Updated 3 January 2026
From an early age at primary school, I was a bookworm reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, the Famous Five and Secret Seven series by Enid Blyton, and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Before starting High School, I was given permission to borrow books from the separate adult library in Dunedin and I took the opportunity to take out non-fiction books on puppetry and marionettes using the information to create hand puppets complete with a stage, lighting, and scenery and then to hand carve an articulated marionette. As a teenager, I read books such as Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell. By the time I became an adult, I had developed a strong passion for reading both fiction and non-fiction books. I still borrow all the fiction books that I read and my book collection started out with reference books which were useful for their convenience of access to information. The majority of books in my collection are secondhand and it is the content of these books which I prize being less interested in their investment value. I simply purchase books which I want to read on a variety of topics including the special and general theory of relativity, astronomy, the history of science and mathematics, the theory of time, evolution, the history of economics, and issues of sustainability. I keep my eye out for books which I regard as being classics in their field and I generally prefer later editions being revisions of earlier editions. An example is the book Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus which was first published anonymously in 1798 followed by six editions.
At an early age I wrote my name and the date on a blank page at the start of each book I had acquired until one of my older brothers tore out this page of my most treasured book and claimed the book was his. From then onwards I have written my name and date on the title page of most of my books. Yes, doing so reduces the resale value of the books, but I don’t care. I have requested my family to take their pick of my books when I pass on and then to gift my collection to an enthusiastic book collector rather than dump them onto a secondhand bookshop.
There are some books in which I do not write my name and date. Coffee table books fall into this category. It would be a shame to deface such books. Other books include some classics, for example Space Time Matter by Hermann Weyl published in 1922. This book has a stamp of the Patent Office Library on the inside cover. This book is in poor condition. Science and Hypothesis by Henri Poincare published in 1905 is another classic in reasonable condition. Pioneers of Science by Sir Oliver Lodge published in 1910 is beautifully bound and in superb condition. This classic was awarded as a second prize to G. Dugmore in 1913 by the Auckland Grammar School.
Classics on the special and general theory of relativity include those by Albert Einstein (15th edition 1952), Richard Tolman (1917), T. Percy Nunn (1923), and A.S Eddington (Third edition reprinted 1975). Classics on economics include those by Adam Smith (1776 reprinted 1895), Karl Marx (1887 reprinted 1965), Alfred Marshall (8th edition reprinted 1947), Henry George (1879 reprinted 1943), Thorstein Veblen (1899 reprinted 1949, and John Maynard Keynes (1935).
Books which highlight my interests include The Philosophical Works of Francis Bacon (compiled and printed 1905), A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram (2002), the full set of books by Douglas Hofstadter, the three-volume set The Feynman Lectures on Physics, and the book Einstein’s Miraculous Year: Five Papers That Changed the Face of Physics published in 1998.
When I completed my Bachelor of Science with a major in physics in 1974, I was aware of the book Gravitation by Charles Misner, Kip Thorne, and John Archibald Wheeler published in 1970. I couldn’t afford to pay NZ $58-50 for this book back then (well over one week’s wages). To my delight, I came across and purchased this book for NZ $18 in September 1996.
An observation. In the late 1960s our undergraduate physics class was prescribed the third edition of the text book University Physics by F.W. Sears & M.W. Zemansky published in 1964. After purchasing the second edition of College Physics by Paul Peter Urone (2001) in 2014, I cannot help but make comparisons of the two textbooks. I feel somewhat shortchanged with the physics course provided by the University of Otago in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and this applies especially to our final year introduction to the special theory of relativity. One of my current challenges is to better understand the mathematics and consequences of the general theory of relativity some 50 years after completing my BSc. I have found the book A Most Incomprehensible Thing: Notes towards a very gentle introduction to the mathematics of relativity by Peter Collier (2nd edition 2014) to be very helpful.