Beautiful cover story for the latest issue of The Believer (which we recently subscribed to): Mona Kareem’s “The Labyrinth.” Here’s the subtitle: “One Bidoon father’s all-consuming and occasionally illegal efforts to assemble the perfect personal library.” It’s a moving portrait of the author’s father, a stateless person and profound bibliophile, making a life full of books in Kuwait from the ’70s to the present. I especially loved this passage:
Whenever we ran into someone rich at a bookstore or a book fair—meaning someone who could afford to buy books without checking the price tag or haggling with the bookseller—my father would begin to grumble. He’d express pity for the books bought by that rich customer, for they’d not be read, and chances were they’d not get to see new places and new owners, because rich people would never have to sell their books to make the rent. My father would direct my attention to a rich customer and say: ‘Look at this, this is tragic, they don’t deserve this book. Who’s going to read that book now? Certainly not this man. Tragic!’
