The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Hi Chaps

THE BOOK OF THE ROACH by JOHN GREVILLE FENNELL

If I may be forgiven for going a bit 'ancient and modern' I found a book I'd wanted to read for a while now on of all places google 'Playbooks'. It's free a quite entertaining and the style and 'manners' hale from a far more genteel time.
Anyways you'll need an android device (tablet (best) , smartphone or whatever) and to install the 'Playbook' app.
Once installed just search for the book and then download it to your device.
I hope you will find it as charming read as I did - I'd love the paper copy but DoDo quill floats are more common.
Needs must and all that....
regards
Jeremy

The paper copy is not quite as rare as you may think. It has been reprinted along with a host of other old fishing books:-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Book-Roach- ... LE+FENNELL

Good call, Jeremy, Ive not heard of Playbooks, I'll have to give it a try.

The Book of the Roach is a bit of a milestone in angling literature, the first single-species coarse-fish book, and is full of penetrating observations and bright ideas, many of which may be overdue for rediscovery... a thoroughly absorbing read, even battling with the .pdf version on a first-generation kindle ( ).

My stars, OB, that's a find! Have you a link to the others, or would you like time to buy shares in Amazon before you open the flood-gates ?

Here are a few more fishing related titles from the same publisher which I have acquired.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008 ... UTF8&psc=1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008 ... UTF8&psc=1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008 ... UTF8&psc=1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008 ... UTF8&psc=1

There may well be more titles of interest to the traditional angler. I am presently keeping my head down book wise as my good lady has recently informed me that I have so many books that I am unlikely to live long enough to read them all. This statement was followed by the suggestion that I might like to offer for sale the rods I am busy renovating. "Oh woman in our hour of ease, uncertain, coy and hard to please."

Vole wrote:My stars, OB, that's a find! Have you a link to the others, or would you like time to buy shares in Amazon before you open the flood-gates ?

it is always a great pleasure to hold and browse through an old angling book -
but unfortunately my funds for that pleasure are limited and I have only about 300 hardcovers on my shelves.
So in the last years the internet was my happy hunting ground for online-versions of old angling books -
and now there are more than 1500 editions of classic books before 1920 on my virtual bookshelf.
One of the best sources is the Fearing Collection in the Harvard College Library and in 1901 Daniel B. Fearing
wrote a "Check List of Books in his Library" which is a good reference for searching -
most of these books are online and you can download them as .pdf files to read on tablet or PC.

https://archive.org/details/checklistofbooks00fearrich

A search in the Internet Archive is the entrance into one of the biggest libraries possible

https://archive.org/details/texts

I am already definitely too old to read all of my books - so I have to choose carefully