COLLECTORS ONLY: The joy of book collecting explained: 1/4: Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller by Oliver Darkshire (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Once-Upon-Misadventures-Rare-Bookseller/dp/1324092076/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Welcome to Sotheran’s, one of the oldest bookshops in the world, with its weird and wonderful clientele, suspicious cupboards, unlabeled keys, poisoned books, and some things that aren’t even books, presided over by one deeply eccentric apprentice.
Some years ago, Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of Henry Sotheran Ltd (est. 1761) to apply for a job. Allured by the smell of old books and the temptation of a management-approved afternoon nap, Darkshire was soon unteetering stacks of first editions and placating the store’s resident ghost (the late Mr. Sotheran, hit by a tram).
A novice in this ancient, potentially haunted establishment, Darkshire describes Sotheran’s brushes with history (Dickens, the Titanic), its joyous disorganization, and the unspoken rules of its gleefully old-fashioned staff, whose mere glance may cause the computer to burst into flames. As Darkshire gains confidence and experience, he shares trivia about ancient editions and explores the strange space that books occupy in our lives―where old books often have strong sentimental value, but rarely a commercial one.
By turns unhinged and earnest, Once Upon a Tome is the colorful story of life in one of the world’s oldest bookshops and a love letter to the benign, unruly world of antiquarian bookselling, where to be uncommon or strange is the best possible compliment.
2011 Bayeux Tapestry
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Book your ticket to happiness with Sun Express Airlines. This is CBS I on the World. |
| 0:24.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World. |
| 0:26.0 | Here's John Bachelor. |
| 0:32.0 | This is CBS I on the world. I'm John Bachelor. Provincial Britain, a train station, a mission. |
| 0:40.0 | The mission is Oliver Darkshire. His new book, Once Upon A Tome, tells the |
| 0:46.9 | adventures, or the subtitle correctly, the misadventures of a rare bookseller. Once upon a tome, Oliver traveled to a provincial station in |
| 0:56.4 | Britain on a mission off site to look at a collection of books in the chance that there were rare books. That's an important |
| 1:05.3 | distinction. Oliver, of hearty congratulations and a very good evening to you. Please |
| 1:12.0 | describe what you learn as you got off the train and then |
| 1:16.5 | sought your rare bookseller moment at a home that I pictured as having many turrets and lots of Victorian touches, but inside was a library. |
| 1:29.4 | Good evening to you. |
| 1:31.4 | Good evening, thank you family. me. I mean as I stepped off the train it was one of those |
| 1:36.8 | one of those train stations when I say in the middle of nowhere I mean there were |
| 1:41.0 | trees some steps to come down off it and then no signposts no |
| 1:45.2 | directions no town really there was a road if you can call it that |
| 1:50.0 | with several roads spiraling off it and I realized that first I should have bought a map or someone with me |
| 1:57.0 | I was too proud you see I wanted to every book's other wants to find rare things by themselves |
| 2:02.2 | You want to discover them. You know, so I thought, |
| 2:04.8 | how hard can it be? My first outing by myself as a rare bookseller, I'll find this house. I've got an address on a letter that was |
| 2:11.6 | sent to us. |
| 2:13.0 | And I'll find my way there, a short walk from the station, |
| 2:17.0 | they said to me. |
... |
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