John Sutherland
Rare Book-Dealer
Outside of a Dog: A Bibliomemoir
By Rick Gekoski
Constable & Robinson 286pp £14.99
Rick Gekoski’s ‘bibliomemoir’ opens with a telling anecdote. He split from his wife, Barbara, in the 1980s. They moved to separate residences. She took temporary custody of his books, his new place being short on shelves. When, after the decree, he had finally made room for his treasures, she declined to hand them over. It precipitated an existential crisis: ‘My books were gone. It prompted the questions, at once psychological and metaphysical: Was I still me? Who am I with no books?’ The loss of a spouse of twenty years was, one gathers, nothing by comparison.
I resided for many years some fifty feet from Rick’s book dealership in Pied Bull Yard. I would pass him sitting for all the world to see in his ground-floor office, on a throne-like office chair, behind the single frosted word ‘GEKOSKI’ on the crystalline glass.
He
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm