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"A memoir of a life in the antiquarian book trade, A Factotum in the Book Trade is a journey between the shelves--and then behind the counter, into the overstuffed basement, and up the spine-stacked attic stairs of your favourite neighbourhood bookshop. From his childhood in rural Ontario, where at the village jumble sale he bought poetry volumes for their pebbled-leather covers alone, to his all-but-accidental entrance into the trade in London and the career it turned into, poet and travel writer Marius Kociejowski recounts his life among the buyers, sellers, customers, and literary nobility--the characters, fictional and not--who populate these places we all love. Cataloging their passions and pleasures, oddities and obsessions, A Factotum in the Book Trade is a journey through their lives, and a story of the serendipities and collisions of fate, the mundane happenings and indelible encounters, the friendships, feuds, losses, and elations that characterize the business of books--and, inevitably, make up an unforgettable life."--
About the author
Marius Kociejowski, born 1949, is a poet, essayist and travel writer. Among the books he has written are
The Street Philosopher and the Holy Fool – A Syrian Journey, now reissued by Eland, and a sequel, T
he Pigeon Wars of Damascus published by Biblioasis in 2010. His first collection of poetry,
Coast (Greville Press, 1990) was awarded the Cheltenham Prize. His most recent books are
God’s Zoo: Artists, Exiles, Londoners (Carcanet, 2014),
The Pebble Chance: prose & feuilletons (Biblioasis, 2014),
Zoroaster’s Children and other travels (Biblioasis, 2015) and
Collected Poems (Carcanet, 2019). He has recently completed another travel book,
The Serpent Coiled in Naples. He lives in London, England where, until recently, he worked as an antiquarian bookseller.
Summary
A memoir of life in the antiquarian book trade, in London, England, and, in keeping with Kociejowski’s travel writing, a journey through people’s lives. Beginning with his childhood in rural Ontario, where at the annual village jumble sale he would buy books not so much for their content as for their tactile qualities, and from there to Ottawa, where he first learned books can have a value, and from there to England, where he fell into the book trade almost by accident, A Factotum in the Book Trade is an elegy for a floating world on the cusp of disappearance
Foreword
- Print run: 5,000 copies
- Co-op available
- Advance reader copies
- Edelweiss digital review copies
- National TV & radio campaign
- National print media campaign
- Online and social media campaign
- E-book available at same time as print edition
- Virtual launch and festival appearances
- Excerpts in Lit Hub, Electric Lit
Additional text
Praise for Marius Kociejowski
"Kociejowski draws on all the aspects of his life in these engaging, idiosyncratic personal essays ... [that] proffer the reader equal measures of autobiography, insight and quirky charm." —Michael Dirda, Washington Post
“Here the charm is deep, the splendour unlaboured; the colours of history, reckoned afresh, saturate singular people, in whom passion is lucid again...here is one who collects his extraordinary resources, and strides.”—Christopher Middleton
“It is a testament to the power of this superb book that I felt not despondency, but ... elation."—Adam Thorpe, Times Literary Supplement
"Treasures are revealed ... with a formidable erudition, and at their best they gleam with an enameled splendour."—Ken Babstock, Globe and Mail
"Kociejowski writes beautifully ... unusual, poetic, and thought-provoking."—Library Journal
