As someone who once worked in a bookshop and has fond memories of all my quirky and sometimes exacerbating customers, Once Upon a Tome felt like a trip down memory lane. Oliver Darkshire takes us on an unexpected journey into the underbelly and realities of working at an antiquarian and rare bookshop.

Full of charming anecdotes and dry British humor, this memoir is sure to bring a smile to the face of anyone who has ever had the privilege of working in the book industry. My only complaint was that some of the stories seemed like all too brief snapshots and I wanted more details, more information about a particular customer or situation.

Definitely recommended for anyone who has worked in a bookshop or dreamed of working in a bookshop.

Thank you to NetGalley, Oliver Darkshire, and W. W. Norton and Company for an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

Witty, clever and informative Once Upon A Tome tickled my funny bone and taught me more about rare book selling and buying. Delving into the world of once rare book apprentice Oliver Darkshire at infamous Sotheran's was pure joy with many lightbulbs appearing above my head.

Darkshire says most rare book sellers will not leave this uncommon and mysterious occupation and that quirky personalities are practically ubiquitous. They become specialists in a peculiar curious world. I believe that and at times feel part of that world when immersed in my old books.

Darkshire needed a job, saw an advertisement with no experience required. He was successful and shortly after he discovered a new world amongst lecturns, busts and gourds. He describes clientele such as "smaugs" and "Draculas" and extraordinary colleagues including Andrew and James, jam packed with knowledge. Digital versus (and?) physical books are discussed. So is bookbinding. But my favourite bits are the funny glimpses at personalities (what an interesting world we live in!) and easy informal writing style. Like Andrew, I once put out my back lifting a book of Trollopes. But needs must.

Book lovers, allow this biography to satiate your hunger for exploring the dark and musty dark nooks and crannies of words, pages and people.

My sincere thank you to W. W. Norton & Company and NetGalley for providing me with an early digital copy of this spellbinding book.

Oh my word! This book is such a gem!
I fell in love with the cover and title of this book not realizing it was non-fiction. I try to stay as far away from non-fiction as I can! Non-fiction books rarely grab my attention, entertain me, or are found enjoyable while reading them.
When I looked into more detailed information about this book (after reading the first chapter and falling in love with it), I was shocked to see that it was listed as non-fiction and proceeded to double and triple check the genre on all available book-related online sources.
While this is indeed a non-fiction story, it reads like a delightfully quirky work of fiction, almost like an interconnected set of short stories, each of which are entertaining, enjoyable, and funny!
This author's style of writing grabs you immediately and glues you to his words. No part of me ever wanted to put this book down! I needed to know more about Sotheran's and its band of misfit employees!
This book has made me fall in love with a non-fiction story, which is no easy feat! Because of this, I would highly recommend this book to any reader! I feel like it's a delicious treat for anyone who loves books!

Such an interesting and entertaining look at life in a rare book store. The author brings lots of humor to these dozens of vignettes of his experiences with buyers, sellers, hoarders, lonely people, investors, ghosts, and those who don’t have a clue. I enjoyed this peek in “the oldest bookstore in the world”.

Thanks to NetGalley and W.W. Norton and Company for the ARC to read and review.

Charming, wryly observational, and oddly cozy, I adored this laugh out loud exaggerated memoir of an antique bookseller. Each page was a delight.

I enjoyed this so much I started following Sotheran's Twitter account, which Mr. Darkshire still runs.

Recommended.



Thank you to W.W. Norton & Company and NetGalley for the DRC.

This premise of this book was super interesting and there were some very clever/witty anecdotes. However, it felt very long as a whole and I was able to just skim through most of it

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC

"Welcome to Sotheran's, one of the oldest bookshops in the world, with its weird and wonderful clientele, suspicious cupboards, unlabeled keys, poisoned books, and some things that aren’t even books, presided over by one deeply eccentric apprentice.

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."

Hard to believe it isn't fiction.

