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A review by tansy
Browse: The World in Bookshops by Henry Hitchings
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
3.0
Book 8 in my 2021 unread books project: a birthday gift from my sister that had languished unread for at least two years, in part because I have never read anything by any of the writers included in this book of essays.
Most of these essays tell a very similar story, i.e. "I like bookshops and here's some thoughts about a particular bookshop I went to when I was younger that shaped me into the person I am today". It's a perfectly nice story, particularly if you also like bookshops, (which you probably do if you're reading a book about bookshops), but it does mean that the essays all blur together. The standout pieces are the ones doing something different, such as Saša Stanišic's comparison of book-buying to drug addiction, Alaa Al Aswany's recollections of talk he gave prior to the Arab Spring demonstrations in Egypt, and Daniel Kehlmann's enthusiastic advert for Dussmann's in Berlin, via a dialogue between two authors about, (to quote Edward Gorey), "the unspeakable horror of the literary life".
In short, this is nice, but unmemorable and will probably remain on my shelves out of sentimentality for at least another year before eventually making way for more interesting books.
Most of these essays tell a very similar story, i.e. "I like bookshops and here's some thoughts about a particular bookshop I went to when I was younger that shaped me into the person I am today". It's a perfectly nice story, particularly if you also like bookshops, (which you probably do if you're reading a book about bookshops), but it does mean that the essays all blur together. The standout pieces are the ones doing something different, such as Saša Stanišic's comparison of book-buying to drug addiction, Alaa Al Aswany's recollections of talk he gave prior to the Arab Spring demonstrations in Egypt, and Daniel Kehlmann's enthusiastic advert for Dussmann's in Berlin, via a dialogue between two authors about, (to quote Edward Gorey), "the unspeakable horror of the literary life".
In short, this is nice, but unmemorable and will probably remain on my shelves out of sentimentality for at least another year before eventually making way for more interesting books.