Peter Able wrote:
We're obviously of a similar age. When I won a book prize at grammar
school I nominated that as the prize. The school was scandalised! "No
one has EVER been given a paperback book at Speech Day!!!!". The
compromise was that I choose a conventional book (a hardback Latin
dictionary), as well.

:-)

My chosen prize was 'The Art of Electronics'. When I won the prize the next
year there was nothing else to top Horowitz and Hill, or at least that could
be found in the Charing Cross Road branch of Waterstones (the prize
unhelpfully provided in Waterstones vouchers, and Waterstones being truly
useless at technical books). So I had to settle for something less useful.

I still have both. You can guess which is the more thumbed !

Likewise

Theo