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The Error World

An Affair with Stamps

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The Error World

By: Simon Garfield
Narrated by: Clive Mantle
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About this listen

 As a boy, Simon Garfield started collecting "errors" - rare stamps flawed by printing faults and absent colours. As an adult his childhood obsession became a full-blown mid-life crisis.

This amusing but painfully revealing account of a passion he was once only able to admit to people he could really trust traces his fascination for these tiny print slip-ups from the simple pleasures of boyhood to an attempt to create order out of chaos and finally the gradual decline and break-up of his marriage.

A touching testimony to what is, by and large, a peculiarly male emotional displacement, it pulls you into a world of pricey bits of paper and their impact on the lives of those who love them.

©2009 Simon Garfield (P)2014 Audible, Inc. 20th Century Art & Literature Europe Great Britain Journalists, Editors & Publishers Modern
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I got this book because my father is a stamp collector. is quite slow, and took me a couple of attempts to get into it. but overall I found it quite charming in a sedate way, and enjoyed it.

I thought it would be boring

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Really enjoyed listening to this from beginning to end. Unexpected and funny. Pure nostalgia from a fellow collector.

Unexpected and funny

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