The witty adventures of a novice seller of rare books at Sotheran’s. For anyone who enjoys a book about books…this is a treat.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of London’s Henry Sotheran Ltd. (est. 1761) to interview for a bookselling apprenticeship, and never left. If you are someone who can get lost in a second-hand bookstore for hours, Darkshire’s misadventures as a dealer in rare and antique books will entertain you completely. If your favorite scent is vellichor, that ethereal perfume that infuses old book stores, you will be delighted by the tongue in cheek stories of his sometimes curmudgeonly colleagues, eccentric collectors, colorful characters and trade secrets.

Sometimes being uncommon, peculiar, odd or strange is the best possible compliment!

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I feel a lot of kinship with booksellers, being a librarian. We both have to deal with odd questions that might not be answerable. We both have lots of people coming who don’t really understand what the place is about. And, of course, there are all those books that will surely find a reader one of these days. Thankfully, we librarians don’t have to worry about actually selling things to customers (instead we have to pester people to bring things back at some point). Because of that sense of kinship, I am drawn to books about the bookselling life, fictional or not, like Parnassus on Wheels, 84, Charing Cross Road, and The Diary of a Bookseller. When I heard about Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller—and learned that author Oliver Darkshire was the hilarious weirdo behind the Henry Sotheran LTD Twitter account—I knew I had to read it as soon as possible. This delightfully funny book delivered a highly entertaining look behind the shelves. Bibliophiles with a sense of humor will love this one.

Darkshire fell into an apprenticeship at Sotheran’s without a clue what he was getting into, or even what he was really applying for. He reflects that his ignorance was probably a good thing, given how strange life in a bookshop is, even one as rarified as Sotheran’s. (I don’t think the shop is nearly as untidy as Darkshire describes based on these photos but of course, they wouldn’t put the backrooms on a public-facing blog.) In short, often discursive chapters, Darkshire explains how the shop is organized (sort of), who runs different departments (weirdos), and what the customers are like (even weirder). Nearly every anecdote had me laughing or wincing in sympathy—or making me wish they’d call in a librarian to help them get things in order because they’ve lost their archives twice!

Books like Once Upon a Tome or the others I mentioned earlier often walk a fine line between joy and melancholy. On the one side is a pure love of books, no matter how obscure, and the belief that books will always have their readers (even if it’s just that one guy who lives in an attic and only wants books on underwater organ music or something like that). On the other is the need to find hard currency to keep the lights on and the staff paid. The joy of connecting books with readers helps keep the tone light enough that one can push aside worries about rent and taxes at least for a little while longer. Darkshire’s book falls much more into the joyful end of the spectrum, possibly because he a member of staff and not the manager or one of the owners. He can focus more on the odd people who wander in or the strange things he finds while trying to hide the evidence of his gourd-related crimes.

Readers who wonder what it might be like to work in a bookshop (but who wisely don’t have any desire to set up their own shop) should definitely pick this one up.

If you’ve ever wondered what goes on in bookstores, particularly antiquarian ones, ONCE UPON A TOME is a delightful reveal. Oliver shares a glimpse into the exclusive world of rare book collections, antiquarian bookstores, the booksellers who bravely work there, and the quirky and mysterious book collectors who patronize them.

Once Upon a Tome is full of self-deprecating humor, book-collecting wisdom, and fantastical anecdotes that I sincerely hope are all true - even, actually, especially, the ones about supernatural creatures and hauntings.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher W. W. Norton & Company for an advanced copy of this book on life as an antiquarian bookseller, and the people who make the job so diverting.

I have spent many of my favorite work hours in bookstores, and some of my most miserable working hours in bookstores, probably a few minutes later. People who have never worked the retail trade can't understand what working retail is like, and the same is to be said about bookselling. Unless one has worked either summer reading time, or Christmas in a bookstore, one can never truly understand it. Used, independent, college, chain, antiquarian, comic books, it does not matter, only the products are different, the customers, the collectors, the nonreaders the gift buyers and the students are all the same. They all have stories and Oliver Darkshire tells them all quite well. Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller tells of Darkshire's adventures in bringing book and people together, the perils, the tribulations, co-workers, with lots of humor, and love.

