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Paul Collins's Duel with the Devil (Crown) tells the true story of a sensational murder mystery in the early days of the United States — one that shocked the young nation and inspired bitter rivals Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr to join forces in the pursuit of justice. Collins is regularly featured on NPR's Weekend Edition as the "literary detective."
A bibliophile's pilgrimage to where book lovers go when they die-Hay-on-Wye.
Paul Collins and his family abandoned the hills of San Francisco to move to the Welsh countryside-to move, in fact, to the little cobblestone village of Hay-on-Wye, the 'Town of Books' that boasts fifteen hundress inhabitants-and forty bookstores. Antiquarian bookstores, no less.
Hay's newest citizens accordingly take up residence in a sixteenth-century apartment over a bookstore, meeting the village's large population of misfits and bibliomaniacs by working for world-class eccentric Richard Booth-the self-declared King of Hay, owner of the local castle, and proprietor of the world's largest and most chaotic used book warren. A useless clerk, Paul delights in shifting dusty stacks of books around and sifting them for ancient gems like Robinson Crusoe in Words of One Syllable, Confessions of an Author's Wife, and I Was Hitler's Maid. He also duly fulfills his new duty as a citizen by simultaneously applying to be a Peer in the House of Lords and attempting to buy Sixpence House, a beautiful and neglected old tumbledown pub for sale in the town's center.
Taking readers into a secluded sanctuary for book lovers, and guiding us through the creation of his own book, Sixpence House becomes a meditation on what books means to us, and how their meaning can still resonate long after they have been abandoned by their public. Even as he's writing, the knowledge of where his work will eventually end up-rubbing bindings with the rest of the books that time forgot-is a curious kind of comfort.
Review:
"Collins can be quite funny, and he pads his sophomore effort with obscure but amusing trivia...but it's hard to imagine anyone beyond bibliophiles and fellow Hay-lovers finding enough here to hold their attention. Witty and droll though he may be, Collins fails to give his slice-of-life story the magic it needs to transcend the genre." Publishers Weekly
Synopsis:
Bibliophile Collins relates how he and his family uprooted themselves from San Francisco and settled in the small Welsh village of Hay-on-Wye, the "Town of Books" that boasts a population of 1,500 and 40 antique bookstores.
Paul Collins is the author of Banvard's Folly. He edits the Collins Library for McSweeney's Books, and his work has appeared in McSweeney's, Lingua Franca, Cabinet, and Business 2.0.
bonniemcm, May 13, 2006 (view all comments by bonniemcm)
I loved this book. Thoroughly enjoyed the author's witticisms, ponderings, and humerous observations of the British. Got to admit, I love Britain, old books and old houses, so the subject matter of this book would of course appeal to me, but I appreciate his warm and descriptive writing style.
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"Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Collins can be quite funny, and he pads his sophomore effort with obscure but amusing trivia...but it's hard to imagine anyone beyond bibliophiles and fellow Hay-lovers finding enough here to hold their attention. Witty and droll though he may be, Collins fails to give his slice-of-life story the magic it needs to transcend the genre."
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
Bibliophile Collins relates how he and his family uprooted themselves from San Francisco and settled in the small Welsh village of Hay-on-Wye, the "Town of Books" that boasts a population of 1,500 and 40 antique bookstores.
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.
