A Factotum in the Book Trade

by Marius Kociejowski

The bookshop is, and will always be, the soul of the trade. What happens there does not happen elsewhere. The multifariousness of human nature is more on show there than anywhere else, and I think it’s because of books, what they are, what they release in ourselves, and what they become when we make them magnets to our desires.

A memoir of a life in the antiquarian book trade, A Factotum in the Book Trade is a journey between the shelves—and then behind the counter, into the overstuffed basement, and up the spine-stacked attic stairs of your favourite neighbourhood bookshop. From his childhood in rural Ontario, where at the village jumble sale he bought poetry volumes for their pebbled-leather covers alone, to his all-but-accidental entrance into the trade in London and the career it turned into, poet and travel writer Marius Kociejowski recounts his life among the buyers, sellers, customers, and literary nobility—the characters, fictional and not—who populate these places we all love. Cataloging their passions and pleasures, oddities and obsessions, A Factotum in the Book Trade is a journey through their lives, and a story of the serendipities and collisions of fate, the mundane happenings and indelible encounters, the friendships, feuds, losses, and elations that characterize the business of books—and, inevitably, make up an unforgettable life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Books About Books, Biography, Biography Memoir, History, Literature

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2022

About the author

Marius Kociejowski was born in 1949 in Bishop Mills, Ontario. In 1973, he left Canada and later settled in London. Mr. Kociejowski's father & mother were Polish & English, respectively.

His first collection of poetry was Coast, published by Greville Press in 1991. Anvil Press then published Doctor Honoris Causa (1993) and Music's Bride (1999). A Canadian edition of his poems, which collected the above, So Dance the Lords of Language, was published by Porcupine's Quill in 2003. He has also published two books on Syria, The Street Philosopher and the Holy Fool: A Syrian Journey (Sutton, 2004) and a sequel, The Pigeon Wars of Damascus (Biblioasis, 2010), and edited the anthology Syria through Writers' Eyes (Eland, 2006). He lives in London and is currently at work on a record of a world journey through London's exiled and émigré artists, writers, poets and musicians.

This data is taken from PN Review 203, Volume 38 Number 3, January - February 2012.
in conversation with Marius Kociejowski by Evan Jones

Accessed at http://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/scr...

Reviews

[Marc Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

An erudite reminiscence of the author's some forty years in the antiquarian book trade. It is both a memoir and a philosophical peering into the lives of the people Marius worked with, the customers he encountered and the poets he met (Mr. Kociejowski is a published poet himself). This book is filled with interesting books the author believes should be read and for that alone this book well worth reading. The real enchantment comes from the rare book business through the years and how it has changed. For those who are book collectors, want to be book collectors and those who are just interested in a little bit of British book history of the last twenty to twenty-five years, then this book is strongly recommended.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone who has worked in the used and rare book trade, this is a must read. You'll laugh or frown as Kociejowski tells stories about lovable or awful customers who sound a lot like people you've sold or bought from. And you'll be entranced as he describes peculiar characters and situations you probably never encountered. As a somewhat recent transplant to the Windsor area, I'm happy to see that Biblioasis, located in Windsor, published it. This book was my introduction to Kociejowski, but now that I'm familiar with his work, I'll be looking out for his other works.

[Lisa Scarpello · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was hard to get to the heart of memoir because of all the name dropping of people and books. There could have easily been a “who’s who” and a “book titles” index. But it seems Kociejowski has had a really interesting life in the book trade.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was between 3 and 4 stars.
On the first page when he quotes Stéphane Mallarmé - "The world was made in order to result in a beautiful book." - i got excited. This memoir almost made it.
Some of his recollections are quite good, sometimes enlightening - I am a Joyce fan, so his story of Joyce's Trieste library was a real find. The book was worth it for that alone.
Other times i was - Wait a sec! Where's this coming from? What's he talking about? Sometimes the book meandered - perhaps if I was more familiar with the people he was talking about - esp. contemporary poets - I might've been able to better hold on. And i totally missed the point of the Charlotte B. chapter.
The book was a little too long for me, but happy i read it nonetheless.

[Adrian]

Sleeper of the year. The author has dwelt in the world of books as antiquarian book seller, cataloguer, valuer and collector for the better part of his working life. He has a flock of interesting stories about books and even better about the odd assemblage of people who collect and sell them. Some of the best bits are anecdotes about people who have dropped into his shop some famous (Graham Greene, Bruce Chatwin) some not. There is also a chapter about his miraculously finding papers referring to one of his ancestors from the 18th century-he does some detective work to turn this into a fascinating story. Just the break I needed from a succession of bad news books I've been reading.

