Once Upon a Tome, by Oliver Darkshire

I feel a lot of kinship with booksellers, being a librarian. We both have to deal with odd questions that might not be answerable. We both have lots of people coming who don’t really understand what the place is about. And, of course, there are all those books that will surely find a reader one of these days. Thankfully, we librarians don’t have to worry about actually selling things to customers (instead we have to pester people to bring things back at some point). Because of that sense of kinship, I am drawn to books about the bookselling life, fictional or not, like Parnassus on Wheels, 84, Charing Cross Road, and The Diary of a Bookseller. When I heard about Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller—and learned that author Oliver Darkshire was the hilarious weirdo behind the Henry Sotheran LTD Twitter account—I knew I had to read it as soon as possible. This delightfully funny book delivered a highly entertaining look behind the shelves. Bibliophiles with a sense of humor will love this one.

Darkshire fell into an apprenticeship at Sotheran’s without a clue what he was getting into, or even what he was really applying for. He reflects that his ignorance was probably a good thing, given how strange life in a bookshop is, even one as rarified as Sotheran’s. (I don’t think the shop is nearly as untidy as Darkshire describes based on these photos but of course, they wouldn’t put the backrooms on a public-facing blog.) In short, often discursive chapters, Darkshire explains how the shop is organized (sort of), who runs different departments (weirdos), and what the customers are like (even weirder). Nearly every anecdote had me laughing or wincing in sympathy—or making me wish they’d call in a librarian to help them get things in order because they’ve lost their archives twice!

Books like Once Upon a Tome or the others I mentioned earlier often walk a fine line between joy and melancholy. On the one side is a pure love of books, no matter how obscure, and the belief that books will always have their readers (even if it’s just that one guy who lives in an attic and only wants books on underwater organ music or something like that). On the other is the need to find hard currency to keep the lights on and the staff paid. The joy of connecting books with readers helps keep the tone light enough that one can push aside worries about rent and taxes at least for a little while longer. Darkshire’s book falls much more into the joyful end of the spectrum, possibly because he a member of staff and not the manager or one of the owners. He can focus more on the odd people who wander in or the strange things he finds while trying to hide the evidence of his gourd-related crimes.

Readers who wonder what it might be like to work in a bookshop (but who wisely don’t have any desire to set up their own shop) should definitely pick this one up.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.