I've had my copy of Niel Michelsen's American Ephemeris for the 20th Century since I can't remember when. It's so tatty that it is difficult to believe I haven't replaced it - but who's fussy!? Full of my notes through a career lasting nearly a Saturn cycle that started off with a Commodore 64 and a programme provided by Colin Miles of Astrocalc!! If anyone else else a personal favourite that hardly holds the covers, I'd love to see it!

I had problems getting the image to fit a size suitable for the Skyscript forum - but here's a link: www.astronor.com/ephemeris.htm

Well, Andrew, I wasn't in the habit of adding inserts to my copy of the same ephemeris (at least, I presume the same, unless yours is the noon edition - I prefer the midnight one for ease of interpolation calculations), but I did make the serious mistake around 1997 of separating the last few years of pages from the rest of the book in order to travel more lightly on holiday and still be able to closely follow my transits at all times, something I was quite compulsive about in those years.... Though the separated pages have been reconvened with the rest, it has never looked quite the same since, and eventually I was moved to purchase the costlier Rosicrucian ephemeris at midnight for the 20th century, which includes declination information but is a little more awkward to read in other respects.

In my earliest days of studying astrology seriously, which was a lot more recently than you, 1995 to be precise, I heavily used the compact ephemeris and interpretations in a paperback copy of Parkers' Astrology. This large book now looks in a very sorry state on the outside, but is still just holding together.

My first copy of Planets in Transit was not so fortunate, however. I bought it brand new in the summer of 1996 from Body and Soul bookstore in Edinburgh (which has since folded as a supplier of new books, sadly) and used it so heavily that within a few years the binding had split clean in two down the length of the spine all by itself. I think it is now in at least three slices, despite the fact that I have never abused the binding by intent. It's really too big a book for that kind of flimsy softcover, and at ?21 in the UK it deserved a stronger binding in my opinion. I did eventually feel moved to replace it with a second-hand copy of one of the earlier hardcover printings, which was ironically cheaper and is likely to outlive me.

My first copy of Planets in Transit was not so fortunate... I think it is now in at least three slices. I did eventually feel moved to replace it with a second-hand copy of one of the earlier hardcover printings, which was ironically cheaper and is likely to outlive me.

Hopefully, we will enjoy many bottles of fine wine before it comes to that!

The first book I had that every dealt with anything astronomical or astrological was a small pocketbook hardcover version of 'The Observer's Book of Astronomy' by Patrick Moore, 5th edition 1974. Then I had a book called 'Exploring the Universe' by the Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd. in 1976. This is mearly a children's book - but honestly, if I ever do get famous... this is the one you want to try and get hold of . I've used it for leaning on (drawing charts, making notes, holding readings etc.) my entire career - and still do to this very day! (Something to do with the energy or being in contact with my true roots??) I have had to replace the cellotape on the inside and outside of the harcover several times. It is a sight for sore eyes!

My first book with any technical detail on astrology was Ronald C. Davison's 'Astrology - How to cast your Horoscope', Granada Publ. 1969, revised edition 1979.

I have a copy of 'Planets in Transit' that is in excellent condition - only two slices and my cellotape binding still holds the darn thing together. The slices occur at pages 290-291 where the topic seems to be the Jupiter return. I keep telling my wife she should be handling this book with better care!

Philip wrote:My first copy of Planets in Transit was not so fortunate....used it so heavily that within a few years the binding had split clean in two down the length of the spine all by itself.

The exact same thing happened to my copy which I bought new in 1981 for ?10. It's still just about in one piece although the back cover is almost off and several pages are loose. Back in the eighties it was my bible but over the past 10 years or so I haven't opened it. Priorities change over time.

My first astrology book was Jeff Mayo's "Teach Yourself Astrology" which I bought in 1978 for 50p. I think this was the book that many of us learnt from back in the seventies when there were hardly any "proper" astrology books around. It's still in fairly good condition although the pages have become discoloured.

Andrew wrote:started off with a Commodore 64 and a programme provided by Colin Miles of Astrocalc

Lucky you to have had an astrology program so early in your career. I was calculating everything manually until 1992 when I acquired my first computer and bought Astrolabe's Chartwheels - an excellent DOS program. No Windows in those days

Andrew, you certainly made me laugh there with your characterisation of the 'excellent' condition of your copy of Planets in Transit. I suppose that in purely relative terms, a copy in two slices repaired with Sellotape is in rather good condition compared with one in three, unrepaired! On the second-hand marketplace, however, both copies would be listed as 'poor', with or without the additional epithet of your devising 'long due trash' (or something similar). And since in this particular case we are talking about a title of which very many second-hand copies exist, I fear the latter term would prove altogether accurate when it comes to resaleability or otherwise, even if the book were to be priced at $1.00.

