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Acantilado

Mendel the bookseller

Mendel the bookseller

Our Review

One of the most interesting things about this book is that it makes you think. We love books that can be read in an afternoon and are also literary gems. We don't always feel like spending a week on the same story, and this book delivers on all fronts.

In the heart of café-laden Vienna, at a reserved table in Café Gluck, lives a man who is a walking library. Jakob Mendel is not just a second-hand bookseller; he is a genius, a prodigy with an encyclopedic memory capable of recalling the title, author, edition, and price of any book that has ever existed.

It is one of those little gems that you can read over an afternoon coffee and it leaves you with the feeling of having spent your time reading a great book. A tribute to knowledge, memory, and the "world of yesterday," swept away by the brutality of war. If you don't know Stefan Zweig or want to continue reading his works, this one will not disappoint.

Book Details

Synopsis

Years after World War I, the narrator returns to Vienna and, upon entering Café Gluck, remembers a legendary figure from his youth: Jakob Mendel. Mendel was a poor, eccentric Jewish bookseller who spent his days at the same table in the café, having become an institution. His fame lay not in his business, but in his superhuman memory: he was a living bibliographic catalog, consulted by collectors and academics from all over the city. But what became of him?

About the Author

Stefan Zweig (Vienna, 1881 - Petrópolis, 1942) was an Austrian writer, biographer, and social activist. Born into a wealthy Jewish family, he earned a doctorate in Philosophy and, from a young age, frequented Vienna's artistic and cultural circles. He explored novels, essays, theater, and especially biography, with masterpieces such as the one dedicated to Fouché. He lived through World War I firsthand and, with the rise of Nazism, went into exile, eventually dying in Brazil.

Technical Specifications

  • Pages: 62

  • Author: Stefan Zweig

  • Publisher: Acantilado

  • Binding: Paperback

  • Edition: 2009

  • ISBN: 9788496834903

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