The Book Seller and other Stories by Peter Briscoe
Interesting title. Intriguing characters. Industrious lives. This is a short read and one that is thought-provoking in its discussions and stories around books and their worth, written by a librarian and writer.
The written pieces collected in this text include character sketches, brief but psychologically complex, which lead into longer short stories, addressing issues such as trust and the nature of libraries, intellectual ambition and friendship, all tied together in a bow with the concept of the book and its true value in the world.
Many stylistic and intertextual echoes from literary fiction. My favourite piece was the final story The Library Conference, in which the tale follows a young student who manoeuvres herself upwards in the literary world, through attending library conferences through the years in Arizona, Costa Rica, New Mexico, Texas and Uruguay.
review by Christina Francis-Gilbert
