AMONG BOOKSELLERS Tales told in Letters To Howard Hodgkin

For thirty-five years (1970-2005) an antiquarian bookseller relates his adventures travelling in search of books through Europe in letters to a friend, the painter Howard Hodgkin. More about booksellers and their shops than about books.

Part diary, part memoir, some anecdotes and reflections; intended to amuse rather than inform! A bedside book.

“...a gallery of eccentrics with Batterham himself the most notable, drunk, often penniless... ...lucky Hodgkin to have received these letters ” Alan Bennett in London Review of Books

“Its addictive!” James Fergusson (he also chose it as one of his “books of the year “ in TLS)

“An extraordinary picture of the strange eccentric world of dealers with its chance encounters, crazed characters, its obsessions and its loneliness” Margaret Drabble

“wonderfully redolent, skirting Chatwin Country in favour of Simenon’s Maigret” William Feaver

“beguiling. I couldn’t put it down” Simon Hoggart in the Guardian
“completely fascinating and totally enjoyable” Howard Hodgkin

“this book is a cracking read” Amazon readers review

“a considerable prose stylist who has hit on the perfect vehicle for his farcical or absurdist take on the world. The book is a delight!” Chrstopher Reid