The Bookseller – 11 January 2025

‘Allow me to tell you a story’, the pages of Hisham Matar’s novel, My Friends, seem to say, an invocation that becomes more urgent with each chapter. ‘You must let me tell you this story,’ the message becomes. And what am I to do but pass it on? This story of Libya, of three friends in exile, of a specific time and politics which is yet not unique to that time or politics or place.

As a child in Benghazi, the narrator recalls watching a journalist on television read a story published abroad in a magazine he cannot name. In it a man is slowly and quietly consumed until only his head remains at which point he says something he has not dared to before: he says ‘no.’ The power of that protest radiates through the book. The ineffectiveness of it too.

My Friends is finely poised. The content, if summarised, is shocking, the writing graceful. Its fictions ring true. The story hits as hard as Matar’s memoir about his father’s abduction and brutal treatment at the hands of Gaddafi, The Return.

Exploring similar and related themes Ian Dunt and Dorain Lynskey’s ‘Origin Story’ books on Fascism, Conspiracy Theory and Centrism are a well-researched and fascinating series on how these ideas developed, how they shape society, affect politics and are misused in debate. And, you know, nothing says ‘happy new year’ like enjoying a drink by the fire in a pub and reading a book called (in large lettering) ‘Fascism.’

Fortunately, still fresh in my mind are David Coggins’ descriptions of Parisian pleasures and depictions of the city enjoying its luxuries daily (see last week’s indulgence). It is thanks to Paris in Winter that I have, immoderately, dipped into A. J. Liebling’s Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris, a book delighting in sheer gluttony, the writing itself likened in The New Tork Times Review to good Calvados. Liebling is a great connoisseur of both good food and good food portrayals: you’ll need a plate of pastries to hand while you read to satisfy your rumbling stomach.

Hence, I rather doubt the truth of the title of the otherwise excellent, Books Aren’t for Eating. Set in a bookshop run by a goat with a flare for making the perfect recommendation for each customer, this is the perfect inspiration for readers and booksellers alike. I want to be just like Leopold – clad in knitwear, drinking tea and finding an adventure story for a girl with the spirit of an explorer and a comic tale of gnomes for a man who wishes to laugh with his whole belly. 

More of a gourmand, The Exceedingly Greedy Centipede has an important lesson to learn about sharing. Though that can be hard when faced with figs, wild boar and Bordeaux. “We haven’t had any woodcock for days,” complains the centipede. Or is that from Liebling? Comestibles aside, both picture books are great fun and joyfully illustrated.

Older children may also enjoy stuffing their cheeks alongside a new hero, The Fantastic Intergalactic Hamster. As superheroes go, Hercules the hamster is really the chap you want on hand when a spaceship of cracker-obsessed aliens crashes nearby.

If Leopold’s shop is the place for all customers, cloven of hoof or not, to find the perfect book, The Last Bookstore on Earth is a rather different prospect – a bookshop that has, just about, withstood the apocalypse… Liz has taken refuge in the shop, trading books for supplies with the few passing survivors until someone else has the same idea of sheltering there.

Whilst a love story unfolds at the end of the world, a murder story begins in Tim Sullivan’s imagined antiquarian bookshop on Berkeley Square in Bristol… Ed Squire is dead. His father, Torquil (no, really), returns from a pleasant day at Sotheby’s to find his son slumped over his desk stabbed to death with his letter opener. I have to recommend The Bookseller, not only because I love the idea of a multi-storey second-hand bookshop on Berkeley Square, not solely because the detective who investigates, usually unable to cope with any change to his domestic routine, discovers a love of Brussels sprout tops one evening (my kind of hero) and, honestly, not just because the book features a character named after me: it’s an excellent crime novel and all the rare booksellers dress well and take themselves too seriously.  

May your weekend be full of bookshops, real, imagined and goat-worthy,
Lizzie