Rick Gekoski is a London-based, high-end rare book dealer. He is an erudite and witty man, the author of three previous non-fiction titles, a regular feature writer for The Guardian, a presenter on BBC Radio 4, was Chair of the 2011 Man Booker International Prize and he has strong connections with New Zealand as he and his New Zealand-born wife have a holiday home in Hawkes Bay where they spend a month or so each year.
Among the 15 entertaining, often culturally polemical essays - think Mona Lisa, the burning of Lord Byron's Memoirs, the diaries of Philip Larkin, Graham Sutherland's Portrait of Winston Churchill- there is also a New Zealand subject - The Theft of the Urewera Mural.
I found the book a delightful, entertaining and often provocative read as Gekoski, an informed and articulate author, raises here a number of questions about our relationship with art. Questions such as what rights do authors and artists have over their work? And is it ever acceptable to destroy a work of art?
Profile Books - Hardcover - NZ$37.00
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