[Mark Robertson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried hard to finish this book but I couldn’t. Kociejowski is no doubt an intelligent and well-read man and it might be fun to talk books with him over a couple of drinks. But this book had very little fun in it for me. There’s tons of name dropping of players from the literary scene in England at the end of the 20th century and long discussions of authors that didn’t hold my interest. Other readers clearly have a differing opinion, but I cannot recommend this book.

[Dorothy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is very inside baseball for those well familiar with London/UK booksellers of the 1970-90s. And deep knowledge of the Classics. Ch. 8 may be of interest to British/India historians & Bronte-philes. The bits of the book I expected to get when I picked this up were largely in the last three chapters. Had I but known.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly enjoyable. He covers buyers, sellers, customers, literary nobility. Their passions, pleasures, oddities, and obsessions.

Notes:
Silky cover, comfortable reading size (5.25 x 8.25)
2… Dedicatee Dan Wells may be the only reader. … Bookseller’s ears perk up at news of a close neighbor’s infelicities.
6…The computer has shot the idea of a browse out of our skies. We go directly to the thing we require.
8… Our jobs are our private fantasies, our disguises, the cloak we can creep inside to hide.
15… This is a matter I will return to with extreme prejudice
59… Theory about Joyce’s small dots … His eyesight might have made the dots enormous for him … How he marked passages he wanted to reread … Q: But wasn’t his eyesight poor?
60… Joyce’s collection narrowly escaped the SS officer's clutches.
66… A couple of men, surprised by age, sought to reclaim time.
67… Including things of an objectionable nature in their archives.
74… Bookrunners. There were such people once impoverished but proud, never less than gentlemen and ladies.
79… Rodolfo Acosto voice: You call that a dawg? Mexican outlaw in Hollywood westerns
86… Literary people visited. Should one write about them? Professional side says no, the other, which enjoys anecdotes, yes. So I’ll take the plunge. … Larkin came in. Surely he had a slave. … Despair becomes its own comfort zone, which may explain his immense appeal to the happily depressed masses.
88… G Greene abruptly left. I think I’ve discovered the answer.
90… Elizabeth Jennings spoke out of her deep sorrow. Nothing cloying in her manner such as one sometimes gets with religious people.
92… Threatened by a drunken Gurkha. “Amar Singh Thapa wouldn’t like to see you behaving like this.” … He looked at me in disbelief and fled.
102… It gave me malicious pleasure to be able to tell him I’d written the book on which he’d based his observation.
112… Orwell, Ukrainian intro to Animal Farm … “I analyzed Marx’s theory from the animals’ POV.”
120… Arabian nights zestfully obscene
124… bibliomania tragic case … a pleading look in his eye “They’ve got to go,” he whispered, ‘all of them”.
130… Ordinariness is perhaps the most terrifying of all human challenges.
142… Jimmy Kanga ordered books from his deathbed. One of the most genuine book lovers I have ever encountered in the trade. … Alan Clodd, the quietest man, and the greatest collector I have ever known. … a man who spoke only when it was necessary to do so.
189… Bookselling, honesty is a prerequisite, not an accomplishment.
192… I sought to become a bookseller in quest of shelter from the imbeciles I knew in my university days.
197… Kicked Leonard Cohen out of the shop when he looked for books on astrology.
219… Stone, there was always laughter in the wings of his wonderful private theater.
222… Quite simply … Stone was a legendary figure in the poetry world.
223… Indica Gallery, where Yoko met John, Paul ate hash brownies.
224… Smut is porn’s sweet alternative; it acknowledges that we are, at heart, ridiculous creatures.
236… Ginsberg in a greasy spoon
249… Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) Fart catcher, valet or footman, from his walking behind his master or mistress.
256… Peter Jolliffe … end of life, started buying books on Sudan, presumably seeking memory traces.
276… Rabbi Benjamin sang in the shop

302… Suddenly I twig: I’m a ghost. A man who has as many books as I do is already fighting to preserve his balance. ,,, 304 A personal library must also be a pantheon of good intentions.
324… Patrick Bollard: Such are the small rituals of solitude, which make the clawing world bearable. He was trying to recreate his mother’s world.
328… Helen Hardy. Trivialities were the glue that held her world together. One had to tread carefully with her.

