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Published Jan 2009
256 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
From the author of Mauve, an obsessively readable memoir that brings the mania for stamp collecting to life From the Penny Red to the Blue Mauritius, generations of collectors have been drawn to the mystique of rare stamps.
Once a widespread pastime of schoolboys, philately has increasingly become the province of older men obsessed with the shrewd investment, the once-in-a-lifetime find, the one elusive beauty that will complete a collection and satisfy an unquenchable thirst.
As a boy, Simon Garfield collected errors—rare pigment misprints that create ghostly absences in certain stamps.
When this passion reignited in his mid-forties, it consumed him. In the span of a couple of years he amassed a collection of errors worth upwards of forty thousand pounds, pursuing not only this secret passion, but a romantic one as his marriage disintegrated.
In this unique memoir, Simon Garfield twines the story of his philatelic obsession with an honest and engrossing exploration of the rarities and absences that both limit and define us.The end result is a thoughtful, funny, and enticing meditation on the impulse to possess.
"Since Fever Pitch ... readers have become accustomed to the Hornby-gauge male confessional. These wistfully funny and sad books splice the fan's or hobbyist's arcana, and a rueful encounter with grown-up emotional truths. The Error World excels in this now-familiar genre, and stretches its boundaries, too ... But yearning for completeness is a giveaway collector's vice. Non-sufferers can simply relish a book that so engagingly evokes the bittersweet allure of a "hobby of enduring sadness." - The Independent (UK).
"If there's anyone who can convince of the obsession-inducing delights of the stamp, it's Simon Garfield, who perceptively traces how his schoolboy enthusiasm exploded into a huge, secret passion ... " - The Guardian (UK).
"This fascinating and original memoir of how a hobby swallowed up a marriage and a life leaves the reader amused, baffled and thoughtful." - The Sunday Tribune (Ireland).
This information about The Error World was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Simon Garfield was born in London in 1960. He is the author of an appealingly diverse and unpredictable canon of non-fiction, including the bestsellers Mauve, Just My Type and On The Map. He is a trustee of Mass Observation, and is the editor of several books of diaries from the archive, including Our Hidden Lives and A Notable Woman. His most recent book is All the Knowledge in the World: The Extraordinary History of the Encyclopaedia.
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