Inspiring Older Readers
The Pope’s Bookbinder by David Mason
Don’t be fooled by the title – this book has really got very little to do with providing the head of the Catholic Church with customised bindings. This is, in fact, a 400 page romp of a memoir from one of Canada’s principle antiquarian book dealers that gets it’s tongue-in-cheek title from a brief period the author spent in a Spanish bookbinding business that supplied the Vatican.
Mason has been in the business for over 40 years and still trades from a shop in Toronto but he fell into the world of books almost by accident. Always something of a rebel at school he was never going to make it as an academic and so, at the earliest opportunity and to the despair of his ultra-cautious banker father, he was off out into the world to make what he could of it. The one thing that stayed with him throughout was his love of books and reading – academic he wasn’t but that didn’t mean he wasn’t smart and a quick learner.
The memoir tells of his journey from nothing to his central role in the Canadian book trade and it’s a tale built around an array of eccentrics, brilliant book scholars, dedicated collectors and daring enterprise. Being essentially self-taught in the book business and keen to be his own boss as soon as possible, Mason is honest about the mistakes he made and the limits of his knowledge.
It seems to be customary in these bookseller memoirs for the author to strike what sounds like a cautionary tone – don’t try this yourself, they always preach, because the perils and pitfalls are so great you probably won’t make it through; I did, they add, but I was just lucky. There is something of this didactic tone to be found in The Pope’s Bookbinder but it is counterbalanced I think by his generosity and his willingness to share the lessons.
Some of the key messages are, in my view, important. I was particularly taken by his advice to only buy the very best quality you can afford and to remember that your mistakes and compromises will always sit on your shelves and be a constant recrimination. He also stresses the importance of reputation – always be fair in the prices you pay because that straightforwardness will always come back and reward you. The watchword for Mason seems to be integrity – something which he clearly has in great measure.
The first half of the book in particular has a great lightness of touch and an appealing streak of humour that runs through his recounting of the early days but, if I have a criticism it’s that the second half rather runs out of steam and there is a feeling of repetition and meandering. I think the book is probably 100 pages too long – although I think that a recent paperback reprint added an extra 50 pages rather than trimming down to a more digestible size.
I can see how real lovers of these book memoirs will be happy to get as much of this stuff as they can because well-written memoirs of this kind don’t come along every day and they will think my quibbling over the length of the book is absurd. However, for the more casual reader there is detail here they will think extraneous and the overall impression that the structure sags under the weight of loosely linked anecdote is inescapable.
But, having said that, I did enjoy the book and there were moments when it made me smile and moments when it almost convinced me the time has come for me to open my own shop. Mason has achieved plenty in his career but one of his most endearing qualities is that he has stayed rooted in the realities of the book selling world – believe me, selling a book for $400 that gets sold on for $25,000 requires you to have a pretty robust sense of humour and tolerance for the absurd.
Terry Potter
October 2016