Peter Briscoe

The Bookseller Peter Briscoe

Five stories about professors, students, librarians, booksellers, and early scientific explorers-all living literately, on journeys of the mind. The first story, "One of Our Stars," is about a professor so engrossed in difficult studies that even a blatant sexual invitation (accepted) merely distracts him. He concentrates with the mental force of a chess grandmaster, a zen roshi, or a musical virtuoso. The next story about a female college student is set in a Colombian jungle. The third story portrays a once formidable professor coming to terms with retirement, old age, and approaching death. The fourth (title) story, novella length, takes place in an Ecuadorian library that is experiencing rampant theft. A place where some men steal books while others wonder why they bother. A literary, intellectual mystery that explores the library as a profound idea while the world rushes into a digital, post-literate future. The fifth story explores the evolving status of a beautiful young female scholar who each year attends a Latin American Librarians Conference.