Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: Icon Books
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
Mark Forsyth - author of the Sunday Times Number One bestseller The Etymologicon - reveals in this essay, specially commissioned for Independent Booksellers Week, the most valuable thing about a really good bookshop. Along the way he considers the wisdom of Donald Rumsfeld, naughty French photographs, why Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy would never have met online, and why only a bookshop can give you that precious thing - what you never knew you were looking for.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 24
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
The Unknown Unknown
BOOKSHOPS AND THE DELIGHT OF NOT GETTING WHAT YOU WANTED
MARK FORSYTH
Published in the UK in 2014 by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP email: [email protected]
Sold in the UK, Europe, South Africa and Asia by Faber & Faber Ltd, Bloomsbury House, 74–77 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DA or their agents
Distributed in the UK, Europe and Asia by TBS Ltd, TBS Distribution Centre, Colchester Road, Frating Green, Colchester CO7 7DW
Distributed in South Africa by Jonathan Ball, Office B4, The District, 41 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock 7925
Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd, PO Box 8500, 83 Alexander Street, Crows Nest, NSW 2065
ISBN: 978-184831-784-0
Text copyright © 2014 Mark Forsyth
The author has asserted his moral rights.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Typeset in Minion by Marie Doherty
Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
To Julia Kingsford (Because I’m too frightened not to)
About the author
MARK FORSYTH is a writer whose books have made him one of the UK’s best-known commentators on words and the English language. His most recent book, The Elements of Eloquence, told the story of the flowers of rhetoric. The Etymologicon was a Sunday Times #1 bestseller and BBC Radio 4 ‘Book of the Week’, as was his second book The Horologicon. He writes the Inky Fool blog and has contributed articles to the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Spectator, New York Times and Wall Street Journal among others. He lives in Clerkenwell, London.
The Unknown Unknown
Most of my opinions on bookshops were formed by Donald Rumsfeld. In case you’ve forgotten, or never knew, Donald Rumsfeld was the American Secretary of Defense in the administrations of both Gerald Ford and the younger Mr Bush. He is often rather hysterically accused of starting unnecessary wars, believing he is above International Law, and being more interested in origami than in human life; but that is not all that he and I have in common. It’s his opinion on the necessity of bookshops that truly binds us together.
There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know.
For some reason that I shall never understand, there are those who find these lines perplexing. They ridicule it. The Plain English Campaign even awarded Mr Rumsfeld their Foot in Mouth Award of 2003 for ‘a baffling comment by a public figure’. But there’s nothing baffling in it really. I know that Paris is the capital of France, but more importantly I know
