight there!

It's ok now. I used a bookmark I saved about a week ago. This morning it triggered the virus protection, now it doesn't. It might have been Avast that caused the problem.