Fifty Forgotten Books
by R.B. Russell
And Other Stories 2022
256 pages
14×21 cm
A very special book about books, written by a great bibliophile for book-lovers of all levels of experience. At once a guided tour through the dusty backrooms of long vanished bookstores, a love letter to bookshops, and a browser’s dream wish list of often overlooked books of all kinds.
In these pages, R. B. Russell, publisher of Tartarus Press, doesn’t only discuss the books of his life, but explains what they have meant to him over time, charting his progress as a writer and publisher for over thirty years, and a bibliophile for many more. Here is living proof of how literature, books, and book collecting can be an intrinsic part of one’s personal, professional and imaginative life, and as not only a solitary act, but a social one, resulting in treasured friendships, experiences, and loves one might never, otherwise, have enjoyed.
Classics, poetry collections, old-fashioned crime stories, and a very interesting selection of gothic, supernatural and occult books are shown before our eyes, and reading often feels like browsing the personal shelves of a passionate and curious reader, offering his experience and his personal story together with his literary advices.
Following Russell’s voice we discover wonderful and precious titles too often left out from the reviews, but more importantly we listen to the tales of how he acquired his copies. A lively carnival of old bookstores, dusty bookshelves and hidden upper rooms, filled with charming and delightful characters: the grumpy bookseller, the mythical collector, the used books merchant with a special eye for hidden gems. In the meanwhile, we discover the life and literary adventures of the author, a man who became a well known publisher and author but never ceased to be a passionate collector.
Filled with a lively nostalgia for the era when finding strange new books meant pounding the pavement and not just searching booksellers’ websites, Fifty Forgotten Books is for anyone who wishes they could still browse the dusty bookshelves of their youth, and who can’t wait to get back out into the world in quest of the next text liable to change their life.
Here you can download an English BOOK PROFILE
Press:
«Lovers of obscure authors and literature will welcome this eclectic collection . . . from British editor Russell. His easy, accessible style is a delight to read».
Publisher’s Weekly
«Decadents, bohemians, cult musicians, the odd (very odd) spy, shady publishers, backstreet booksellers, writers of the weird and wayward, they’re all here. R. B. Russell’s memoir gives us literature on the edge, in all its wonderful strangeness».
Mark Valentine
Rights available in a selection of countries
Represented in collaboration with And Other Stories
R.B. Russell is an author, composer and publisher, co-running Tartarus Press with Rosalie Parker. As a writer, he has published three novels, four collections of short fiction and three novellas to date.
