Martin Latham
Autor de The Bookseller's Tale
Sobre El Autor
Written by Martin Latham, historian and bookseller, Kent's Strangest Tales is a fascinating treasure trove of the hilarious, the odd, and the baffling - an alternative travel guide to some of the county's best kept secrets that date back many thousands of years. Read on and discover the Kent nobody mostrar más knows. mostrar menos
Obras de Martin Latham
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Género
- male
- Nacionalidad
- UK
- Ocupaciones
- bookseller
Miembros
Reseñas
Listas
También Puede Gustarte
Estadísticas
- Obras
- 3
- Miembros
- 286
- Popularidad
- #81,618
- Valoración
- 3.9
- Reseñas
- 7
- ISBNs
- 13
- Idiomas
- 3
The blurb describes this book as “part cultural history, part literary love letter and part reluctant memoir”. It is, in fact, a work which is hard to pin down. It contains a lot of historical details on such bookish subjects as itinerant sellers and book pedlars, libraries through the ages, marginalia, female authors and readers and even booklice species. Yet, it does not feel like an academic book, and more like the author’s own whimsical romp through book history. While not exactly an autobiography (we learn much more about Latham the “bookseller” rather than Latham “the man”), the book is enriched with juicy personal anecdotes including the occasional gossipy name-dropping.
What shines throughout the book is a love for reading and – unsurprisingly for a “bookseller’s tale” – a love for physical books, as opposed to electronic books. I am not, personally, a purist in this regard, believing that it is ultimately the content of the book, rather than the medium, is more important. Not that you’d notice that, as I’m still an obsessive buyer of physical books and share the compulsion felt by some of the author’s customers to hug and smell a new book. I loved in particular Latham’s ode to comfort books. His observation that the most critically acclaimed “literary” books are not necessarily the ones that mean most to the general reader is an eye-opening one and a warning against adopting a patronising approach towards literary tastes.
The Bookseller's Tale feels like a night at the pub with your favourite book buddy and is just as enjoyable.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-booksellers-tale-by-martin-latham...… (más)