Martin Latham

“I have seen this in thirty years of bookselling: customers stroking a book’s cover, peeking under the jacket, surreptitiously closing their eyes to smell the valley of pages - this sometimes accompanied by a quiet moan of pleasure- hugging it after purchase, and even giving it a little kiss.”
― Martin Latham, The Bookseller's Tale

“Nothing lasts. Our frail idea of self morphs and shape-shifts, then becomes a line on a death certificate and a few family anecdotes. (...) What if the layers of societal self were burnt away, could some idea of our individuality live on in a book, if that book was written in, even cut and pasted with thoughts and cuttings?”
― Martin Latham, The Bookseller's Tale