5 unlikely tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

List by Danielle

"It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons, Sovereign of all England!"

"Pull the other one!"

From Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I've been reading Sarah Zettel's Camelot series of late - four historical fantasy romances starring Gawain and his brothers, one book per knightly brother - and took a look to see what else we've got on the Arthurian myths and legends. Turns out: a whole heap! Though less graphic novels than I'd been expecting. Yes, we've got everything from gangland Arthur to high-school-teen Arthur, through muppet Arthur and Python Arthur to some actual historical retellings of the stories made famous by authors like Geoffrey of Monmouth, Sir Thomas Malory and John Steinbeck. Yes. STEINBECK.

5 cookbooks with recipes from the frontlines

"Our homeward step was just as light
As the tap dancing feet of Astair
And like an echo far away,
A nightingale sang in Berkley Square"
- A nightingale sang in Berkley Square, 1939, lyrics by Eric Maschwitz, music by Manning Sherwin

^{Maori soldiers prepare a hangi during Christmas celebrations in the Western Desert, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19420527-24-4}

Recently, I've joined in with the #collectionfishing themes on Twitter. It's a kind of a game that people play. Well, people who are interested in working with, or delving into, online collections. Each week a theme is set, and people go fishing in all sorts of online collections and share what they've found, or what they hold. I've only been doing it for a week or two - and when I say 'I've' I really mean 'Auckland Libraries' because I've been doing it on our work tweetstream - for a couple of weeks and OH! The things I've seen. The curious, the poignant, the straight up bizarre. It's fantastic. It was while I was keeping an eye out for #collectionfishing links for the #feast theme that I came across the image attached to this post of soldiers preparing a hangi in the Western Desert. It's a curious picture that made me a tad bit teary eyed because here is a little bit of home in a place that is oh so far away from it. I liked it so much I wondered what we had on our shelves that matched this topic - cookbooks and recipes from wartime. So I rounded up what I could get my hands on at such short notice, read them, admired the pictures, didn't understand the schematics for huge ovens AT ALL, and have tried a recipe or two already. With adjustments obviously, because the quantities are GINORMOUS. Even if you're not interested in #collectionfishing or wartime recipes, you've got to admit, this is pretty damn interesting all the same. This week's theme is #cars and, wow, have I seen some great things people have shared so far. To give you an idea, here's ours from yesterday. And so I give you: 5 cookbooks with recipes from the frontline. I might even see you playing along on Twitter with all of us, too. You can find Auckland Libraries on Twitter at: @Auckland_Libs.