Böcker av Oliver Darkshire

In a tiny, miserable farm on the edge of the tiny, miserable village of East Grasby, Isabella Nagg is trying to get on with her equally tiny and miserable existence. Dividing her time between tormenting her feckless husband, inadequately caring for the farm's strange collection of animals, cooking up 'scrunge', and crooning over her treasured pot of basil, Isabella can't help but think that there might be something more to life. So, while she's initially aghast when Mr. Nagg returns to the farm with a spell book purloined from the local wizard, she soon starts to think: what harm could a little magic do? Thus begins Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil, a novel of sentient depressed farm animals, a talking pot of basil, wizards, and an entrepreneurial villain running a goblin fruit Ponzi scheme. Cosy, full of wit and Pratchett-ian footnotes, Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil is a ultimately a story about claiming a new life and finding oneself. And also, goblins, capitalism, and sorcery.

Some years ago, Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of Henry Sotheran Ltd (est. 1761) to apply for a job. Allured by the smell of old books and the temptation of a management-approved afternoon nap, Darkshire was soon unteetering stacks of first editions and placating the store's resident ghost (the late Mr. Sotheran, hit by a tram).A novice in this ancient, potentially haunted establishment, Darkshire describes Sotheran's brushes with history (Dickens, the Titanic), its joyous disorganization, and the unspoken rules of its gleefully old-fashioned staff, whose mere glance may cause the computer to burst into flames. As Darkshire gains confidence and experience, he shares trivia about ancient editions and explores the strange space that books occupy in our lives-where old books often have strong sentimental value, but rarely a commercial one.By turns unhinged and earnest, Once Upon a Tome is the colorful story of life in one of the world's oldest bookshops and a love letter to the benign, unruly world of antiquarian bookselling, where to be uncommon or strange is the best possible compliment.