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    In Search of Lost Books: The forgotten stories of eight mythical volumes
    Unavailable
    In Search of Lost Books: The forgotten stories of eight mythical volumes
    Unavailable
    In Search of Lost Books: The forgotten stories of eight mythical volumes
    Ebook114 pages1 hour

    In Search of Lost Books: The forgotten stories of eight mythical volumes

    By Giorgio van Straten

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The gripping and elegiac stories of eight lost books, and the mysterious circumstances behind their disappearances

    They exist as a rumour or a fading memory. They vanished from history leaving scarcely a trace, lost to fire, censorship, theft, war or deliberate destruction. Yet those who seek them are convinced they will find them.

    This is the story of one man’s quest for eight mysterious lost books.

    Taking us from Florence to Regency London, the Russian Steppe to British Columbia, Giorgio van Straten unearths stories of infamy and tragedy, glimmers
of hope and bitter twists of fate. There are, among others, the rediscovered masterpiece that he read but failed to save from destruction; the Hemingway novel that vanished in a suitcase at the Gare de Lyon; the memoirs of Lord Byron, burnt to avoid a scandal; the Magnum Opus of Bruno Schulz, disappeared along with its author in wartime Poland; the mythical Sylvia Plath novel that may one day become reality.

    As gripping as a detective novel, as moving as an elegy, this is the tale of a love affair with the impossible, of the things that slip away from us but which, sometimes, live again in the stories we tell.

    Giorgio van Straten is director of the Italian Cultural Institute of New York and one of the editors of the literature review Nuovi Argomenti. He is the author of several novels, including the prize-winning My Name a Living Memory, along with two collections of short stories. He has translated the works of authors such as Kipling, London and Stevenson and has edited several works of non-fiction.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPushkin Press
    Release dateNov 2, 2017
    ISBN9781782273738
    Unavailable
    In Search of Lost Books: The forgotten stories of eight mythical volumes
    Author

    Giorgio van Straten

    Giorgio van Straten is director of the Italian Cultural Institute of New York and one of the editors of the literature review Nuovi Argomenti. He is the author of several novels, including the prize-winning My Name a Living Memory, along with two collections of short stories. He has translated the works of authors such as Kipling, London and Stevenson and has edited several works of non-fiction.

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    Reviews for In Search of Lost Books

    3.5/5

    21 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A short, lyrical meditation on eight lost books. Some of these tales I had read about before, but others were new to me, and were most interesting, and the whole thing is quite nicely written.
    • 3/5
      A good read and detailed view on eight lost manuscripts from writers both known and unknown to this reader and general audiences. Engaging, yet tightly written with almost no wasted padding or overlong details. A great read if you're like me--a fan of books about books, book history, and writers