Read thanks to Patrick Kurp's suggestion. (Anecdotal Evidence blog)

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must have heard about this book from a podcast recommending books, or read about it in a magazine, or something. Otherwise, I'm not at all sure why the book crossed my path.

Initially, as I began to read the thing, I really thought it might be the first book in ages that I would actually quit reading and cut my losses. It seemed interminable, in the beginning. A pompous old man, (I am old, so I can say this ...) writing about a number of people I have never heard of save a very few, doing things so dull and boring ... I nearly lost my mind.

And yet, there would be a line here and there, more clever than any writing I have ever read. I started to underline these sentences, made more clever by how pompous and obnoxious they were. Given more time, I was underlining more and more, realizing that I was sticking around to finish this dull tome purely because of the jewels that would be uncovered every few pages. It's a little like attending a party where a rather ostentatious blowhard is talking about people nobody else at the party knows, telling about experiences nobody else at the party can relate to ... and yet, his language is so charismatic that you just can't pull yourself away.

I endured to the end, and I admit to getting a little tired in the last 50 pages -- but this is easily some of the best writing I have ever read in my life. Maybe being a poet really helps with writing prose. And coming from me, who HATES poetry, this is quite the compliment...

[Andreas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some brilliant writing. But uneven. Memoirs are typically self-centered, which is OK, but you need to have some thing special to write about. Having an immense knowledge of the trade, love for books, and many encounters with famous personalities, the author clearly has some things to write about. But it should have been edited more so that it would feel less like an old man's meandering passion projcet.

The beginning and ends were fantastic. The rest were self-indulgent, uninteresting, and at times whiny.

[Michael Acree · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite an interesting story about a collector who shares his experiences over the years and gives advice. I guess as a memoir it's not bad, but I like book advice better as from someone who has spent forty years around literature. Too bad I didn't notice my favorite Of Mice and Men, on which I wrote essays like https://writix.com/essay-examples/of-... about the problems of the main characters. Otherwise, I think it came out to be a pretty good average work to look at.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I've only worked on the edges of a bookstore, these stories of interacting with authors, publishers and casual patrons of an antiquarian bookstore rang completely familiar. The gossipy bits, which he attempts to cloak as something other, cover dozens of authors, known and unknown to me. The introductory parts were what convinced me to read the rest of the book.
'The world was made,' says Stéphane Mallarmé, 'in order to result in a beautiful book.'

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author divides book accumulators into two classes: hawks and magpies. He freely admits that the latter is ascendant in his book-buying soul, and so this book, a bursting satchel of stories. He tells of cranks and weeping obsessives, of lovers and "runners," of overlord bosses and of famous silhouettes in the doorway. Through it all, a faith in books and reading. I loved this book, and I came away with a list.

[Stewart Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

If books about booksellers can be more literary than populous this is it. Unfortunately my knowledge of the former probably decreased my enjoyment initially. This changed the more I read, even if it took me a while to reach a happy level. I’m glad I did and feel confident other readers will get there sooner than I have.

[Marion · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished it in record time. It is chock full of information- books, authors, collectors - all in the most erudite yet readable style. A gift from my friend Marge who so cleverly got it for me. I would likely never otherwise have heard of it. Kociejowski's writing is exceptional. Highly recommend to all my reading and book loving buddies especially those in the UK.

[Emma Goldman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting account, more about authors and book collectors, bookshops and their eccentric owners, than about the author's history in the trade. It includes detailed accounts of the rise and fall of shops and owners, and also considerable information on individual authors that Marius knew.

[Jami · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guess I'll give it a generous 4 stars though somewhat long & overwritten; don't know if I'd recommend it to anyone other than antiquarian booksellers? But I enjoyed the bookstore anecdotes.

[Barbara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn’t even get ten pages into this one. Too erudite for me, I guess.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

“This is why bookshops are magic places: somewhere, in one of their nooks and crannies, there awaits a book that will ever so subtly alter one’s existence. And with every shop that closes so, too, goes still more of the serendipity which feeds the human spirit.”

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s always interesting to hear how someone doesn’t necessarily plan to spend decades in a certain line of work but nonetheless ends up doing just that. A lot of good books and unique personalities are to be found in this memoir.

[Robert W. Bock · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read. Interesting information about the antiquarian book trade. Lots of inside stories about authors and book collectors and sellers. Takes place in London.