Oliver Darkshire was at a crossroads, needing a job and yet not wanting the life of a cubicle dweller he found an ad from a small store, on a smaller street that sounded if not promising at least something new. Henry Southern LTD was looking for an apprentice bookseller, a job that would train on the job, no experience necessary. Darkshire went in and received a call a few hours later. And so it starts, as a new world was made open to him. Soon he would be meeting an interesting cast of characters, and those were only his new co-workers. And a ghost. Beyond that Darkshire soon learned about book collecting and collectors, what to look for and the oddities of the market and what people collected. That was nothing compared to the collectors, buyers, sellers, book scouters and more that filled his day. And gave him lots of material.

This book spoke to me in more ways than I thought it would. I found it refreshing to know that even high end book shops have the same problems a bookstore in America has daily. Bathroom questions, directions, returns, questions about that blue book on TV, that book on the radio about that sick person. I laughed and cringed quite a bit about stories dealing with his co-workers, in fear that a lot of those stories and tales could be about me. Darkshire is not just a funny collector of tales, Darkshire is a very good writer, able to tell a humorous that is funny, but not mean, unless the other person deserves it. One learns quite a bit about the book trade, what to look for in collecting books, and even what to talk about with collectors. And one gets the feeling that Darkshire loves bookselling and all that comes with it. The writing is quite good, very conversational, and flows very well. The book is not long, which is a shame as I could have kept on reading for quite a lot more.

Recommended for people who have worked, continue to work or want to work in books, at just about any level. Also recommended for people who know people in books, and can't understand why they seem so annoyed and tired some days, and others just elated and smiling. This might help the understand why. I look forward to more by Oliver Darkshire.

A humorous look at the world of rare books and the people who sell (and buy) them. The author has a gift for a witty turn of phrase, and there were several passages that kept me chuckling. I enjoyed the short chapters which kept the book moving along nicely from angle to angle. Recommended for fans of Shaun Bythell's bookseller diaries.

About a year ago, I was lucky to stumble across the Sotherans Twitter account, and since then I have been an avid follower, eager to see what charming, witty or weird thing Oliver Darkshire will post. When I heard he was publishing a memoir about his life in rare books, I was thrilled - and this book doesn't disappoint! I loved it and will be recommending it widely. Can't wait to buy a hard copy when it comes out. This is a book I need on my shelf.

I really wanted to love this little book about the author's career as an antiquarian bookseller, but I found the anecdotes far too short for me to truly connect with them in any meaningful way. While the tone of this work is meant to be humorous and whimsical, it becomes tiring less than a quarter of the way in and I found myself forcing my way through most of the book. That said, it is a fun glimpse into the world of bookselling that readers unfamiliar with the profession might be interested in.

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A thoroughly charming account of the life of a rare bookseller.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

I am always a sucker for books about books but even more so when it is a bookseller writing about their job! The good and the bad. I loved this book as it took me into the world of Sotheran’s and all the behind the scenes details. I loved the customer nicknames and I know we have those as well for people who come to our store. I noticed after I marked it to read on Goodreads a friend marked it to read as well. She will love it as much as I did

Once Upon A Tome follows Oliver Darkshire, an apprentice book dealer, as he learns to navigate an arbitrary cataloging system while also dealing with cursed books, damp cellars, odd objects, and even odder customers. It is both a memoir and a tongue-in-cheek primer for any aspiring bookseller providing a glimpse into what many may incorrectly assume to be the realm of humorless old men constantly surrounded by a dusty scent.

The narration is so personable and charming that you are instantly engaged, and I found myself smiling and laughing throughout the entire book. The entertaining cast of characters range from quirky colleagues to oddball regulars, who Darkshire describes as bookstore cryptids. As a lifelong Bibliophile I reveled in spotting the literary Easter eggs snuck in throughout the story and was only disappointed when I turned the last page and knew the story was over. Well written, humorous, and highly entertaining, I would recommend this to anyone with a love of books, who dreams of dusty book shops, and has the fervent desire to spend the afterlife as a bookstores resident ghost.

I was excited to read this book as rare bookselling has become an interest of mine ever since watching “The Booksellers” documentary. I shouldn’t have gone into this book thinking it was going to be like that documentary. With that being said, this book was okay. I learned some new stuff but I found a good bit of the book boring.