A FACTOTUM IN THE BOOK TRADE
A Memoir
By Marius Kociejowski
349 pages. Biblioasis. $18.95.

I love the smell of old books. More than once, I've said those seven words aloud after entering a used and/or rare bookstore. It's a mistake I won't make again.

In his dyspeptic new memoir, Marius Kociejowski, who has worked in some of London's best antiquarian bookstores, turns me into a kebab when he writes:

Many good memoirs have been written by antiquarian booksellers. The best of these, recently, is William S. Reese's (2018), a restless book under a sleepy title.

is memorable because a) it's well-written, and b) it's close in touch with the books. Kociejowski, now in his early 70s, never owned his own shop. He struggled financially while raising a family on an employee's earnings. He simply loved the work because, he writes,

Used book dealers, in my experience, tend to be darkly witty. The Scotsman Shaun Bythell wrote, in his memoir (2018):

He's right about what a good bookstore should feel like. he writes.

I know that sort of store - it's the sort where you wish, browsing, you had a miner's lamp strapped to your forehead.

These kinds of bookstores are rapidly vanishing, Kociejowski laments, victims of the internet and now Covid. He loathes these new

He talks a bit about famous customers he's served, including Patti Smith, who shares his fondness for Robert Louis Stevenson's essays. Philip Larkin would come in, looking for first editions of his own books. He sold a copy of to Johnny Depp, who was

He observes that librarians seem to hate books, eager as they are to perforate and stamp them. He is taught by a good bookseller how to polish books:

To read the complete article, see:
Love the Smell of Old Books? This Bookseller Would Like You to Leave.(https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/18/books/review-factotum-book-trade-memoir-marius-kociejowski.html)