I like the thought of fine wine. However, since I've never been much of a drinker, I'm not bothered to find myself in a country where one can't buy anything with more than about 1% (?) alcohol at any shop except for a forbidding-looking state-owned chain store, the sole purpose of entry into which would be to buy alcoholic drinks, which have frankly never been of sufficient interest to me to seem to merit my going into any store on their account alone. But the flip-side of this heavy regulation of the sale of alcoholic drinks here is that there are some pretty good very low-alcohol wines sold in ordinary shops, and though a wine buff would probably turn his nose up at the very idea, they are quite good enough in my experience to make excellent gluwein (or however it's best spelt) around St. Lucia's Day.

Perhaps, together with Martin and Sari and others you and they may know, we should eventually establish a Federation of Nordic Scientific Astrologers, a Northern Association of Scientific Astrologers (if that doesn't get too easily confused with some obscure North American Space Agency), or some similarly titled organisation harking back to the trends of the 1930s in the inspiration for its name, and you could stand for chief officer in charge of the provision of wines at conferences, among other more important and astrologically pertinent duties?

It would be nice to see a picture of your copy of 'Exploring the Universe'! I somehow doubt that even if you become famous a book in that condition that bears mere indentations from being leaned on for chart drawings etc. in your pen would be worth all that much. If you signed it or, better still, added credible manuscript notes to the endpapers, it might be a different matter!

PS: In view of the frequency with which paperback copies of 'Planets in Transit' disintegrate (Ficina's being yet another example), it seems hardly charitable to blame your wife for yours falling apart, even if she used it more often than you, which I doubt... but then I'm sure you were not serious about that!

Graves said:
Andrew, you certainly made me laugh there with your characterisation of the 'excellent' condition of your copy of Planets in Transit. I suppose that in purely relative terms, a copy in two slices repaired with Sellotape is in rather good condition compared with one in three, unrepaired! On the second-hand marketplace, however, both copies would be listed as 'poor', with or without the additional epithet of your devising 'worthless junk'. And since in this particular case we are talking about a title of which very many second-hand copies exist, I fear the latter term would prove altogether accurate when it comes to resaleability or otherwise, even if the book were to be priced at $1.00.

Huh!? Well here's an idea! Let's tear the whole thing apart, sign the sheets and sell them off for $1.00 a piece. There's 528 pages in my copy of 'Planets in Transit' and there should be in yours, too! That way would would make 1056 bucks and can afford to throw a party with some of that low-alcoholic anti-wine buff stuff you were talking about!

No, I seriously don't mean that any of the astrology items I have got have any considerable value. I'm leaving that one to my good friend in Stockholm.

Graves:
It would be nice to see a picture of your copy of 'Exploring the Universe'! I somehow doubt that even if you become famous a book in that condition that bears mere indentations from being leaned on for chart drawings etc. in your pen would be worth all that much. If you signed it or, better still, added credible manuscript notes to the endpapers, it might be a different matter!

I've got an even better idea! I can put a ring round every other word and then we can write a song out of it afterwards!

low-alcoholic anti-wine buff stuff

Well, I don't have anything against wine buffs, I just think that they would tend to be a little less forgiving of wines I deem acceptable!

Great idea to sell loose pages of broken copies of Planets in Transit at $1 each, but I think it would have to be for a really good charity or nobody would buy! Perhaps Rob Hand should choose the charity even?

PS: I seem to remember reading in an issue of the A.A. Journal when I briefly subscribed to it (albeit under an assumed name) from 1996-7, in an article announcing the results of a poll of astrologers on their favourite books on astrology in the 20th century, that one of the books that came towards the top, Reinhold Ebertin's 'The Combination of Stellar Influences', was said to have been so frequently used by one prominent astrologer in the A.A. (I forget who - Charles Harvey possibly?) that he had worn out at least six copies and was on his seventh. The writer of the article remarked with some incredulity that how the astrologer in question had managed to wear out quite so many copies was something of a mystery....

It could be argued (not seriously, of course) that by comparison, wearing out only one copy of Planets in Transit each puts us all to shame as astrologers.