Now available in paperback, this touching, expansive book is brimming with bibliophilic curiosity, and is inspired by the famous Jorge Luis Borges quote, "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."
The Library is a fabulous exploration of libraries, real and imaginary, some intact and some lost, from throughout time and from all over the world: The Alexandrian, The Bodleian, The Folger, the Smithsonian, the fabled libraries of Middle Earth, Umberto Eco's medieval library labyrinth, libraries dreamed of by John Donne, Borges, Zafon
A true intellectual history of the book is all its manifestations, the book is written as a memoir, first of the author's first days becoming a devoted bookseller, and then ranging on to become a true cultural history of books, publishing, libraries, and readers, as Kells travels over the world and embarks on deep research projects
Stuart Kells is an internationally known bibliophile, historian, and writer, whose last book was a history of Penguin, PENGUIN AND THE LANE BROTHERS, THE STORY OF A PUBLISHING REVOLUTION, a Goodreads pick and well-reviewed
Not just another book-about-books, but a wonderful choice for its readability, its cultural history, and the great fun of Kells' stories
For fans of Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve, John Baxter's A Pound of Paper, or Matthew Battles' The Library: An Unquiet History.
A manifesto for the cultural necessity of libraries, then, now, and in the future
a wonderful literary companion to the recent film, EX LIBRIS
