Imagined Libraries

6 hrs. 49 min.

Miscellaneous

Language Russian

Author Jorge Carrión

Narrator Pavel Potapov

Description

A new collection of essays by Spanish writer and critic Jorge Carrion (born 1976) is devoted to the “square whose vertices are publishers, bookstores, private and public libraries.” As in his debut “Bookstores,” the author combines travel and cultural history into one narrative to set out on a “hunt for literary topographies.”

He investigates the history of Villa Malaparte, walks through London with writer Ian Sinclair, talks with Alberto Manguel—the director of Argentina’s National Library—remembering his predecessor, Borges, debates new and used bookstores with essayist Luigi Amara, and gets pulled into the frantic rhythm of Miami life. An tireless researcher of book territory, Carrion carefully records how it changes: digitization and the threat from marketplace platforms, new store formats, new life for libraries, and a renaissance of book spaces of impressions in South Korea and Japan. And, of course, in yet another turn he declares his love for books, bookstores, and libraries—not only physical ones, but also fictional. For what well-known authors—Cervantes, Verne, Borges—gave us in their works, and for what exists within each of us.