The Mysterious Bookshop is considered the oldest and largest bookshop dedicated to mysteries. Otto Penzler,founder and owner, started collecting books when he was in his 20's ,while workingas a copy boy at the Daily News.Out of the $37 dollars a week he would set aside $5 dollars for books.
(I applaud you I don't think I could set aside 10-12% of my income on books!) In addiction to the book, he
publishes about 6 mysteries a year under Otto Penzler Books(an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) he has
won 2 Edgar Awards one for "Encyclopedia of Mystery &Detection" which he edited with Chris Steinbrunner,
in 1977 and this past April for "The Lineup:The World's Greatest Crime Writers tell The Inside Story of their Greatest Detectives." So even though he had to sell 2500 out of the 58,000 books first edition books that he owns,I still say he's doing pretty darn good for someone who spent part of his childhood without a tv!
I thought this book was a bit pretentious, at first ,however once I got a chance to delve into a bit more I
was pleasantly surprised by a few of the stories . I really enjoyed Lawrence Block's"As Dark as Christmas Gets' I gave the book 4 out of 5 stars.
FTC Disclosure:I would like to thank the Perseus Book Group for allowing me the chance to review this book,no I dont get paid but I am Amazon Associate.
