David Wilson
Contributor
Another source of literature over the years was the specialist second-hand diving book retailer operating his business out of his own home and mailing catalogues to customers once or twice a year. One of owners of these "one-man businesses" was my fellow Brit David Way, who was also the author of a book on spearfishing. I enjoyed receiving his catalogues, which were illustrated with pen drawings and laid out thematically for easy perusal. He was an enthusiastic bibliophile who clearly shared my own enjoyment in building up a small library of diving books.
Now we are in the age of the Internet, online retailers of diving books have emerged, such as
CLASSIC DIVING BOOKS
I must admit I haven't availed myself of their services, so I can't make recommendations. It looks too as though Amazon may be a good source of classic diving titles, the more so as the company has many partnerships with used book stores.
I don't buy many diving titles these days, partly because as a retiree I have less money to spend and partly because I'm trying to keep down the amount of space-occupying possessions I have in my home. I've already heavily pruned the large library of foreign language teaching books and periodicals I owned when I taught secondary school French and German. I haven't reduced the number of diving books I have - probably around 200 or so titles - but I haven't made any new acquisitions either, so I don't own any titles published in the last two decades. Truth to tell, my bibliophile focus is exclusively on on the history and practice of diving between 1950 and 1980.
Sam mentions US and UK bibliophile meetings on two sides of the Atlantic in 1993. I wasn't aware of either event at the time. From the British perspective, the UK event may have been the heyday of UK diving historianship and there's little evidence of interest here in the British Isles outside the UK Historical Diving Society, which operates via its rather academic learned journal rather than running an online forum for vintage diving enthusiasts. A typical stance of the most prolific posters on the British Sub Aqua Club forum is that vintage diving gear is the preserve of the potential suicide. So, Dale, you may think Canada is a dead loss when it comes to people interested in diving history, but I can assure you that the UK is equally, if not more, depressing in this department with less excuse.
Dale mentions how important the content of old diving books is to him when improving his own diving practice. I can relate to that as I do more vintage snorkelling than I used to do, eight miles away from where I live, not like my fellow Brits in some tropical resort surrounded by fences to keep poverty-stricken locals out. This said, as a linguist, I also find the terminology of old diving books interesting. A day or two ago I opened my copy of the 1960 British Sub Aqua Club manual and found the phrase "snorkel and free diving". It was clear from the context that "free diving" meant what we now call "scuba diving". This helps to support my opinion that the French-derived (plongée libre) words "free diving", as used in the 1950s and 1960s, have little to do with the modern usage of the term "free diving" to mean, exclusively, breath-hold diving. I wonder when, and by whose coinage, this change occurred. Maybe my little library of diving books will provide me with the answer. All I know is that most modern "free divers" seem to know little, and care even less, about "free diving" meaning diving with air tanks back in the 1950s and 1960s.
Now we are in the age of the Internet, online retailers of diving books have emerged, such as
CLASSIC DIVING BOOKS
I must admit I haven't availed myself of their services, so I can't make recommendations. It looks too as though Amazon may be a good source of classic diving titles, the more so as the company has many partnerships with used book stores.
I don't buy many diving titles these days, partly because as a retiree I have less money to spend and partly because I'm trying to keep down the amount of space-occupying possessions I have in my home. I've already heavily pruned the large library of foreign language teaching books and periodicals I owned when I taught secondary school French and German. I haven't reduced the number of diving books I have - probably around 200 or so titles - but I haven't made any new acquisitions either, so I don't own any titles published in the last two decades. Truth to tell, my bibliophile focus is exclusively on on the history and practice of diving between 1950 and 1980.
Sam mentions US and UK bibliophile meetings on two sides of the Atlantic in 1993. I wasn't aware of either event at the time. From the British perspective, the UK event may have been the heyday of UK diving historianship and there's little evidence of interest here in the British Isles outside the UK Historical Diving Society, which operates via its rather academic learned journal rather than running an online forum for vintage diving enthusiasts. A typical stance of the most prolific posters on the British Sub Aqua Club forum is that vintage diving gear is the preserve of the potential suicide. So, Dale, you may think Canada is a dead loss when it comes to people interested in diving history, but I can assure you that the UK is equally, if not more, depressing in this department with less excuse.
Dale mentions how important the content of old diving books is to him when improving his own diving practice. I can relate to that as I do more vintage snorkelling than I used to do, eight miles away from where I live, not like my fellow Brits in some tropical resort surrounded by fences to keep poverty-stricken locals out. This said, as a linguist, I also find the terminology of old diving books interesting. A day or two ago I opened my copy of the 1960 British Sub Aqua Club manual and found the phrase "snorkel and free diving". It was clear from the context that "free diving" meant what we now call "scuba diving". This helps to support my opinion that the French-derived (plongée libre) words "free diving", as used in the 1950s and 1960s, have little to do with the modern usage of the term "free diving" to mean, exclusively, breath-hold diving. I wonder when, and by whose coinage, this change occurred. Maybe my little library of diving books will provide me with the answer. All I know is that most modern "free divers" seem to know little, and care even less, about "free diving" meaning diving with air tanks back in the 1950s and 1960s.