FOR COMPLUSIVE COLLECTORS & THEIR FRIENDS: 3/4: 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
🗓️ 25 September 2023
⏱️ 17 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.
1872 Roughing It by Mark Twain
Transcript
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| 0:34.0 | This is CBS I In The World, I'm John Batcher, Oliver Docscius here, the author of once upon |
| 0:46.3 | a time the misadventures of a rare bookseller, this is a work of nonfiction, Oliver served |
| 0:52.0 | as an apprentice and then an employee of a very famous Henry Sutherans Limited, rare |
| 0:58.2 | bookseller on Sackville Street off Picadilly in London is an apprentice. |
| 1:04.0 | He is put in the front of the establishment, the first line defense says Oliver. |
| 1:09.7 | And so we're going to greet some of the people who come in, the personality types not |
| 1:15.0 | by name. |
| 1:16.6 | And what Oliver learned was their ambition and how to present his opportunities. |
| 1:25.1 | The first Oliver we're going to come to is a smog. |
| 1:29.0 | What is a smog and what do you do? |
| 1:31.5 | So a smog is a kind of collector who wants a little of everything. |
| 1:37.8 | So they're the kind of collector he might not have a particular special interest but |
| 1:42.0 | they'll they want pretty shiny things from almost every category. |
| 1:45.0 | The best example of everything, they might want the best Dickens, the most famous Austin, |
... |
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