Description
Fifty Forgotten Books is a very special sort of bookabout books, by a great bookman and for book-people of all ages and levels ofexperience. Not quite literary criticism, not quite an autobiography, it is atonce a guided tour through the dusty backrooms of long vanished second-handshops, a love letter to bookshops and bookselling and a browser’s dream wishlist of often overlooked and unloved novels, short story collections, poetrycollections and works of non-fiction. Â In these pages, R. B. Russell,publisher of Tartarus Press, doesn’t only discuss the books, but explains whatthey have meant to him over time, thus forming an oblique, partial memoir of hislife as a writer and publisher for over thirty years . . . and a bibliophilefor many more. Here is living proof of how literature, books and bookcollecting can be an intrinsic part of one’s personal, professional andimaginative life, as not only a solitary act, but a social one, resulting in treasuredfriendships, experiences and loves one might never, otherwise, have enjoyed. Â
