Gaius and Aulus
When I was nineteen I was confronted with my own mortality by a piece of graffiti. It was scrawled onto the wall of a bar in ancient Pompeii sometime prior to the devastating eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD. Did they survive the blast or were the writers killed in one of Rome’s many wars being […]
The Archive Roadmap
I’m fascinated by Ancient Egypt. I could talk about it for hours, and to some less enthusiastic listeners I have. What specifically fascinates me was their ability to preserve their culture across truly immense periods of time. Even at the height of the Roman Empire the Egyptians were already seen as ancient and mystifying. Egyptians, […]
The Problem with Autobiographies
Consider your life so far and everything that you’ve experienced. All your important memories, your highest highs and your lowest lows – from zenith to nadir. You the reader, stop and think. Take a break from reading and think about it. Right now. Stop reading. Do you know why you haven’t stopped? Other than ignoring […]
Gone But Soon Forgotten
Growing up my parents had no interest in taking holidays. My dad was too lazy and my mum wasn’t even slightly interested in travel. Instead we went on day trips into the country, oftentimes spending markedly more time driving there and back than actually exploring our destination. On one particularly ironic occasion we spent several […]
From Binder to Entrepreneur
My entrepreneurial journey had actually started before my interest in fixing books. Looking back, my interest stemmed from an unlikely source. I had just watched the awful film, Escape from L.A., with my dad. A film set in a dystopian future, where death and murder were rampant. I had seen my fair share of action […]
From Seller to Binder
Though my days of selling books are shelved, it feels good knowing I can focus my time with a stronger sense of direction. Also, the idea of calling myself a bibliophile and never having sold books seems absurd, and I’m glad I served my sentence at a young age. Anybody that has worked a job […]
From Reader to Seller
Right about the time I turned 17 I realised there was a second-hand bookstore about a three minute walk from my house. How I managed to ignore it is a testament to how little I cared about books in my early teens. It was next door to a corner mechanic built in the thirties, like […]
From Gamer to Reader
We need to begin when I was about sixteen. The age when I started showing an interest in history and books. As with most teenagers my age, I liked videogames. I used to play competitively, which involved drilling sequences on how to best play a game to win. With age I can see it wasn’t […]