Once Upon a Tome

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In Once Upon a Tome:  The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller, author Oliver Darkshire might initially strike you as a shallow smartass.  But as you get deeper into the book, Darkshire will grow on you.  You will realize he is a smartass with substance.

Darkshire is thoroughly likeable as a young man struggling to embark on a career—something to which most of us can relate.  Trying to recover from his first abortive (and funny) employment attempt—and instead of heading for a Waitrose or a Starbucks—he finds himself hired as an apprentice at Sotheran’s, an old rare bookseller in London.

His growth in the job makes for rich stories as he describes his successes and foibles working alongside his quirky colleagues and customers. Despite his apparent cynicism, the growing affection for his chosen career and his co-workers shines through.

Darkshire has structured his book in a way that keeps it fast-paced. His chapters are short, but complete.  His vocabulary is stimulating, broad and 21^st century.  In fact, there were a few words I couldn’t find in the standard dictionaries.  And he employs a frequent and unusual use of footnotes for his parenthetical thoughts*. 

If you read this book, try augmenting it by finding online photos of the Sotheran’s store exterior.  Although Sotheran’s moved to a new location in 2024, there are still numerous photos of the former Sackville Street bookshop Darkshire describes in the book.

Also, take a look at their website.

If you are one of those—like me—who have an almost sentimental feeling about old books and the shops in which you find them, Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller will be a rewarding journey for you.

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*They are always interesting, usually amusing, and sometimes downright funny.

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Quotes

It’s the smell that hits you first.  Vellichor.  There’s something wistful about old books when they are gathered in one place.  They have a faintly unsatisfied smell, as if they’re all distantly aware that they’ve missed their chance to be a worldwide smash hit.

There’s a hunger about book people, and anyone who gets involved with old books.  To follow a path so peculiar, with so few opportunities, and with no real prospects for wealth or prestige, I think you have to have a fickle relationship with rationality.

The sheer amount of space required to house most book collections means that whoever shares your living area needs to be very understanding, or more ideally a co-conspirator, because the rest of their lives will be spent making room for your incredibly invasive pastime, until one day they trip on a folio and plummet to their doom down a staircase.

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