Gweilo

by Martin Booth

'A HUMAN DOCUMENT OF CONSIDERABLE POWER AND IMPORTANCE'

  John Armstrong, Independent

  'WOLLHEIM'S POWERS OF DESCRIPTION ASTOUND . . . BECAUSE OF THE INTENSITY WITH WHICH A REMARKABLE MAN HAS OFFERED US A VIEW OF HIS INNER SELF, I DOUBT WHETHER ANYONE WHO HAS READ IT WILL FORGET IT'

  Diana Athill, Literary Review

  'PUNGENTLY TRUTHFUL, COMPLEX AND ORIGINAL'

  Alan Hollinghurst, Guardian

  'THE VOICE IS INIMITABLE: SUBTLE, SEDUCTIVE, MOVING FROM DEADPAN HILARITY TO ACHING SADNESS'

  Roy Foster, Times Literary Supplement

  'A MASTERPIECE – AN UNCLASSIFIABLE WORK OF STARTLING ORIGINALITY IN WHICH THE ACUTELY SENSUAL AND CONFUSEDLY CEREBRAL EXPERIENCE OF INFANCY, BOYHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE IS BRILLIANTLY RECREATED'

  Francis Wyndham, Spectator

  0 552 77314 X

  A POUND OF PAPER

  Confessions of a Book Addict

  by John Baxter

  'After 400 pages of enjoyable, diverting material, the discerning reader will surely grasp one point above all others: that this is an excellent book' Sunday Telegraph

  In the rural Australia of the fifties where John Baxter grew up, reading books was regarded with suspicion; owning and collecting them with utter incomprehension.

  Despite this, by the age of eleven Baxter had 'collected' his first book – The Poems of Rupert Brooke. He'd read it often, but now he had to own it. This modest purchase marked the beginning of an obsession that would take him all over the world . . .

  In the comic tradition of Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs, A Pound of Paper is a brilliantly readable, honest and funny account of a life spent in pursuit of a passion – of how a boy from the bush came to be living in a Paris penthouse with a library worth millions.

  'His extraordinary enthusiasm for his subject is infectious . . . a

  wonderful memoir'

  Literary Review

  'Extremely entertaining and unusual . . . an account of a lifetime's

  passionate pursuit of signed copies and biblio-rarities'

  Sunday Times

  'Packed with characters . . . and rich with anecdotes. Fascinating, funny and

  informative, A Pound of Paper should surely be the cornerstone of any

  respectable collection'

  Time Out

  'A valuable record of a passing, ephemeral era; before the

  price of everything became known'

  Guardian

  0 553 81442 7